Life: Bella Roma

Trattoria Bella Roma, formally known as Bella Roma S.P.Q.R.

This place is absolutely fantastic. The way I grade restaurants is by food taste, service, and atmosphere.
Bella Roma easily is my favorite restaurant in southern California.

It used to be this quaint little restaurant around the corner from this bizarre kosher restaurant. Funny enough, Bella Roma is now in the place of said bizarre restaurant and revamped it into this cozy, romantic Italian restaurant that's worthy of it's great food. Although I do miss the charming quality that the old restaurant had but I'm not complaining. The new building has a wood oven that's cool to look at. Another thing I noticed is that they sell liquor. Props to the owner. Now, he can make even more money.

I can't complain about the food at all. Maybe it's just me but I think it actually got better. Of course, hunger is the best seasoning and it helped them that they were closed for 7 months or so. I digress... My personal favorite from the menu is the Alla checca. It's this mouthwatering pasta that's sauce is comprised of diced tomatoes, garlic and basil that has been soaking in high quality olive oil for at least twelve hours or so. When a customer orders this dish, all they need to do is boil the angel hair noodles and spoon some of the mixture on top, combined with bits of mozzarella scattered around. It sounds too simple to be good. I've had other dishes and they all have this wonderful homemade soulful taste. I love this aspect of Bella Roma.

At most Italian restaurants I've been to, I don't get nearly enough food for what I'm paying for it. Luckily, Bella Roma has a great price for the amount and quality of the food. I would throw money at this place if they made me food everyday. Of course, that's unlikely to happen and I don't want my cholesterol to spike but I think you get the point.

Now normally, another thing that's quite common in Italian restaurants is bad polenta. If you don't know what it is, Google it. Polenta looks more or less like couscous. In most restaurants, the polenta is overcooked and resembles overtly mushy oatmeal. Not too appealing right? I have to say, this place seems to have gotten it down. The polenta here is actually grilled. It sounds strange but it actually prevents the polenta from absorbing too much liquid. This allows for a nice little yellow block of heaven. The polenta actually made me go from average happy customer to near regular customer. I will keep coming back to this place as long as there is money in my wallet.

The service can be iffy at times but generally speaking it's very good. The staff is also extremely polite and funny. They also have great energy! I can tell that they genuinely value the customer's happiness and they have a great relationship with their customers. It's the sign of a good restaurant honestly. The only reason why the service is iffy is because they are very busy. They aren't always around to pick up the phone to write down a take out request. That's really bad on their part but it seems like they feel that they can afford to lose the take out business aspect. Oh well, that's their decision.

Aside from the slight service problems, the atmosphere and the food easily outweigh the negatives.

Food: 5/5
Service: 4.75/5
Atmosphere: 5/5

Life: 2

Here's some artwork:

The last one is a WIP

Life: 1

I haven't written anything in a long time. I have a legitimate reason for writing now. I suddenly feel the need to write out my feelings instead of relying on other people to help me. Being DEPENDENT is a frightening thing. At least this blog will provide a positive outlet, in addition to the fact that I don't have to worry about people I know reading this.

On with the story.

Like the title of my blog, I'm pretty much going to use it as a journal of some sort. It will probably be filled with various different things such as my artwork, movie reviews, food reviews, and my life in general.

Many things have happened lately. I'm in my last year of high school and I'm getting ready to go off to college. I have the most wonderful boyfriend and he truly makes me happy. I never abuse the word love and when I say it to someone, I mean it. And I definitely mean that I love him. Aside from my personal life, school so far is incredibly boring. I feel like a caged bird and I'm waiting until the day I graduate and I'll be able to fly away from California.

Grades wise, I went from having a 4.0 last year to a 2.8. Maybe I should have listened to my councilor about not taking five AP classes. I'm not particularly good at math and Calculus has really shown me how weak I am in that subject. It's too bad that Physics is math in disguise, specifically Calc. I really should have taken AP Biology. That's something I know I can do well in, considering the fact that I want to be a bioengineer major.

I wouldn't necessarily say that I'm an unhappy person. In fact, I'm rather happy right now! Well, right now maybe not so much. The boyfriend and I got into a quasi fight. We've been together for three months now and this is our first real sort of argument. That's pretty impressive considering our ages. We both want this to be a serious relationship, otherwise, what would be the point of being together in the first place? It seems strange to be with someone just for fun and then break it off later. So many emotions and so much time needs to be invested. How can you throw it away when you know it's something you can never reclaim? I know I have no regrets with him.

The problem is that he's someone who guards his emotions. Mainly, because that's how he grew up. Emotions got him nowhere. Crying wouldn't change anything. I suppose that's why he'd fit in with the navy life... He's pretty much as tough as nails, although he doesn't quite look it. I'm pretty much his opposite. I'm an empathetic, overly emotional sponge. If see someone upset, I recall a time where I felt that same way and I immediately feel a connection with that person. It's a double edged sword. It's good that someone knows that I care but it's bad in that I get too invested over small things that I really have nothing to do with. This is where the problem is with my relationship at the moment.

The boyfriend cares deeply about me. So deep that he takes it upon himself to be the one to worry about my wellbeing. This clearly is backfiring on him. It's causing more strain and adding more burdens than needed. When I cry, it's almost like a personal failure on his part, causing him to get annoyed and irritated. I don't like crying at all, but it's the easiest and most immediate way to release my emotions and get that endorphin like high. I guess this is why I'm turning to writing. Oddly enough, I hate writing essays. Actually, I hate being forced to do anything-period. Somehow, this is therapeutic.

I made a resolve to not get so worked up over small things. I even had a small little test today. A friend of mine drunk texted me. My first reaction was to freak out about his safety and drive over to him to make sure he was okay. But then I thought about it. This is exactly the type of reckless behavior that my boyfriend doesn't like. That thought dominated my mind. I took a deep breath and became calm. I simply asked where he was and when I found out he was okay, I told him goodnight. People are really just plain silly when they're drunk.

I know deep down things will be okay with the boyfriend. He just needs time to himself. He hasn't been getting much sleep lately and I know that that is a contributing factor.