I had heard some things about this place online, so was interested in trying it, but we always just order pizza online, or pick it up at Food for Less and cook it ourselves (theres is pretty decent), but we never should have waited because this is easily one of the best pies I have ever had, and I am biased since I used to be a pizza cook! Now it is not cheap, but it is certainly worth giving this place a try.

I went in to place an order, and an old Italian guy took my order. We got two 16″ 2 topping pizzas, one with Pepperoni and Onion and one with Sausage and Black Olive. These are huge and delicious pizzas. And we got a litter of Soda for a buck with the order.

The crust is on the thin side, but not super thin, just right. And the sauce is where it excels. Not sweat at all, just a perfect compliment. And for the toppings, they were great, and put under the cheese, to infuse the pie with flavor. And boy was the sausage delicious. Wow.

Not cheap as the pie’s were $13 each, but so well worth the price! And they were huge and filling.

This is literally one of the best pizzas I have ever had the privelidge of eating. I loved it, and can’t wait to try them out again.

And we picked up, and the pies were ready in 20 minutes, have to try delivery next time, and they claim to deliver beer, wine and cigarettes and do take credit card.

Try out Arri’s Pizza, you won’t be disappointed.

GOOGLE MAP

An excellent family style Italian restaurant with decent food and incredibly good service. After 7 PM you get free slices of their excellent Italian style pizza, and if you have to wait in line you can get cups of house wine for $1.50. They know how to make waiting kind, and they have a little store with Wine and Italian Sundries. The decor is homy, with a great painting on the wall, though the neon does make it not quite like home.

The portions are huge, and you can get half sized portions, or a full sized portion that will fill you and leave some for tomorrow, so unless you are really hungry, go for the half portion.

Now that I no longer have a pork allergy, I went for the spaghetti with meatballs, which is tasty and great. 2 Medium meatballs, which is enough to spread across all of the spaghetti. Quite tasty.

The Garlic bread is OK, but both times I have been, the bottom was a little too cripsy, but the rest is pretty decent, though not amazing.

Kelly, my lovely Fianceé had the eggplant parmesan which comes with a huge plate of spaghetti and another plate with the eggplant covered in cheese and tomato sauce. Also quite tasty.

We also had an excellent bottle of McWilliam’s Shiraz, it is a 2007 from South Eastern Australia. As Kelly said this wine is scary, because it is so easy to drink. Really this is one of the easiest bottles of wine I have ever drank. It is delicious and tasty, and so easy to drink. Wow this was good, and only $18 at the restaurant, so the wine must be cheaper than that. I need to get cases of this stuff.

•••

This place is very good, though not amazing. The service is top notch and they always are filling your water. The food is decent, but certainly not excellent, but worth it. We will certainly return.

GOOGLE MAPS

Located in Hollywood, in fact right on my block next to Birds, the parking can be a bitch, though they have valet. This is a good medium prices Italian restaurant. The food tends to be heavy and covered in oil, but the food is tasty (too much oil on the pizza for my taste, but it tastes good) and the bread sticks are absolutely amazing, and a must try, though you must know that you will taste only garlic for the rest of the night, and even into the morning. This is some serious garlic.

A normal order of garlic sticks is 4 sticks, but you can get a half order as well. The sticks are slathered in parmesan cheese, olive oil and garlic. And you will eat too much for sure.

I had the Penne Al Forno, which is boneless and skinless chicken sauteed in mushrooms and sweet onions with penne, tossed in a pink marinara sauce, then literally slathered in mozzarella cheese and baked in the plate. It is damn flavorful and tasty, though quite heavy, but quite good at $17.50.

Kelly was a good girl and had the Verde Mista Salad with Chicken with organic baby greens, roasted red and yellow peppers, some parmigiano cheese and a lemon balsamic vinegrette. And she loved it. This was $14.

We also had an amazing desert, which for $6 was 2 smore’s, made normally, but slathered in chocolate. They were delicious, though it started to rain, so we took this home, and it was not quite as warm as it could have been, still amazing.

We also got a $32 bottle of Shiraz, which was only alright, though they have nice glasses.

]]> http://www.whaleofatale.net/wordpress_restaurant_reviews/prizzis-piazza-italian-restaurant-hollywood-ca/feed/ 0 http://www.whaleofatale.net/wordpress_restaurant_reviews/market-city-caffe-italian-and-seafood-restaurant-burbank-ca/ http://www.whaleofatale.net/wordpress_restaurant_reviews/market-city-caffe-italian-and-seafood-restaurant-burbank-ca/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:00:39 +0000 jonahlee http://www.whaleofatale.net/wordpress_restaurant_reviews/2007/09/17/market-city-caffe-italian-and-seafood-restaurant-burbank-ca/ Market City Caffe
164 E. Palm Avenue
Burbank, CA 91502
(818) 840-7036

Sun-thurs 11:30AM-10 PM, Friday and Saturday till Midnight

GOOGLE MAP

Right in the heart of downtown Burbank, and right by the AMC theaters, Kelly and I have eaten here before and kind of enjoyed it, but this experience I must say was pretty terrible, and I do not think we will be returning. The service was fine, but the food was pretty mediocre, and the breadsticks were tastless and awful, even with the oil at ever table, and even once we got a bottle of balsamic vinegar. I do like that they give you a pitcher of iced tea though. That is nice, but the food was only OK.

