The Crown-ing Touch

Jim and Nancy do not disclose the fact that they will review a restaurant before they attend, ensuring their reviews are unbiased and uninfluenced by their position with the Sun Day.

One night while watching Wheel of Fortune and trying to figure out why Vanna White could possibly be worth her $10,000,000.00 salary, Nancy’s treat of gummy bears suddenly turned crunchy. She quickly realized they are not supposed to be crunchy and started using her fingers to go through the gooey blob in her mouth. To her dismay, she realized it was one of her crowns that came off her tooth. Good thing she didn’t swallow it. This brings up a good question. If you swallow a crown and had to retrieve it the next morning, would you let the dentist reglue it? Think about it…

Nancy plopped it into a paper cup on the table next to her recliner for safe keeping. Unfortunately, the next morning, still half asleep, she threw the cup and its contents into the garbage. After a little while, her morning caffeine kicks in, and she realized what she has done. With lightning speed, she jumped up and started rummaging through the coffee grounds, egg shells, and the table scraps that would gag a raccoon. Hiding at the bottom of the now empty bag of garbage, was the costly buried treasure. A quick rinse under the tap and off she went to the dentist.

The crown was cleaned, sanitized, then glued back on. She came home with a throbbing headache and garbage breath (just kidding). To soothe her frazzled nerves, we decided to get one of her favorite pizzas. So off we went to Moretti’s in Lake in the Hills.

Since we haven’t been there for over a year because of COVID, we did notice a change in the dining room. All the booths have been replaced by tables, which opened up the dining area.

In our opinion, there are two restaurants that have exceptional fried calamari. One is Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and the other is Moretti’s.

Since we can’t keep going to Ruth’s Chris every time we have a taste for calamari, Moretti’s is our choice. Because of this, when the waiter came to our table, we immediately ordered the Fried Calamari ($10.99). It was served with cocktail sauce and spicy remoulade sauce. They never let us down. The calamari was tender, lightly breaded, golden brown morsels that were absolutely delicious.

Moretti’s offers a variation on their thin crust pizza which we can’t pass up. It is their asiago stuffed crust pizza, which is a thin crust pizza with provolone cheese rolled into the outer crust. It is then brushed with garlic butter and topped with asiago cheese for a $4 upcharge. We ordered the 16-inch Pepperoni Pizza (total $24.79 with the upcharge included). The asiago cheese gives it a totally different taste. Try it, you’ll see what we mean.

NOTE: This restaurant is handicap accessible, and Tuesday night is half-price pizza night.

Nancy’s headache seemed to melt away like the cheese on the pizza (sorry, we couldn’t resist that cheesy line). Moretti’s always has served us consistently tasty pizza.

The cost for our “crown”-ing achievement was $38.64, me telling the dentist Jim was the one who threw my crown in the garbage, priceless!!!

Jim’s take: The calamari was outstanding and we took home half the pizza for leftovers.

Nancy’s take: When having a bad day, you need comfort food like pizza. That was the “crown”-ing touch to an awful day.

Have comments or restaurant suggestions for the Dining Duo? Send them an email at: thediningduo@gmail.com.

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