Text 11962, 85 rader
Skriven 2007-02-17 17:47:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: more land o' chains 78
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After the Sunday concert we went to dinner with Grampa and Fay and
the two extremely strenuous grandkids: there was a list provided
by the parents of the places the kids would eat, and these were
whittled down by Kenneth refusing to eat Chinese food and my
being unwilling to pay Red Robin prices. We ended up at Johnny
Carino's, which I'd never heard of, but which turns out to be
a chain with outlets in about half the states and an ambitious
plan to colonize the world with 490 restaurants worldwide.

There are some good things about the place. The staff are pleasant
and accommodating, and they didn't blink an eyelash at seating a
party including a pair of demon children. There's enough food, and
it's not too expensive. Judging from limited experience, I'd say
it beats OG and is comparable in quality to Carrabba's, though the
food is less upscale. I think that it positions itself against
Vinny Testa's, of which I have no experience at all.

You start with a rather pillowy soft herb bread and a dip that
is made by the waitress with her own hands, pouring okay olive
oil over a plate that comes from the kitchen of browned garlic
bits and a few herbs. It's food, what can I say.

Emerson, who is a fairly picky eater and who has been battling a
stomach bug, had spaghetti with butter only, no cheese, meatball
on the side. He ate almost none of it: it looked like decent thin
pasta. I had a bite of the meatball, which he didn't touch - it
smelled like and was in fact incredibly similar to what my mother
used to make by mixing ground beef with crushed Kellogg's Croutettes
stuffing mix (actually not bad at all). Sam had a dish of mac and
cheese, and he wolfed it down incredibly fast and asked for another
order of it. It looked like anyone else's mac and cheese.

Kenneth had a pizza: the pizzas come with up to five ingredients.
I think he had 4 kinds of meat (bacon, ham, sausage, and something
else) and extra cheese. He liked it. Fay ordered a chicken breast
panini not realizing it was a sandwich. Nonetheless she did eat
half of it and all the chips and took the rest home.

Ella Lou got the sampler, which consists of a sizable mound of
spaghetti in marinara sauce, a chicken cutlet Parm, and a pound or
so of lasagne. The cutlet was average, the lasagne somewhat above
average but with a lot of noodles for a modest amount of cheese.
The lasagna sauce was made with pork sausage, a nice touch.

I had the skilletini, which is a quart iron skillet with a couple
cups of spaghetti marinara, some vinegared bell pepper and onion
slices, and your choice of sausage or grilled chicken, the lot
sprinkled with Parmesan and heated to smoking under the broiler so
a lot of the pasta gets brown and crusty. The sausage option gave
me about 2 or so Italian sausages diced with a couple strips of
chicken that had strayed in. Interestingly, I found that there was
not enough food (everyone else got tons), the satiation factor
provided by a lot of oil poured over everything. I asked for a
dish of crushed red pepper (cheerfully provided) and ate more bread
than I usually do.

Some of the meals come with soup or salad. Some come with
unlimited soup and salad. Some come with neither but you can
add soup or salad for a couple bucks. The soups were minestrone
or Italian chili. Need you ask: I had to try it. It's a tomato
and bean soup with ground beef and a touch of cumin and a tiny
touch of hot pepper. Grated Parmesan on top. Not bad. Not chili.
Not Italian. Too salty.

The standard criticisms (found on the Web) of the place:

the marinara sauce is tasteless (false; it tastes kind of like
mine, only not nearly so good)

there's too much food (true of the ladies' meals)

there's too little food (true of my and Sam's meals)

the bread is crummy (true)

the food is greasy (true)

the food isn't very Italian (true).

That said, we had a pleasant experience made better by friendly
help.

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