passaporto party prayer

I want to offer a little prayer to the Italian travel gods today… please, please, please let us win the trip for two to Italy at the Il Fornaio Passaporto Party tonight!

In case you hadn’t heard, Il Fornaio San Jose hosts an amazing party for their regular patrons twice a year (approximately March and September). This is not advertised to the general public, however. Basically, you’ve got to be “in the know” to attend. Every year, during one of our regular dinners at the restaurant, we’ll ask the maitre’d when the party is and get our names on the list. One of the highlights of the evening (besides the amazing buffet and wine assortment) is the announcement of the winners of the “Passaporto” contest. In order to be eligible for the trip, you must dine at all 6 regions on the Festa Regionale calendar, about one per month, and get your “passaporto” stamped by your server.

Well, this past year we were finally diligent enough to get all six passport areas stamped and now the boys think it means we will automatically win. I hate to tell them there are probably a lot of other contestants since it runs among all Il Fornaio restaurants in the country. But here’s hoping nonetheless!

I think the San Jose location is the only one to throw this fabulous, FREE, party twice a year. We’ve been going for quite some time now and usually our boys are the only ones under 18 in attendance (they love all the extra attention along with multiple trips to the dinner/dessert buffets). The wine is generally a hodge-podge of leftover bottles from larger cases; we try to scout out a table with our favorites (or subtly swap out bottles with one of our waiter buddies).

If you haven’t been, I highly encourage you to patronize the San Jose Il Fornaio. Not only is the food terrific (and this is coming from a confirmed Italian-o-phile), the staff make you feel right at home and after 15+ years of dining there, we feel like members of the Il Fornaio family (or at least, unofficial ambassadors).