Girls' Night - Tutti Santi and Splitting Checks

We're bringing back the blog!  Most of the posts will probably be quick, but just want to keep a record of fun places we go and things we do on the weekends.  This past weekend was #girlsnight, which my bestie Claudia set up.  The crew included the core (me, Claudia, Jody), as well as a few other friends that I've met a few times (Shannon, Scrapper, Sam) and one new friend (Liz).  Since half of us have kids, we planned for a late dinner so everyone could get their little ones settled before heading out for the night.  Shout out to Matt for putting Baby Girl to bed for me so I could get out of here on  time :)

The restaurant Claudia picked was Tutti Santi - an Italian chain I had never been to before.  The food was ok, but I struggle with Italian restaurants unless they are super high-end.  Simply because I feel like I could make most of the dishes at home pretty easily and just as well (not to mention frozen Stouffer's meals and Trader Joes gnocchi)  I typically love the bread served at the restaurants, but Tutti Santi was lacking here, with basically just room temperature sliced bread with a ton of garlic in it.  The food turned out pretty tasty - I had the Chicken Della Casa (chicken with prosciutto and asparagus in a Brandy sauce) and all of the other girls got either the Ravioli or Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp.  I'd say 7 out of 10 stars for food itself.

We had a great time catching up and chatting, rehashing old, hysterical stories, and offering advice on everything from breakups to babies.  It's always so nice to get out of the house, but especially so with a group of smart, fun women to laugh with.

The damper on the night was our weird waiter, who seemed suuuuuuuper annoyed that we wanted to split the check among the 7 of us.  I get that check splitting is a pain in the butt.  And if it is restaurant policy not to split checks, I can respect that (although I wouldn't eat there with a group since everyone carries cards instead of cash these days.)  Side rant: I also despise when restaurants charge a split plate fee (like this one did). So we ask the dude to split the check for us and he says it is a pain and it takes him a long time and he just did it for an 11-top table and it took him forever and wah, wah, wah.  So I tell him he can bring us one check, but I'll be splitting out how much everyone pays on their respective cards, so he's going to have to run them all anyways.  Then he failed to bring back cash change for one person (put in $40 for a $21 tab), and avoided us the rest of the night.  When we asked for change on the cash, he stomped over and dramatically gave Jody $15 change and then held up 4 singles and declared "that only leaves $4 for me!"  Then I reminded him that we all tipped him individually on our cards as well, bringing his tip well above the standard 20%...  I think he felt embarrassed by his toddler-style pouting, because when we left, he ran out to the door to yell a polite goodbye to us.  Weirdo.

All in all, a fantastic night with the ladies, even though we forgot to snap a pic until almost everyone had gone.  Love these girls forever!  Until next time -

#girlsnight #blogworthy #croptopsrompersandpoofysleeves