Viviano's Festa Italiano in Fenton 9-23-2022

Viviano's is the big Italian grocery store in the heart of the Hill on Shaw.  They also have smaller grocery stores in Chesterfield and Fenton.  I knew the one in Chesterfield had a few tables and you could get lunch or a scoop of the daily pasta or soup, but I didn't know that Fenton had actually converted over half of their store to a sit down restaurant with tables, waitresses, a bar and gone to the trouble to get a liquor license.

So, on a Friday night we decided to take a drive to Fenton.  This is no little drive (43 minutes).  We went early because Mike had read they had a "happy hour."  We arrived around 5:20.  We were seated at a booth on the edge of the "dining" section.  The Italian grocery store is to the back.  When we had walked in we were near the tiny "bar" area.  There were 4 seats at the small bar and two of them were occupied. 

When we asked our teenaged waitress about the "happy hour" specials, she said to get those you had to be in the "bar area."  This is not the first restaurant we've been to that has this requirement and I think it is ridiculous!!  

They did have a couple drink specials for the night and one of them was the Paloma.  It was made with lime juice, grapefruit juice and tequila.  I said I'd try it.  Mike got his standard gin and tonic.  The Paloma was kind of like a grapefruit margarita.  It was OK.  

We were given homemade focaccia bread with olive oil.  It was warm and seasoned well.  

 Mike started with a dinner salad.  It was a little wet but it had all the Italian things in it...hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, salami, etc.  

Then Mike had spaghetti bolognese.  It was good.  He said there was nothing wrong with it.  It was made with an Italian sausage sauce.  It was good but not good enough to travel to a grocery store in Fenton.  

For dinner I was going to be safe and just order the spaghetti and meatballs but then I decided to try something new, so I ordered the pasta fra diavolo with shrimp.  It is penne pasta made with spicy marinara with olives and green onions.  The shrimp were just grilled and placed on top, so they hadn't been incorporated into the sauce at all.  They were good, but they were just grilled shrimp.  The sauce was just like big chunks of tomato and chunks of olives.  What little "sauce" there was had soaked into the pasta and what was left was big pieces of tomato.  I am more of a sauce girl.  I need something to dunk my bread in.  It had an OK flavor but it was nothing I needed to eat again.

So, there was not anything really wrong with Viviano's.  It was fine.  But it just wasn't good enough that we will return.