Once in a while you hear about a place to eat out that you think you'd like to try. Maybe a friend referred you, or you heard an ad on the radio.
A friend asked me the other day if I'd ever been to Italian Village in Murray. A friend of hers told her they had these great things called pizza benders, which, from the description, sounded sort of like a calzone.
I vaguely remembered driving past Italian Village. There are a million places like it in every neighborhood in Salt Lake City and elsewhere: a family-style dining room with modest prices and an ethnic menu of some sort, usually Mexican or Italian but also Chinese or Greek.
Well, the night I took my family to Italian Village, I thought it was going to be really good. There's got to be a good reason if you're waiting 15 minutes to get a seat in the middle of the week, right? Well, turns out the place is a dud. It has a few good things, but I'm sorry to say the rest is yuck.
I don't like giving bad reviews. Though I'm critical, I like things to work out well. Just like you, I don't enjoy suffering through an unpalatable meal.
Most dinners at Italian Village start with a cup of homemade vegetable-lentil soup. We liked it. It's refreshing to see family restaurants making food from scratch.
Next comes a salad. If you order something that doesn't already come with salad, it's $3.65, and I'm telling you, skip it. If you don't, you'll get a bowl of iceberg chunks with a single tomato wedge and a single carrot stick.
Who serves iceberg salads anymore? Can't we mix in a little green-leaf lettuce, some spinach greens, cucumbers, something to add nutrition and flavor? Or was that just to "cleanse the palate"? I understand if not everyone is serving the mixed wild greens that have become so popular (and are so easy to come by these days), but, come on!
We ordered a variety of dishes from the large menu. For our son, a combo that comes with a pizza bender filled with olives and ham (our choices), and a bowl of ravioli. The crust of the bender was tasty. It was crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside, but the cheese wasn't totally melted. The other ingredients inside were OK, but they weren't hot. His ravioli was fine. No real trouble. He liked it. I would have eaten it had it been mine, but I wasn't overly impressed.
My husband Gary had a combo of veal "Parmesan" and lasagna, with a heap of spaghetti on top. We both felt the sauce was too salty but the food was too bland. The veal was more like a tough chopped steak.
I had the manicotti with an order of meatballs on the side, two of my favorites. The manicotti, too, was bland, with the salty sauce. I don't think I even finished half of it. And the meatballs, served smothered in half-melted cheese and the same salty sauce, were tough and chewy.
I don't get this place.
So maybe you'll go for a cup of homemade soup and a pizza bender. Or maybe you'll try a few things on the menu for yourself. I hope you're not as sorry as I was. The point is, there are better quality places in town for the money, Italian or otherwise. You don't have to settle.
Prices for specialty dinners, broiler and seafood $7.80-$12.75; side dishes and salads $1.95-$4.65; pizza and benders $4.35-$12.70.
Italian Village
** (out of five)
Hours: Monday-Thursday 4 p.m.-midnight, Friday and Saturday 4 p.m.-1 a.m.,
Sunday 2-10 p.m.
Location: 5370 S. 900 East, 266-4182
Payment: checks, major credit cards
E-mail: stephanie@desnews.com