In the 1990s, when my soon-to-be-wife and I both worked for the City of Garden Grove, one of our favorite local haunts was Carolina’s Italian Restaurant, located in a small, nondescript strip mall on Chapman Avenue. The food was tasty, the portions were large, and the service was friendly.
As a matter of fact, we both enjoyed Carolina’s so much that we held our wedding rehearsal dinner there. After we married, changed jobs, and moved further south, we stopped making the drive to GG and instead opted for Italian restaurants that were closer to home.
Fast forward 30 years, and after listening to a co-worker talk about Carolina’s and relating the rehearsal dinner story to her, I was presented with a gift card to Carolina’s as a birthday gift. After holding onto it for close to seven months, my wife and I (along with our daughter) decided to see if you can, in fact, go home again—gastronomically speaking…