Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Maggiano's Little Italy

The team dinner was in Maggiano's Little Italy, a restaurant located in Santana Row, San Jose's new European-style shopping, dining and entertainment destination. A family-style Italian restaurant, the decor is warm and friendly with rich oak-panelling, hardwood floors and crystal chandeliers.

Maggiano's Little ItalyThe Bruschetta, Italian garlic bread toasted and topped with a tomato bruschetta relish made of diced tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic, was good. But it was the Mozarella Marinara, whole milk mozzarella cheese breaded and fried,topped with provolone cheese and marinara sauce, that was the absolute delight.

Maggiano's Little ItalyMaggiano's salad consisted of iceberg and romaine lettuce, crumbled bleu cheese, crispy Prosciutto, red onions, tossed in their signature House Dressing.

The Fettucine Alfredo was passable, with traditional fettucine noodles tossed with broccoli in a creamy alfredo sauce. The Four Cheese Ravioli was homemade ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella, and provolone Maggiano's Little Italyfilling sprinkled with house cheese, then browned in the oven and served in pesto-alfredo cream sauce with a touch of marinara. Good stuff, as was the Veal Piccata made of veal cutlets, sauteed and served over aglio spinach.

Dinner ended with Tiramisu made from cookies soaked in espresso, coffee liquer layered with mascarpone cheese, dusted with cocoa powder and served with chocolate.


Maggiano's Little ItalyThe verdict? The food is pretty good when you are not bothered about the calories. I would recommend this place for an evening with the family or a group of friends. I wouldn't come here for a romantic dinner for two. Maggiano is located at 3055 Olin Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128. Phone: 408-423-8973

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love food and travel like you...been to Mumbai in 2004

HAREKRISHNAJI said...

Sounds great

Anonymous said...

@tutubi: You have an advantage over me then, since I haven't ever travelled to the Philippines.

@harekrishnaji: Long time since you were here!

Sig said...

You are so right - Maggiano's is great for groups... apart from the fact that it is nowhere near romantic (just think about all the garlic :)) another reason why it is better as a group than two is the fact that more the number of people, you get so many more dishes... Just skip eating for a week after that :)

Anonymous said...

@sig: Heh, garlic! Unfortunately, I love some garlic-intensive dishes too.

Anonymous said...

Great introduction to tipical Italian dishes! If you would like to know more about Italian coffees since they have so many and call them different names, here is a resaurce which might be of interest: http://www.italytravelnotes.com/category/italian-food-and-wine/