Multiple Locations: Vienna, VA; Sterling, VA; Columbia, MD; Rockville, MD.
Metros (short cab from either): Vienna/Fairfax - Vienna; Shady Grove - Rockville
Type of Cuisine: Italian (Family Style)
This will be an interesting one because it's the first time I am writing up a place that I have been to many times in my life. That's Amore is a family style Italian restaurant (in the vain of Maggiano's but better). It is a Washington, DC metropolitan area chain and I believe their original restaurant is the Shady Grove location, even though their corporate offices are in Vienna. They have not expanded beyond the Washington, DC area at this point and have probably been around for about 15 or 16 years. I grew up going to their Shady Grove location and enjoying their family style dishes many years before I started thinking about the food I'm eating, so it will be interesting to see how this comes out. I went the other night with my parents and brother (I think I've only been there once without my parents). Everything is served family style or "solo" but for the most part, you go to That's Amore to order family style.
Menu:
Appetizer: Insalata Amore (Famiglia)- Mixed greens with sliced Italian meats and cheeses. Solo – 7.29 Famiglia – 13.99
Entrees:
Brother - (solo) Baked Rigatoni AlfornoBaked in a casserole with meat sauce, ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella. Solo – 13.99 Famiglia – 24.99
Shared - Chicken Cacciatore (Famiglia) - Slow cooked bone in chicken classically prepared with peppers, tomatoes, olives and onions (worth the wait)Solo – 14.99 Famiglia – 26.99
Shared - (Special) Sauteed Fileted Rockfish served with scallops, asparagus, onions and peppers in a light butter sauce. (famiglia) - $34.99
Side: Vesuvio Potatoes
Dessert:
Me - Cannoli Di CioccolataChocolate dipped cannoli shell filled with a sweet ricotta filling and dipped in chocolate chips. 5.59
Father - Unnamed Chef's Creation - Puff pastry on top with a strawberry cream layer beneath and a white cake underneath that. Served over a vanilla cream. 6.99
Brother - Bread Pudding: Homemade with zabaglione and bourbon caramel sauces. 5.99
Sweet:
Vesuvio Potatoes - Ever since I was young, I have enjoyed the Vesuvio potatoes at That's Amore. They are a very basic roasted potato with tons and tons of garlic, I believe oregano and a few other spices. Since the very beginning, they have been one of the best things on the menu. They are available both with the chicken vesuvio (which always comes out a little dry) and on their own. They have a delicious sweet and garlicky taste that is definitely
strong and will instantly repel any kiss attempts (but are totally worth it). If there's ever a reason to go to That's Amore, it's to try the Vesuvio Potatoes.
Chocolate Cannoli - The cannolis at That's Amore have also long been among my favorites. They are hardly a New York or even a Baltimore's Little Italy cannoli, but they do come somewhat close to the latter. The cheese is sweet and the shell is hard, but a bit moist. It contains the right amount of sugar in the batter and coating it. The chocolate coating is also nice, but the chocolate chips that surround the ricotta may be a little bit overkill. They can mess up the texture somewhat. All in all, it's a very good cannoli and worth the price of admission.
Atmosphere - I've always liked the atmosphere at That's Amore. It's simple and elegant. The tables are relatively well spread out and there's plenty of room for the waiters or the patrons to move around. The bathrooms and everything are pretty clean and they always have some soft Italian music playing in the bathroom (which I think is a much better choice at an Italian restaurant than Sinatra). The music is soft enough that it won't bother any conversation and the only time you will really notice it is when you or your companion is going to the bathroom and you have no one talking around you. The acoustics are also very good so that conversation stays at your table, but you don't have much trouble hearing from those at your table.
Bland:
Chicken Caciattore: This has been one of the favorites of my family for many many years as well. It's always been a delightfully boiled/roasted chicken with plenty of who tomatoes with some tomatoey sauce, mushrooms, green, red and yellow peppers. It always took a little bit longer than the other items, but as the menu said, worth the wait. I've always liked, if not loved, the dish. It was always on that borderline between "sweet and bland" for me. Unfortunately, the quality of this dish went down a little bit. Possibly due to the service the dish, instead of taking about an extra ten minutes, probably took about an hour plus to come out. Once the wait becomes that long (I had to cancel everything else that night because dinner took about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes longer than i thought it would) it's not worth it. The chicken came out a little crisper than it usually does, which I thought was a good thing because I don't usually like the goose bumps that come on the skin, but it led my Mom (who thinks about the dish in her sleep) to say it wasn't very good. I was disappointed that their sauce seems to have gotten less flavorful and there seems to be less of it (particularly in the form of tomatoes). All in all, it was a disappointment.
