THE highlight of our Saturday wasn’t seeing Alice in Wonderland (for which we shelled out $37 for two tickets, one Coke and one popcorn) but being seated at the kitchen table at Buca di Peppo, an Italian place over the road from the rape centre cinema.

I’ve heard of kitchen tables, and seen one on Ramsay’s Ego Nightmares, but never actually sat at one. So we jumped at the chance. We were opposite the main kitchen where the hot dishes were prepared; to the left was the pizza kitchen (yay!) and to the right the salad prep area (boo!). It was a lot hotter and noisier than I thought it would be but getting to see the chefs in action was a real treat.

The other great thing was that every now and then a waitress would show us a dish and explain what it was. The one to the right is holding a small (!) serving of lasagne. We also got to see a couple of pizzas and some other dish, but by that point I was too busy mopping up the drool off my part of the table to really pay much attention. Oh, and as customers were taken on tours of the kitchen we were pointed out, leading me and Marty to start introducing ourselves as “Mr. Buca” and “Mr. DiPeppo”.

Anyway, to the food. I ordered the Supremo Italiano pizza, Ev got chicken prosciutto, Marty got the Quattro al Forno and Brenda chose the fettuccine supremo. And the chef threw us a plate of deep-fried mozzarella to start, bless him.

It was superb, crisped to perfection on the outside and chewy in the middle. The marinara sauce was excellent and had hints of sage in it which made for a great starter. Then the bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar turned up, and let’s face it – do I look like the kind of bloke who turns down bread, oil and balsamic vinegar? Nope. The bread was beautifully soft and doughy and the vinegar pin-sharp. Superb.

And then the real food appeared. First off, my pizza… wow. Probably three feet by 18 inches, fresh out of the oven, with beef, sausage, pepperoni, peppers, onions, cheese and red sauce. Eighteen slices in all on crispy thin dough. Of course it’s designed to be shared, so I hasten to add that I didn’t eat all of it. Well, maybe most of it. And I finished the rest off at work on Sunday.

If the pizza wasn’t enough then Ev’s chicken prosciutto (below) was a sight that could give a healthy man a heart attack. Three chicken breasts stuffed with cream sauce and prosciutto ham, sitting on a bed of silky smooth pesto sauce. Ev made the mistake of offering me one and, like the bread and oil, free food isn’t something I turn down. And I’m glad I didn’t; everything about this dish was perfect.

Marty let me try some of his pasta mix and it was just excellent. Everything, right down to the Italian raspberry sodas, was perfect. What a great night out.