Cafe Castagna is one of my favorite special occasion places, and I love to invent special occasions so we can go there. The triangular room can get a bit loud, but the service is attentive and good, and the food is just reliably great.

The menu is made up of a dozen or so starters, priced from $5-$13, including salads (their caesar is one of the best in town), and everyone's favorite aranchini (fried risotto balls that are filled with melty fontina cheese).

The cocktail list is short (though you can get most anything that isn't blended) and fun, with inventive drinks with great names. The Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba, get it?) is made with thyme-infused vodka, and is one of the most interesting things I've tasted in months (in a good way). A tart cherry fizz is about what you'd expect, and what a good idea! There is an extensive wine list, including ten by the glass, but no beer on tap. They do have about 15 beers to choose from, however.

There are always a couple pizzas, plate-sized, crispy-crusted and quite good (not Apizza Scholls good, but good all the same), around $11. Again, inventiveness is the order of the day: when we were in, they had a flammekuechen pizza—and our resident deutschophile enjoyed it alot.

Entrees range from comfort food to comfort food, $11-$21. I had their hamburger and fries with cheddar and bacon. Everything about the hamburger and fries is just great. They have a good bun from Pearl Bakery, a good-sized but not huge hamburger patty seasoned and cooked to order, it's a good balance of bread to meat to cheese to bacon, accompanied with tomatoes that taste like tomatoes and homemade zucchini pickles. And then there are the great french fries. Other standards on the menu include the baked penned with cheese, which is a huge serving and one of the better mac-n-cheeses I've had in a restaurant, and the flat-iron steak with fries.

There are always new things amongst the entrees and they're also really good. The hungarian goulash was delicious, perfectly cooked, though it came with a really bland polenta (which perked right up with the goulash sauce). Lamb with white beans was a casseroley dish, with lovely lamb (and I'm not a lamb fan), and the most luscious beans. As a testament to how good that was, that plate went back to the kitchen clean—all excess bean liquor was sopped up with the Pearl baguette slices on the table.

Drawbacks: hmmm. It's loud at times, it's popular, and some of the plates (especially in the starters) are smaller than others. Your server can be very helpful with this, letting you know what is tiny and what is generous—if you ask.

All in all, this isn't a cheap dinner -- for two, it generally runs us $50 before tip, but it's one of my favorites.