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Pasadena, April 11, 2015—

WE DASHED OUT OF THE THEATER (after a particularly good production of Julius Caesar) and hit the freeway for downtown Pasadena, where a favorite restaurant waited for us. Will there be a table? Hard to say: Open Table said no.

I dropped my companion off at the door, found a parking lot, and hiked back to the restaurant — to find her comfortable seated at a table for two in a crowded dining room. The tables are close-set here; this is the kind of place where you wind up conversing with strangers at the next table.

We split an arugula salad to start, and some bread and one of the house specialties, giardinera — which always puts me in mind of Companion's Aunt Victoria. The giardinera here is not Piemontese, though; it is Calabrian, I'd say, with a fair amount of heat.

I went on to another house specialty, porchetta. It's so succulent, flavored with fennel seeds and garlic and the right touch of red pepper, strewn with chopped parsley, in its own succulent juices, with a bed of oven-fried potatoes underneath… bbuon, siamo a Roma…

Gavi di Gavi; Dolcetto

• Union Restaurant, 37 East Union Street, Pasadena; 949-645-5440