Good Italian-American Food in Hopkinton, Massachusetts - Carbone's Restaurant
Written: Mar 04 '08
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Food and Presentation: |
 |
|
| Ambiance and Decor: |
|
|
| Quality of Service: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Excellent service, Expansive menu, Nice location, Freshly made dishes
Cons: Dishes could use a bit more kick
The Bottom Line: At Carbone's you'll get excellent service and find the food to be made fresh from quality ingredients and to be fairly tasty
|
|
|
| jps246's Full Review: Carbone's Restaurant |
Following up on the recommendation of some friends, we decided to try Carbone’s Restaurant in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. We figured any kind of Italian restaurant is one worth visiting.
Our friends had mentioned the reasonable prices, portion sizes and the overall quality of the food as reasons to go. Thus, with those recommendations, we made our way over to the restaurant.
Where is Carbone’s?
Carbone’s is located on Cedar Street in Hopkinton (Route 85). The restaurant is just to the north of Hopkinton State Park and just south of Route 85’s intersection with Southville Road (and the MBTA station).
There is plenty of free parking available in the large parking lot adjacent to the restaurant. We were there on a Tuesday night and at least half the lot was empty. However I am told that it does get busier on Friday and Saturday nights and Carbone’s also hosts functions in a dedicated function area that may make it harder to find a place to park.
Ambiance
Nothing fancy here at Carbone’s. This restaurant is your family Italian-American kind of restaurant. The interior is well lit and nicely decorated but muted overall. There is a separate bar area (it’s actually completely separate from the dining area) which also follows the same theme. You aren’t coming to Carbone’s for atmosphere, you are coming for the food and the service.
Service
Considering what we had heard from our friends, the service definitely lived up to the hype. We were warmly greeted and quickly seated at a table. The waitress quickly came over and explained the menu, talked about the house specials and offered suggestions for our meals. Our drinks came out quickly and when it came time to order, she answered all the questions we had and even suggested some changes to some dishes to make us happier (our friend with us didn’t like green peppers). The waitress explained each dish is made from scratch so that if there was something we didn’t like, the dish could be made without it.
Thus my friend got the chicken cacciatore that she loves, but never eats when she’s out because of green peppers without those peppers.
We were really impressed by the waitress and the overall atmosphere of service in the restaurant. It didn’t seem to be just our waitress that was hustling around and making sure that the guests were satisfied with their meals.
Menu
So what do you find on the menu?
You’ll find all of your typical Italian-American fare. There are plenty of pasta dishes including lasagna and chicken with broccoli. There are also a number of different chicken, beef, veal and seafood dishes. Most are what you would expect with dishes like chicken parmigiana, veal marsala and shrimp scampi. Besides the pasta and the entrees, there are a number of sandwiches and burgers along with pizza.
We went with the chicken cacciatore, lemon pepper chicken and the shrimp scampi. We had our choice of pasta with each dish (or if you wanted it a choice of potato) and we received a salad (or soup) and bread and butter with our meal.
We also ordered some buffalo tenders as an appetizer. Besides those, there are items like friend mozzarella sticks, regular chicken tenders and garlic bread.
The tenders were pretty spicy and came with plenty of blue cheese and celery. The salads followed and while they were nothing special the lettuce was fresh and the salad dressing was crisp and tasty (we all ended up getting the house Italian dressing).
The bread was really good too. It was fresh Italian bread that was warm (I’m not sure if they bake it there) and plenty of butter was offered along with it.
Our meals followed soon after we finished up the salads. All three were well proportioned with mine being the smallest, while the other two looked as if they could feed three people. My lemon pepper chicken was tasty and while it was the smallest meal, it was quite filling. There weren’t any complaints from either of them about the food. The only real issue we had was that the meals could have been a bit spicier. Not so much in a ‘hot’ kind of spicy, but we found all three to be a little lacking in overall taste. Nothing was bad about them and they were all definitely hot and fresh, we just thought it would have been nice to have a bit more kick to the meal, especially considering their size and overall quality. For my partner and our friend though, the portions were just too big and they had quite a bit boxed at the end of our meal to bring home.
We wanted to leave room for dessert of course!
I spied apple crisp on the menu and when the waitress told me there were no nuts or raisins (I hate nuts and/or raisins in my apple crisp!), I was sold. When it came out, it was a big bowl of apple crisp with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and lots of whipped cream. My partner ended up getting a slice of cheese cake, while our friend got a slice of lemon cake. All the desserts were excellent and very filling.
Prices
Carbone’s is a moderately priced restaurant. The sandwiches are from about $8 to $10, while the entrees are anywhere from about $10 to $20 depending upon what you get. The appetizers are between about $5 to $10 and the desserts are all around $4 each.
We averaged about $20 each with our meals and that included the appetizer, the meal and the dessert.
Overall Thoughts
I really can’t find much to complain about after dining at Carbone’s. My biggest problem was the lack of ‘bam!’ as Emeril would say in the meal. The food was good, it just wasn’t as spectacular as I had expected based on recommendations. Maybe I just had my hopes too high, but my partner and our friend agreed. We wouldn’t mind eating here again, we just probably wouldn’t search it out was our ultimate conclusion when compared Carbone’s to other nearby Italian restaurants.
Overall, I really did enjoy the service and the prices were very reasonable. Even though the food wasn’t exactly what I expected, it wasn’t bad at all and I think for most people, they wouldn’t have any problem with the meals. It’s just that for us, after trying what seems like every Italian place in the region over the years, I guess our standards are probably a little higher than the average diner.
Final Thoughts
In Hopkinton and looking for a good meal, especially a good Italian meal? I wouldn’t have a problem recommending you spend your evening dining at Carbone’s Restaurant. You’ll get excellent service, have an expansive menu to choose from and most likely you’ll find the food to be made fresh from quality ingredients and to be fairly tasty.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: No
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.