Carmines

So, my family and I made a recent trip to Carmine’s to celebrate my mom’s birthday and because my sister had a $100 gift certificate to the place. It was a fancy Italian restaurant that received good reviews so we decided to try it out. We had reservations for 8pm and the place was packed! It was so busy and noisy, it’s one of those popular places where there’s always people at a table. I had read reviews online as to what to get and was warned that each plate can easily feed three people so I was sure to tell my sister that because she was the one who made the order. Originally, we decided that we should do an appetizer, one pasta, and one chicken dish. I had heard their chicken parmesan and meatballs were good, while my little sister mona had heard that the lasagna was good. So we told my sister to order that although she was skeptical and wanted to order a third dish since we were a party of 6. We thought that she had ordered the meatballs as a side but when the food came it was on a HUGE plate over spaghetti. I think she ordered it as a main dish, which was a big mistake. The plate could have fed the 6 of us! On top of that, there were SUPER HUGE chicken parmesan slices. The only somewhat small one was the lasagna and even then when the waiter divided it into 6 it was a hefty portion.  I tried to avoid ordering too much as I had been warned but it ended up happening anyway. We first had the lasagna cuz it was the first that was served and it tasted like traditional Italian lasagna. 

I didn’t have much of it because I knew I wanted from the meatballs and mainly the chicken parmesan. It was ok. Next up were the gigantic meatballs. 

They were a mix of veal and beef. I thought they weren’t great and the rest of the table hated them. I didn’t hate them, they just had an odd flavor. I guess I don’t like the veal beef combo. The chicken parmesan was last and it was the best.

It was cheesy and saucy, and just great. Looking back, I wish we just ordered two of those and we would have been happy. Most of the table finished that. Then to celebrate my mom’s birthday we decided to get a tartufo.This is not the actual one but to give you a visual of what it looks like.

They put a candle in it and the waiters came and sang happy birthday to my mom which was nice. Surprisingly, the tartufo was rather small. Given the rest of the food I was expecting it to be huge. I’ve never been a huge fan of tartufos. It’s an ice cream ball that’s half vanilla half chocolate that has a cherry in the middle and the hwole thing is dipped in chocolate. It tasted like what it is. By then we went home really stuffed. Overall, Carmine’s is a family style Italian restaurant. It’s a really good deal if you go with a group of at least 8 people. I don’t see myself just coming here with a friend or two because the portions are too big. I think it was an ok place, but nothing really stood out to me as being exceptional so I probably won’t be back because it’s also expensive.