I should know better than to order seafood at a restaurant like this, but I had the Seafood special, which was OK, it was a Mahi Mahi with capers and a lemon butter sauce, but honestly the steamed veggies were the best part. And the fish was way overcooked, it would have been so much better rare, but then I can bet the fish was not too fresh.

Kelly had some pasta, which she only had about a quarter of, and didn’t take it home.

•••

Not an impressive meal at all, and they have a kind of salad bar, with cold seafood, which just looked terrible, and scary, I could never eat from there.

Stay away from this place.

GOOGLE MAPS

Where my girlfriend wanted to eat was closed, so we kept driving down Riverside and saw this place right next to Baja Fresh, and decided to give it a try. I must say whomever wrote the menu did a fantastic job, because when you read it you will want to try everything. Everything sounds amazing, but the thing it is it is all lies. Especially ones like “WE ARE HOME OF THE GREASELESS PIZZA!” because this is damn greasy pizza, and the crust is just nasty. The food was terrible, and it took quite a long time as well. I was so unimpressed that I will never eat here again and tell anyone not to try this either.

We liked the menu so much, we decided we wanted seafood and pizza, and since we were breaking our self imposed diets to eat this (after a day at disney anyone needs a diet), we were going to try both, and ordered a medium pizza and fish and chips (and yes they have vinegar to put on it). First it took way too long, but the pizza itself was huge, especially for a medium, but that was were the goodness ended. The pizza sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste, the cheese was extra greasy so greasy in fact that you needed to sop it off with napkins. And the crust was awful, just not tasty. One of the first times that I skipped eating the crust.

Then the fish and chips. Wow this was bad. 5 small pieces of heavily overcooked fish in batter. It tasted overcooked and blackened and was not enough fish. And the big fat french fries were a bit soggy.

This meal was nasty. How does a place like this stay open? Sure it is cheap, but it is awful, just awful. If you are in the area, eat at Baja fresh.

Google Map

Located in the same block as the AMC Burbank 16 Theaters, this is an alright Italian Chain restaurant. It’s best thing is it’s house wines, which you get a bottle of on the table and it is an honor system, and you get very large normal (non-wine) glasses. The food is nothing too great, but is not that bad either.

For house wines you can get a Chardonnay, a Chianti a White Zinfadel or a Red Sangria, we had the Chianti, which is very mellow, and not at all spicy like Chianti’s tend to be.

For dinner I had a Chicken Marsala, which is topped with fresh Portobello mushrooms, roasted garlic and marsala wine sauce with capellini pasta. It is decent, though not too good.

For desert we had a Smothered Chocolate Cake with Chocolate ganache and pecan pieces, which was alright, though not too impressive.

Cleveland, OH 44106

(216) 707-1055

GOOGLE MAP

GOOGLE MAP

On our trip to Marthas Vineyard we went out to dinner with our old friends Kate and Sam Sherman and they took us to an Italian Restaurant in Edgartown. This place was great. It has a great look and vibe, with a large bar, and good service, and the place was packed. The prices are pretty reasonable and the food was excellent.

I had an amazing Frutti Del Mar with Clams, Mussels, a little Squid, some Shrimp and Pasta with Marinara sauce. The portion was huge, and I ended up leaving a huge amount of Pasta left over. This was excellent and quite tasty, though the mussels were so good I should have gotten just a huge plate of them! Yum.

For desert I had an brownie with 2 balls of espresso ice cream and some chocolate sauce, which was amazing. Kelly had a snowball, which was like a giant ball of vanilla mochi ice cream, and wasn’t as impressive as mine.

This place was enjoyable and tasty and worth checking out.

GOOGLE MAP

In the same structure as the Burbank 16 theaters in Burbank, this is a tasty and inexpensive Italian chain restaurant. Certainly not as good as Magionos, but quite taste, and with an honor system where they leave large bottles of wine on the table, so you can help yourself without bothering the waitress, which is interesting.

The portions are quite large, and inexpensive. They have a decent bread with extra virgin olive oil. I had a very tasty Chicken Penne Arrabbiata that was good an tasty, though could have been more spicy. I also had a house Chianti, which they normally put on the table, and it was light and dry and very enjoyable. My friend had a glass of Rosemount Riesling (not on the honor system) that was also quite good, and fairly dry for a Riesling. Overall quite tasty.