Mama Ricotta’s was on the menu for dinner tonight and despite some negatives… we still liked the place. Curtis is not the biggest fan of Italian food to begin with so I’m (Ella) taking the lead on this review. When we arrived it was pretty busy but we were still seated promptly and even given the choice of indoor or outdoor seating.. seeing as how it was like -50 degrees outside.. jk.. we opted for indoor seating. Although I wasn’t impressed with our chairs.. our table was along the wall and hard wooden chairs while the people sitting at the tables in the middle got squishy fabric.
Our waitress was quick to great us, take our drink orders and the bread wasn’t far behind.
We started the night off with the bruschetta for our appetizer.
Curtis thought the bruschetta was a little off but I loved it. There was some heavy usage of fresh garlic that might be considered a little much for some people but it was perfect for me :)
The one complaint I did have about the bruschetta was that there was soooooooooo little bread and soooooooooo many tomatoes. For $7.25 we got four diagonally sliced pieces of toasted bread with what look like a mountain of chopped roma tomatoes. There was so little bread that we had this much left over…
Not to mention with the bruschetta being served with the tomatoes already on the bread, it was soggy by the time we got the plate.
What they should do next time is loosen Frank Scibelli’s wallet a little and give us a few more slices of bread and serve the tomatoes, garlic and basil in a small white bowl in the center of the plate to allow guest to scoop the appropriate amount they would like to prevent soggy bread.
After the bruschetta.. we got our entree. After much debate and plenty of disappointment we settled on sharing the family size spaghetti alla gricia. We came to the conclusion during the ordering process that the family size meals area rip-off.. you get absolutely no side items and it still cost you on average $20. Thats $20 for three pieces of marinated chicken.. not worth the money at all.
Anyways.. we got our spaghetti alla gricia and it was delicious.. but unexpectedly spicy. The description for the spaghetti alla gricia says “A classic Roman dish – a perfect balance of thin spaghetti tossed with a white amatriciana sauce with crispy applewood smoked bacon, carmelized onions and pecorino romano”. Absolutely nowhere in that description does it say anything about chopped red chili peppers.. did you see that part???
Either Mama Ricotta’s really messed up our order or they need to edit the description on the menu. I’m a spicy food light weight and it was right on the threshold of me not being able to eat any of it.. which on the other hand is perfect for Curtis. He’s a spicy food heavy weight and eats bhut jolokia peppers for breakfast.. no seriously, we have dried bhut jolokia peppers at the house.
Despite the high prices.. soggy bread.. spicy food and hard wood chairs.. we loved the food. There are definitely some things we would change about Mama Ricotta’s but its still good enough to recommend and we will be visiting them again to try something not so spicy.
ps. We ended up going to the Elizabeth Creamery after dinner to cool down my mouth :)
pss. Mama Ricotta’s wraps up our reviews on the Frank Scibelli line-up ( Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Pacos Tacos and Tequila, Midwood Smokehouse and Cantina 1511 )
