Poco Pazzo: A Crazy Little Italian Eatery

One of the traditions that "the boss" and I have with our family is that we take both of our parents out to dinner for Mother's Day and Father's Day.  We are just too cheap to take them out on the day's of, so we arrange for a later date where both sets are available.  We first started with Sunday brunches but when we found Poco Pazzo, we realized that this place is an even better place to go!

Chef Emanuele is an Italian chef who trained in New York city and then move to Stittsville for love and opened Poco Pazzo.  The first time I went there was close to when I first moved into the area.  The decor is very modern, but intimate.  Over the summer, the Stittsville location has a patio.  He has been so successful at Stittsville, he opened a second location in Kanata.  The service staff is always excellent.  They are friendly, and very knowledgeable of the menu.  I good sign that the food is good, is when the staff eat there often enough to have their own favourites.  Most of the time we go, the place is always busy, so a reservation is recommended, but at times, it isn't needed.  They will try and fit you in if they can.

For the food, I have been there many times and tried out a few things (and yes, I do have my favourites).  For appetizers, their zucchini sticks are one of the better ones I have had.  They are not soggy, fresh, and not heavily battered.  We have also tried the calamari, eggplant, bruchetta, shrimp in garlic butter as well, all with great success.  They also bake their own bread, which always comes out fresh and hot with butter and olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  In the end, our favourite of all the appetizers is the mushroom bruschetta.  It's a different twist on bruschetta, where on the bread is a mound of mushrooms, and a bit of cheese, with a very light vinaigrette sauce drizzled over it.  This has pretty much now become our staple appetizer.

For main courses, there has been a large variety of mains that we have sampled.  My mom always gets the spaghetti and meatballs.  She loves the meatball spices and the sauce.  Simple yet with lots of flavour.  Dad loves his fettuccine alfredo con pollo which I have also tried.  Very creamy and exactly what I could expect.  The boss is always in love with the same dish.  She gets the same one, every time, which is the gnocchi sorrentina.  The oven baked potatoe pasta reminds her a lot of her youth and was always a favourite of her grandmothers.  For myself, the chicken parmigina has always been one of my favourite picks.  You get a very large piece of chicken, served with a side of pasta.  The chicken parmigina sometimes comes in a variation as a special.  They add on shrimp on top with the pasta being upgraded to a fettuccine alfredo.  The upgrade is well worth it!!  Another special they serve is ground veal served in giant pasta shells in a gorgonzola sauce.  It is VERY good.  The gorgonzola is a little to heavy for my stomach, but I still order it because it is just that good.  With portion sizes at Poco Pazzo, you can expect to have leftovers most of the time.

For desert, assuming you have room or saved room, the tiramisu is very good.  We did find that the lady fingers were a little too over soaked, so they were too mushy, but not to the point where the flavour suffered.  The "senator pucks" desert, which is a lava cake was also very tasty but over cooked.  The lava cake did not ooze out the chocolate as it is supposed to.  A little disappointed on that end.  They do have a very good selection of wine and liqueurs, with a number of beers in bottles.

Overall, as you can tell by the number of things we have tried there, we do go back, and we do go back often.  We have even worked with the chef for a little bit of catering on the side, and he was nothing but friendly, professional and very easy to work with.  This is a place that I would recommend for anyone to try.

Review (out of 5):
Food: * * * *
Value: * * * * 1/2
Atmosphere: * * * * *
Service: * * * *
Price Range: $12 - $30
Website: http://www.pocopazzo.com/

Napoli's Café

After a long week, we decided to go out and try out places in the area. After some research online (google does wonders), we decided on a place called Napoli's cafe. The menu look good and the as did the pictures in the atmosphere. The website did a good job at selling the joint. This does wonders to demonstrate how a good website can really help a restaurant.

This place is a small Italian place with an outdoor patio. There's a bar when you walk in with some TV's showing the food network. Brownie points for that! There were booths on one side and table on the other. We were greeted by a gentleman whom I believe was one of the owners. He sat us down and was quickly asked about drinks. The place wasn't full, but it wasn't empty as well. The noise level wasn't loud, nor too quiet. We dressed up for this place a little bit, but there were customers there who had shorts, or jeans, so I'd say the atmosphere is casual.

For drinks, we decided on a half carafe of red wine and had our orders taken. We started with some zucchini sticks, and I ordered the tortellini con funghi and the boss ordered gnocchi. The appetizers came out very quick, and it was hot, plentiful and very tasty. Bread was also served, but was never offered more when the bread bowl was empty. While waiting for the main course, the place started to fill in more. It still wasn't packed, but it wasn't busy. We got our food, and was offered fresh ground pepper and parm cheese. This is when I noticed that the table behind us, who was there before us, still had not gotten their appetizers yet. Ignoring that fact for the moment, I dug into my food. The cream sauce was very rich, and the portion was very good. It was good, but it wasn't the best I've had. I found the sauce to be almost too heavy. The boss dug into her gnocchi and was very disappointed. The pasta itself was decent, but the tomato sauce has no flavour at all. There was no fresh herbs in it, so really, everything tasted bland. To sum it up, that dish was edible, but not enjoyable.

The service is really what got to us about this place. The food took a little longer then expected for how busy the place was. It wasn't until I was 3/4 done my plate and the Boss half done with her plate before anyone came over to ask how our food was. By the time we got our bills, the table behind us, that was there before us, got their food. I could overhear them saying how they asked a few times to have a faster meal because they were going to Bluesfest. There just wasn't enough staff in the place. There was the owner doing one side, the waitress, one lady who didn't seem to do much, and the busgirl.

The price of the meal was ok. I would not call it a cheap place to eat, but it was not overly pricey either.

Overall, the decor was excellent, but the food and service brought the place down. Would I go back? Not by my own choice, but if someone wanted to still go there, I'd still go.

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * *

Value: * * *

Atmosphere: * * * *

Service: * * *

Price range (dinner): $15-$30

Website: http://www.napoliscafe.com/