Caffe Bella Venezia

I met an old friend from undergrad who works at a yoga studio in the city. She was always a good friend of mine, but we had divergent lives and never hung out much. Now, we have less to do so we thought we'd meet up and hang out again.

We decided to try Caffe Bella Venezia, a very cheap Italian restaurant two blocks from my house. We went in and I ordered a small pizza and a glass of wine. She ordered lasagna and a glass of wine. All of that cost less than $20. Amazing prices for SF.

We walked in the door and it was empty inside as it was only about 5:30. The owner greeted us with an Italian accent and gave it menus. We noticed a fruit fly flying about and I mentioned to my friend Joey that there were lots of fruit flies in the neighborhood. It was a little bit apologia, a little bit fact. There was no music, so tt was a little eerie, but then the nice owner man started some Italian music. Then, the flies started flying. There were lots of them. We both started to get annoyed. We got bread and it was wonderful, so we started to feel that everything was ok, but the flies would not dissipate!

A group of four people came in. They were kind of white-trashy. They did not appear to be from the city. They sat on the other side of the restaurant. They were kinda loud, but not a problem at all.

We had already ordered our food so we couldn't leave, but we decided that maybe the table was the problem. We got up and told the man we were gonna take the table next to ours. We figured that since the other people were having fun, there must be flyless tables.

We ended up at a less fly-infested table, and we got our food. It was pretty good. It was definitely good for the price and the sit-down-ness of the restaurant. However, there were still a few flies. Joey's pretty damn cool though and we laughed it off. This whole experience made me quite sad when I surmised that the owner man was also the cook. Here is a man who comes from Italy to SF and opens a restaurant. He features food from his home for cheap prices, which he cooks all on his own. It's his life, his home, his food. His restaurant is empty and fly-infested. All he gets are low-budget tourists, many of which must scowl and write his place off due to the flies.

At this point, the other guests start taking pictures and they go ask the owner if he knows any clubs. The owner looks slightly flustered and mumbles something about a place named Dragonfly. The woman who asked him, who is around 35, overweight, with tight jeans, a leather jacket and frizzy brown hair, returns to her seat and a second later, we hear, "Dragonfly, dragonfly, dragonfly."

The whole scene freaked me out. Sad man from Italy and the tourists who come to SF and this dump is the highlight.

I don't know though. At one point, the man opened the door to street up wide. I wondered if maybe he knew that the flies were a problem and it was only today, so he opened the door up.... Or maybe, this is a constant issue.... I don't really know.

I came home and looked it up on yelp. No one mentioned the flies and it got very good reviews, for being so cheap and good. I would never wanna harm this man's business, so I figured I'd just write my review on my blog instead.

I get sad at the weirdest shit.

Current music: OutKast - A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)