Restaurant Review - Marciano's

MARCIANO’S  - 5 Mill St. S. - Waterdown, Ontario

Dec. 13/11

Tonight we had dinner in a lovely little restaurant in Waterdown.  It’s a small quaint restaurant with a nice homey feeling.  The owner’s are two young men, one who works in the front of the house and the other is the chef.  It was a Tuesday night when we were there, for a Tuesday night they had a good crowd.  In the background we could hear a nice selection of Christmas music which was not too loud.

Our Waitress was a young woman, sorry I cannot remember her name but she was very pleasant and the service was excellent.  She visited our table enough times to cater to our needs without interrupting our conversation.

The menu has quite a variety of  pasta dishes, 21 available and 5 each of chicken and veal offerings with 6 pizza choices.  There is a soup of the day and a stracciatella soup along with 11 other appetizer choices.

As soon as we sat down we were give a glass of water with a lemon slice and a basket of bread, it would have been nice if the bread was warm, although the bread was very fresh. For an appetizer we ordered  Calamari for Trevor and Stracciatella soup for me. The Calamari was perfectly breaded and nice and tender, while the sauce was very nice the Calamari was tasty enough to stand alone without it. The soup was very flavourful and had just the perfect amount of pepper in it to leave a wonderful warm aftertaste to it and it was a fresh made stock which was very good.

Before our entrée we were given a plate of salad each. The serving was just the perfect amount. The salad was one of the best I have had in a restaurant. It was assorted greens and crisp. What really made this salad was the dressing, with a perfect balance of oil, vinegar and herbs. Our waitress then offered us a  shaving of parmesan on it which just brought this salad over the top.

Trevor ordered a Veal  Frangelico, veal served on a bed of fettucini topped with button mushrooms in a Frangelico cream sauce with grilled asparagus. It was very tasty although he thought the mushrooms took away from the taste of the Frangelico, it would have been nicer to perhaps have crushed hazelnut pieces on it since Frangelico is a hazelnut liquer. The asparagus ends were a bit tough and the veal should have been pan fried quickly as opposed to grilled to make it a bit more tender. But overall Trevor enjoyed his dinner very much.

For my entrée I had Chicken Cacciatore.  This was not an item on the menu but being one of my favourites Trevor asked the chef to prepare this for me and we were impressed that he quite willingly did that. It was delicious. The chicken was not overcooked and there were two generous pieces of boneless breast.  The vegetables and sauce were very nice. As far as the pasta in both dishes we agree that this young man can cook pasta perfectly. The only negative thing I could say about my meal was that I wish there would have been some mushrooms in my meal.  It can be made with or without, that’s just a personal preference.

The presentation of each dish was done very nicely and the portions were enough to satisfy us without being too overwhelming.

Unfortunately we were too full to try the desserts although our mouths were watering at the dessert menu with limited but wonderful choices. The next time we are there we will definitely be trying the tartufo and there definitely will be a next time. We were quite impressed with this wonderful little find.

The prices are not overly high for this type of food and for the whole meal including two coffees we paid $67.68