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By Laura Freeman
Another name from the recent TCBJ restaurant survey jumped out at me while looking over the list for inspiration for this month's restaurant review: Mama Roberto's in Mentor, voted No. 3 in the Best Italian Family category.
Not that I've had pasta on the brain or anything. I have been eating lots of it since beginning training for a triathlon I did in August. I figured what could a few more carbs hurt. Besides, I've never needed any excuse to eat pasta.
On my first visit, sunlight poured into the airy, open restaurant through the Palladian window facing Mentor Avenue and the many smaller windows on the east side of the building. The pungent aroma of sweet Italian sausage filled the air, waking up my taste buds.
My dining companion and I tried Mama's Sampler. As its name suggests, it includes a sampling of many of the appetizers -- toasted ravioli, fried mozzarella, hot peppers, fried zucchini and garlic toast ($10).
All the apps are hand-breaded in-house: the fresh zucchini was good, if a little undercooked - sliced a bit thinner they would have cooked a little more thoroughly. The thick pieces of cheese were hot and gooey; and the garlic toast soft inside and crunchy out. The toasted ravioli was a misnomer -- by the name I was expecting baked. It seemed more deep-fried than toasted on top of being a little overcooked and dry.
I was disappointed in the iceberg lettuce salad whose only redeeming factor was one lonely kalamata olive. I was relieved it wasn't one of those canned California black olives many restaurants and party centers dump on top of their salads, so the olive was a treat, albeit small.
One of my favorite pastas is cavatelli so at our serverÕs suggestion I ordered the broccolini Ð bacon and broccoli mixed in with A LOT of overcooked cavatelli. I like mine al dente and this was WAY past that. The aglio -- olive oil and garlic -- was heavy on the garlic, just the way I like it, but unfortunately the overcooked part ruined it for me.
Don't get me wrong, I love leftovers for the next day's lunch too, but too much overcooked pasta is just that -- too much. And I swear a chef's salad I saw delivered to a man at the table next to us could have fed at least half of those people my mom always told me were starving in Africa to get me to eat all my peas.
Our second trip we netted the same humungous portions. My companion had the open-faced chicken Marsala sandwich, with a piece of tender chicken breast that almost covered the entire plate, smothered in an equally large portion of mushrooms. She enjoyed the sauce, but could have lived without the soggy garlic bread beneath it all.
I had the veal parmesan sandwich and was much happier with it than I was with the broccolini. Breaded in-house, the Provini veal was tender and tasty. I, too, discarded the thick slices of fresh Italian bread on top and bottom -- not because it was soggy, but just because I knew I'd never have room for the yummy veal if I ate one bite of the bread. The sides -- hers onion petals, and mine pasta marinara, were nothing special.
Entrees -- from which there are many to choose -- range from chicken and veal dishes to sandwiches and seafood. A house favorite is the perch dinner, served all-you-can-eat every Friday. And I hear the meatball sandwiches are fantastic.
A couple friends said the pizza and calzones are great too, with a sauce thick and tomatoey. Mama Roberto's bakes all their pizzas in a brick oven, not on a commercial conveyer belt oven.
"The sausage came in big, delicious, spicy chunks and the black olives'seemed fresh from the deli, not those rubbery California olives," one friend said. She shares my opinion of those canned black things.
When in doubt, get the pizza. When you're starving, order a heaping plate of pasta or maybe the chef's salad.
Mama Roberto's is in the Village Plaza at 8658 Mentor Ave., in Mentor. Catering, complete with party trays and sheet pizzas, is also available. To order, call 440-205-8890.h
Written by Laura Freeman,
editor of Tri County Business Journal.
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