Adding gourmet ingredients to a meal makes a commonplace activity feel special, much like brushing your teeth with a sparkler or withdrawing money from an ATM while holding it at gunpoint. Experience the fruits of the American-Amerigo deal with today's Groupon: for $25, you get $50 worth of Italian cuisine and drinks at Trattoria Lisina in Driftwood.
The culinary authors at Trattoria Lisina publish a menu listing an array of country-style Italian cuisine. An appetizer of fried calamari fritti, speckled with flour, semolina, and spices, ambles across taste buds with accomplices of pepperoni aioli and spicy tomato sauce ($10). The spaghetti carbonara, prepared with pancetta, egg, garlic, and Romano cheese, lends a noodly texture to cuisine quests ($12). An entree of costolette di agnello alla griglia plates locally acquired, grass-fed lamb chops grilled on oak and pecan with a balsamic glaze and mashed potatoes ($28). The capesante al Giovanni unites pan-seared scallops with sautéed spinach, creamy polenta, and a hickory-and-herb-smoked tomato puree ($23).
Trattoria Lisina welcomes diners to a culinary villa, decorated with a terra-cotta tile roof, well-manicured lawns and potted plants, walls painted with pastoral scenes, and a clay head sporting pineapple earmuffs that spits a steady stream of water into a pot. Both indoor and outdoor tables await the opportunity to support dishes crafted by chef and general manager John Lichtenberger, a 20-year veteran of New York City's fine-dining scene.
