A casual Italian experience at Five Doors North

Our friend Kelsey picked a lovely restaurant for our "transplant" get together on Friday night - 16 of us having moved from different parts of the country. Five Doors North was a great location for a group - casual with some rustic charm, affordable yet tasty.

Tony and I shared a pork belly and involtini to start (grilled beef stuffed with pork) - both were ok, but not extraordinary. The involtini was actually a bit disappointing since multiple meats is usually very exciting for me! For mains, I had the spicy seafood stew, which included a healthy amount of mussels and squid in a delicious broth. Tony took in the gnocchi special in gorgonzola. I think the specials menu beats the regular menu at this restaurant, so be sure to always ask. The menu is also set up such that you have multiple courses, as you would in any traditional Italian restaurant, so your best bet is to pick several dishes to make up a full meal. The perk is that each course is generally not expensive - Tony's "small" pasta would have more than filled me up and was only 6.95. At that price, why wouldn't you try more items on the menu?

Overall, Five Doors North is a good experience, with affordable homestyle food and wine - served in cups, by the way, and cooled in ice buckets made from tomato sauce tins. The two downsides was that it was extremely loud, making it hard to have conversation (they loved Madonna and MJ) and our waitress was a bit aggressive, more 'demanding' than asking for orders as an example...but hey, with a group of16, maybe it she was just trying to keep us all in line.