April 9th 2012: Lunch at Buca Di Beppo, Shrewsbury and Dinner at Shangri-La, Worcester

Today,we had a company lunch at Buca Di Beppo to celebrate our achievements in recent months. I had had another company lunch there in months past, but today was the first time we actually could order from the main menu in the main restaurant. The design of the restaurant was pretty similar to the restaurant's predecessor, Vinny T's, but the menu was really lacking in variety for lunch.

I decided to go for one of the few things on the menu which seemed agreeable and unique to me, the Penne San Remo.

I wasn't expecting much, but the dish was actually pretty good, and I enjoyed my lunch. I couldn't say the same for everyone else though.

As I was about done with lunch, my friend called me to tell me he was dropping by in town, so I had him over at my place, and we went for dinner at Shangri-La, a new Chinese-Japanese restaurant in Worcester, where I had a Livingsocial deal. The interior decor was pretty decent, although I've seen better, but the restaurant was pretty large for a Chinese restaurant in this area.

We actually were not really hungry, so we just looked for interesting dishes on the menu to eat to fulfill the $30 minimum. We decided to get the Morgan Roll and the Cortelyou Roll, but as my friend did not like spice, we had the spicy mayo removed from both dishes, but it ended up making both rolls boring and tasteless in my opinion.

Cortelyou Roll

Morgan Roll

On the waitress' recommendation, we also got the seafood soup, but I felt that there was too much scallions and pea pods in the soup, although my friend liked it thoroughly and finished all of it.

Seafood Soup

Our final dish, the Scallop Kaiyaki appetizer, finally came when we were already almost done. I have to say though that it was pretty artistic and tasty too, coming in a martini glass complete with a cherry on the side. The glass contained grilled scallops on a bed of grilled crabmeat and Japanese seaweed, and it was the best dish for the night.