Bellisimo!
Written: Feb 24 '06
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Pros: The food is delicious.
Cons: The food is expensive.
The Bottom Line: Excellent Italian food, but a bit on the pricey side. It also has stiff competition from many other fine Italian restaurants including Boston's famous North End.
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| shopaholic_man's Full Review: Caffe Bella |
I love good food. My favorite is Italian. I love writing epinions, but haven't done one because many of my favorite restaurants aren't in Epinions database. The solution? Take my girlfriend out to one that is! Cafe Bella is the first of my (hopefully many) South Shore restaurant reviews. South shore, as in south of Boston, Massachusetts. Around here, all the best restaurants are in Boston, but a huge number of fine dining establishments and fast pizza joints are plentiful. So plentiful, that I never even noticed Cafe Bella stuck in a strip mall in Randolph, MA. I drive by it every week on my way to Showcase Cinema's in Randolph.
Location / Directions For those of you in Mass, just take the Randolph exit on Route 24, and follow the road til it meets 139, its in the strip mall on your left. For everyone else, go to your closest airport, fly to Logan International, take Rt. 3 south to 24.
Decor This is set up to have the look and feel of an authentic Italian restaurant. What makes a restaurant actually authentic or not, I don't know, but Cafe Bella has old fashioned posters advertising spaghetti and olive oil and the like together with tapestries. Wine bottles adorn shelves everywhere. The atmosphere is intimate. It seems best suited for dates and special occasions. It didn't strike me as a place to bring kids for a family night out.
Wait time/Service We went on a Tuesday night, which I thought wouldn't be busy. We were told that there was a half hour wait, but sat at a table by the bar until our name was called. While we waited, a waitress took our drink orders, and brought us menus to peruse while we waited to be seated. My girlfriend was delighted because they had real Coca Cola, in glass bottles at that. Try to find Coke at a restaurant nowadays, most serve Pepsi. I had a glass of wine. How was it? I don't know, my wine knowledge consists in having seen Sideways a couple times. I liked it. We were sat in about 15 minutes. Once we were seated, the waitress came right over with bread and took our orders. The food came very quickly, and the place was packed, so I'd say service was outstanding. Both the bar waitress, and the dining room waitress were very courteous and fast.
Prices My girlfriend noted that the meals were pricey. I was puzzled because all the entrees on my menu were only $10.00 to $15.00. Then I realized that I was looking at the appetizer side. The food at Cafe Bella is expensive, most entrees are $22.00 to $30.00. Desserts are in the $6.00 to $7.00 range. If you have a couple drinks, appetizers, a main meal and dessert, you will easily spend a hundred dollars. Cafe Bella takes cash and plastic, including American Express.
Food Quality/Quantity I am pleased to say that the food was outstanding, and the portions were as well. This is not some fancy nouvelle cuisine restaurants that serves three peas artfully arranged on the plate and charges 30 dollars. I ordered whitefin tuna steak, which was sushi quality. I ordered it nearly raw, and it was excellent, like the filet mignon of fish. My girlfriend had a chicken meal which she enjoyed. I had potatoes and vegtables with my meal. The veggies were interesting and very good, but the potatoes were just wedges, and nothing very fancy. (I didn't order appetizers or desserts because my nutritionist and doctor have placed me on a bit of a diet, which I won't bore you with here.)
Menu The menu consists of many Italian dishes, and seafood dishes. They all have elaborate descriptions, but it boils down to chicken, pork chops or salmon prepared with a variety of delicous sauces, and of course lots of nice pasta dishes. If you wish, you can even get pizza here. Nevertheless, the menu is limited to about a dozen choices for entrees. The appetizers all looked delicious as well, and ranged from oysters on the half shell to bruchetta bread. The desserts, included Tiramasu, which seriously tempted me. They also had an expresso ice cream with biscotti bisquits in it that looked awesome. (The man at the table next to me had ordered it, and if I wasn't so full, that is what I would have had).
Comparison For around the South Shore of Mass, it compares with restaurants like Boca in Pembroke, or Cafe Cristina (which sadly is no more). It's a bit fancier than the Olive Garden, although I didn't think that the food was any better than the Olive Garden. On the other hand, if I was in Boston, I would just go to the North End (for those of you NOT from the Boston area, that is the Italian section of Boston, known for a plethora of excellent Italian restaurants and bakeries).
Vegetarian Dishes This is my first restaurant review, and as such, I had never noticed the box for vegetarian dishes. No offense to all the vegetarians out there, but I love animals. I find them to be exceptionally tasty, especially with the right sauce. For this review, I didn't notice whether any of the dishes were without meat, but I do believe that one dish was an eggplant parmisan.
Summary Although it is on the pricey side, I really enjoyed the food and atmosphere of this place, and I think it's best for a nice date, or special occasions. I rate it four stars, only because of very stiff competition in the North End and in the Boston suburban area generally.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations I loved their tuna steak. You may want to call ahead, this place is very busy!
Best Suited For: Romantic Evening
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