Since when did mousse get so expensive?

Had a cracking feed tonight - went to our local wood fired pizza place - a joint called Toto's. It's close enough to walk, it's BYO, it's not very flash, it's not very big and it seems to be presided over by a wonderful old coot by the name of Vito.

I will not dis Vito or Toto in case I end up sleeping with the fishes. Nor is there any need to. The business looks like it is in the family way - Vito doing the waiting, his brother making the pizza, his wife in the kitchen and a few daughters running around doing restaurant stuff. Only two other couples turned up during our stay, and they appeared to be regulars. Just the place for a nice pizza on a Thursday night. However, I curse our decision to not take a fat bottle of red. How in blazes can you eat Italian without a bottle of plonk?

So we will back to visit Vito, next time with booze under the arm.

The only drawback with Toto's is the very limited dessert menu. They have tiramasu (which I just love) and gellato and that is it. We didn't feel like paying $7.00 for a tiramasu each, so we zipped around the corner to another Italian joint called L'Angelo. L'Angelo had a face lift last year and it is now very flash and modern Italian. They do a rip roaring pizza, but my favourite is their chocolate mousse. I have only had one chocolate dessert in recent years that was better, but that was at a restaurant at Thredbo, and I have no plans to drive 500kms tonight just to get fricking dessert. That's 500km one way by the way.

So I run in the door and grab two mousses out of the fridge and saunter up to the counter to pay. The lady looks at me and says, deadpan, "Fifteen dollars".

Fuck me, I just about fell over. However, this was no time to lose face. I just had to give her the deadpan back and pull two notes out of the wallet with the nonchalant look of "I pay $15 for two tubs of mousse every day - I spit on your deadpan face and raise you my nonchalance." It was that, or put a tub back in the fridge, or do a runner and hope that I was fleeter of foot than the fat pizza cook. Given that I had just stuffed in a medium pizza and garlic bread at Toto's, I figured a footrace was out of the question.

Clearly, L'Angelo must be thinking of opening a franchise at Sydney airport. Their prices would fit right in out there.

I'll have to put this in perspective. Imagine you have just ordered Thai takeaway for one and you want rice. Your rice arrives in a circular tub about yay big. Well, that is how mousse is sold, except that unlike the Thai restaurant, where they stuff rice in right to the top, L'Angelo fill the tub somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way up. Given that mousse is largely air, it feels like you are carrying an empty tub. That is a risk, as you might bin a full tub thinking it was empty.

Anyway, we have just polished off the two tubs and I feel like I have eaten about 1/2 a tub too much. The stuff is so rich, I can feel every fat cell in my body expanding.

And you know why I only bought two tubs? Because they only had two tubs in the fridge. If they'd had three, that is how many I would have bought.

Then I really would have freaked when they asked for $22.50 at the till.