Rockfish: The rockfish was in a bit of a sweet sauce that definitely took more of the flavor of the scallops as well as the butter. The sauce was interesting, but it was a little bit too buttery. As always, I enjoyed the inclusion of asparagus in the item. The fish itself was largely moist, but was inconsistent throughout and definitely included a large number of dry patches. The outside of the fish was a bit crisp and was actually very pleasant in flavor and texture. The inconsistency of the inside drew away from it some. All in all, it was an interesting dish, but I will say that it's a good amount of decent rockfish, particularly for $34.99 for the family portion.
Bread Pudding: Now I never get bread pudding in any restaurant that i would consider close to fine dining. I also wouldn't get bread pudding in an Italian restaurant because it's not something that seems overly Italian. This bread pudding was pretty plain, bread pudding with caramel sauce. It was pretty good and very heavy and buttery, but it's the same bread pudding that you can get anywhere else. In fact, I don't think it seemed nearly as good as the bread pudding I had later in the week at a much less fine dining restaurant (although the dessert prices were the same). The bread pudding was good, but only if you're not really willing to try anything more Italian. I think that my brother just wanted to get something even more filling to add to his meal.
Bitter:
The Menu: The menu was very vague in general. It did not do a very good job of describing anything on the menu. It mentions "peppers," "greens," "vegetables" and "meats" in multiple places. It almost seems like it's going to be whatever they happen to have in the kitchen that day. A menu should tell you, in words that you understand, what is going to be in your item. This did not succeed there.
Wine List: I was back and forth on whether I wanted a glass of wine when I got there. I took one look at their wine list and was completely unimpressed. While they had an array of inexpensive to expensive wines, there was nothing thhat was particularly intriguing. It was almost all Italian and they didn't even have a good selection of Italian wines. Their reds were okay and their whites were actually downright pathetic. Definitely not a place I would recommend the wine list.
Insalata Amore: That salad was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night (another item my mother dreams about). This salad was once a beacon of the That's Amore regime in moderately affordable, local, Italian cuisine. The greens were nice, the meat was well put together, the cheeses were multiple and plentiful and the dressing was perfectly tangy. Now, the dressing has gone down a bit (it is more oily and than tangy), they scrimped a little bit on the meat and seem to be using more salami and less mortadella and other hams. The "mixed greens" are actually a combination of ice berg and romaine. It's hardly the combination that you would look for when you're considering mixed greens, but there it is folks. The salad was very disappointing and definitely fell from the plateau it once held.
Chef's Creation: This dessert was a little bit disappointing as it was strange. As I said above, it was a puff pastry on top with a cake bottom and a strawberry cream inside. The taste was okay, but the textures were so many and it was so difficult to eat that I didn't really know how to apporach it. The dessert tray (which may have been the first dessert tray I remember being brought to my table when I was younger) made it seem like the cream was actual strawberries (which may have been better). I didn't really know how to characterize this so I couldn't really appreciate it at all. Fortunately, it was my father's dessert and he ate most of it.
Baked Rigatoni: I didn't have any of it, it was my brother's entree, but he didn't seem to like it and there wasn't much to it. There was very little meat in it and it seemed very "overbaked." It didn't look very impressive as it seemed like a mess of ricotta cheese and sauce pushed around. It didn't even look too appetizing. I think it was definitely a loser. My brother was lamenting that he should have tried the lasagna.
Service: I don't know what to say here. At least the waiter was very clean. I was in the bathroom at the same time as he was washing his hands. He did a solid 30 second hand wash followed by very carefully opening the door with the paper towel. That's about the only good thing to say about our server. Needless to say, he didnt' want to be there (and I think he was out smoking so often that he was hardly there). He didn't do a very good job keeping our drinks full, he walked away when we were almost ready to order and came back 25 minutes later. Somehow the chicken cacciattore took an hour to make. He was rude about half of the time, didn't seem very knowledgeable of the menu and was extremely inefficient. He was extremely apologetic all the time and seemed to feel like that rescued him in our table's mind (and unfortunately my mother decided that it rescued his tip. She thought he was "just overwhelmed." I tried to inform her of my theory of the overwhelmed server: they have more tables, they get a lower tip per table, they still make more money than if they weren't overwhelmed). Service that bad can REALLY detract from the experience.
Recommendation:
Quality: **
Value: ***
The restaurant is a little bit disappointing in terms of quality. It used to be much better than it is now. I think you need to find the right items on the list and go for them though. The restaurant is generally relatively convenient to get to in the suburbs. It's a good last second type of place to go, somewhere in a pinch, but not if you're planning a big night out. I think then you'll be a little bit disappointed.
It's actually a pretty good value. The prices in general are less expensive than a lot of the other Italian places around (Italian tends to be way overpriced around DC). The family style menu increases the value if you can agree on entrees (as I said before $34.99 for that much rockfish is a good deal). If the quality of the food were as good as it once was, I would have called it one of the best bargains in the city.
