After an indulgent foodie-filled weekend celebrating The KAke’s 40th birthday, cooking dinner on a Monday evening was the very last thing Mr. DeRosa and I wanted to do.  Although we’re not as old as Tacoma’s newest AARP member, The KAke, our bones were still weary from all the hustle and bustle of our eventful weekend.  As rain drizzled outside upon the wet Tacoma streets, thoughts of cozy comfort food etched grains of desire inside our brains — and Pomodoro Italian Restaurant in the Proctor District immediately came to mind.  I suddenly craved a hearty 5000-calorie pasta dish to accompany this week’s three drink consumption.

Drink One: Black Death (bartender’s choice) — Crap.  I should’ve known trouble was ahead when my official drink-maker, Rob, told me, “Oh yeah, I know what you’re doing. I read Three Drink Minimum.”
 
Crap. Crap, crap, crap. 

He hands over a lightly tinted purple Pomodoro-version of a Long Island Iced Tea. “Some people call this drink a Black Opal, we call it Black Death,” he says.

CRAP.

I drank it quickly, and with only slight suspicions of it being laced with illegally imported crude alcohol.

Drink Two: Raspberry Cosmopolitan (most popular drink within last hour) — Raspberry Cosmopolitan? You people are at one of Tacoma’s busiest and best Italian restaurants, and you’re not having a deep, red glass of vino? Every Italian has a friend who makes bastard varietal wine in his basement; Where’s yours, Pomodoro?  I also want to know what the hell kind of Italian restaurant patron is sipping a trendy Cosmopolitan with their Eggplant Parmesan? Is it YOU, Miss “I have a million dollar house, only shop at Nordstrom, and encompass no sense of wine-meal pairing”? 

Grrrr. I really wanted red wine to be the most popular drink in the last hour.  Not that I’m bitter about it or anything.

Drink Three: Hubba Bubba (my choice) — Rob said this was an “adult’s grape juice,” and boy was he correct. Grape vodka and white grape juice shaken, chilled, and served up with two grapes — my kind of adult drink.  Two gulps and that thing was gone. I only wish my first drink hadn’t gotten me all snookered, and I hadn’t had to stomach that overly-outdated Cosmo — otherwise I would’ve gone down with the rest of Santa’s drunk elves by finishing off my very own Twelve Days of Pomodoro Hubba Bubbas.

[Pomodoro Italian Restaurant, 3819 N. 26th, Tacoma, 253.752.1111]