ecclectic atmosphere and great food. to write this review, i realized that i must first evaluate how many locally owned italian places i've been to in this town. i won't count pizzeria rustica or panino's, because i feel they rely more on a specific dish instead of overall italian cooking. so i'm just going to have to give thisplacethe benefit of the doubt that it really was as good as my wife and i made it out to be.
we walked in on a fairly busy saturday night, but we had made reservations an hour prior. that got us seated immediately. our server, connor, was prompt and helpful for the entire night. a big thing to me is when a server knows his stuff on the menu, and connor definitely did. for starters, i decided to try an italian dish i've actually never tried before, wedding soup. i'm not exactly sure what wedding soup traditionally has in it, but it was essentially chicken noodle soup with a single meatball in the middle. the chunks of chicken throughout were nice, the spinach, celery and carrots were flavorful, but i couldn't help but think that this soup was intended to have the meatball(s) be the focal point. regardless, it was a good soup.
the salad and bread they bring to your table with the purchase of a meal is nice. however, my wife found the lettuce and spinach leaves to be slightly soggy, as if they had a giant bowl of salad premade in the back and ready to scoop into their bowl. it was simple, too, with nothing but some croutons and a few shavings of carrots in it. but the bread was warm and flaky and went well with the diy olive oil/balsamic vinegrette already on the table.
finally the food came out and we were both in for a treat. i took connor's advice and got the salmon milanese and was treated to a perfectly seasoned and prepared piece of crusted salmon. the salmon inside was still moist, but the italian herbs and breading around it domintated the taste of the salmon. it was on a bed of penne with a gorgonzola cream sauce. although i enjoyed the flavor of everything, i was really hoping the sauce would've been thicker as to coat more thoroughly my penne and salmon. regardless, this dish was a hit in my book. but my wife's dish was actually a bigger hit. she got a tilapia dish that was on top of a bed of risotto and had sun drid tomatoes, green beans (?) and artichoke hearts for flavor. the light sauce that was with it was terrific and i loved how it highlighted the pieces of artichoke. it was truly wonderful.
for dessert, we wrapped it up with what was described as an italian doughnut with canoli cream inside of it and raspberry drizzle on top. it came out as specified with the exception of the raspberry drizzle, instead, it had a caramel drizzle on it. for $5 though, i felt this dessert was kind of on the small side (see picture for reference) but it was good.
for the amount of food we got, $53 was an acceptable price tag and is probably the equivelant of what we would have paid at a carraba's or for the most part, what we would have paid at the olive garden with all of their recent menu price hikes. my wife declares this as her new favorite italianplaceand i'm with her on that, until we hit up a couple more places in town, that is ;-)