m's birthday dinner celebration (just the 2 of us, due to work) at il porto! it was a drizzly, grey day so we opted to stay local and get dishes we normally skip. we got our favorite, baby octopus salad, which came chopped up, tossed in olive oil & lemon, with tomato, celery, garlic, parsley, and onion. so amazing, fresh and delicious, as well as texturally excellent (contrasting chewy, meaty vs fresh crunchy). then we got our usual pasta e fagioli soup, which seemed so minestrone like at first, but the beans couldn't fool us, i guess. very hearty and tomato-y today.

our last dish was pasta alle vongole, one of my favorites. the flavor was light yet pungent, noodles were cooked perfectly al dente - aside from being bit to heavy on olive oil (pooled at the bottom), it was overall an excellent dish.

had i not sopped up all the juices with an extra basket of bread at the end, i would've left with some dessert in my belly, but we were too full. instead, we walked over to the bakery inside fresh fanatic down the block and stocked up on some desserts for later. :D