Mia Regazza is one of those restaurants that, in hopes of pleasing everyone, offers an expansive menu but executes them in a way that pleases few. It's a tell-tale sign of mediocrity when a restaurant has a five page menu full of selections printed in 12 point font. No kitchen is going to specialize in so many variations of meat, poultry, pasta, pizza, and seafood. Nor will it find its stride when, rather than highlighting a region of Italian food or a selection of Italian American favorites, it presents something for literally everyone and any taste. But we had reservations and few other options for a party of six on a Saturday night.
The menu offers the typical parmigiana-style chicken, veal or eggplant, a classic Italian American dish. You'll find chicken cacciatore and veal Marsala. Caprese and Caesar salads and bruschetta were offered, as expected. But we also found completely out-of-concept choices such as New England clam chowder, bacon-wrapped scallops, Cape Cod tourist trap style breaded and fried seafood, and chili for the daily soup.
Our party of six ordered drinks, appetizers and entrees. Our waitress was extremely nice, attentive, and eager to help - we tipped her well. She brought our drinks quickly. A basket of uninspired white bread and breadsticks was served, as well. The appetizers arrived quickly thereafter. It was an array of unimpressive plates most of which would have been voluntarily left unfinished if it hadn't been forced upon us when our entrees arrived as we were still picking at the appetizers. Instead of clearing the appetizer plates, the food runners ran around the table calling out dish names waiting for each of us to raise our hand to signal it was our choice and then proceeded to push around plates and glasses whiling squeezing the entrees plates into the few open spaces they could manage. As expected, the entrees were poorly executed, salty and joyless to eat.
The chicken Marsala over linguini was an ungodly large portion of chicken in a soupy overly salted sauce. The chicken parmigiana was over breaded and under sauced. The chicken and broccoli over penne was bland, except for the salt. Meanwhile, the bar pizza was burned not charred. I ate a few forkfuls of my meal before putting down my fork. I didn't want a takeaway box. The rest of the family ate what they could, boxed some up to take home under the auspices of not wanting to waste money, and declined dessert.
Frankly, the mediocrity of the food and the ridiculous table service isn't worth your hard earned money. It would be better spent elsewhere - Papa Gino's comes to mind. read more