First - about the rating. If we only had their pizza and salad, this would be a 5. We had been…read morehiking all day, and didn't feel like cooking at the campground, so we stopped in for an early dinner last Saturday. As it was early, there was only one other table in the restaurant.
Any time it's a small Mom & Pop Italian place, we always get at least a slice or a small pizza to compare. Now the sign outside is obviously old (touting steaks, prime rib, strips etc.) so we figured they know their steaks. When I saw Steak Marsala on the menu, I was intrigued. Hubby, ordered the rib eye. We also ordered side salads.
Let's start with the good - the salads were fresh with sliced red onion, cucumbers, grape tomatoes and again nothing to write home about, but fresh. The dressings were obviously not homemade. Now the small (10") pizza with extra cheese was phenomenal!!!! There was a ton of cheese, and yet the crust not soggy. It was perfect! Goldilocks would choose THIS pizza sauce - not too sweet, not to acidic. Just right. A note again about this wonderful crust - I almost never eat the outside crust on a pizza - this one I just had to.
The not so good - the steaks. Very thin, cheap cuts of ribeye. Yes, I know rib eye has that kernel of fat, but this was almost 70% fat. The Marsala sauce was bland. It could have used more basic seasoning and some more Marsala wine - if they even make their own. My entree was inedible. Hubby eats his steak rare, and there was no way they could make this super thin cut rare, so of course it was over. Here's the thing. He is a steak lover and a purist. He loves steak for the taste of beef alone and never, ever has sauce or anything on it. He asked for A-1. That should tell you something. And interestingly, the A-1 came in a small plastic salad dressing container. Not a bottle. Weird. Do they only have one tub of it in the kitchen?
Come on Mimmo's, you can do better. I get that food costs are astronomical in this economy, but your customers deserve better. Take the steak off the menu, if that is what you are going to serve. With so few restaurant choices in this area, you could be amazing with some tweaks. The place started filling up, so the locals do go here. You could be the most popular place in town, if you tried a bit. We actually wanted to go back tonight for that amazing pizza (but they are closed on Monday). There are enough good things (did I mention the pizza?) that we will be back when in town again.