Cicero's a Hidden Gem?

                                                                   Cicero's Pizzeria

                                                          26861 Trabuco Road, Suite B

                                                             Mission Viejo, CA 92691

This week in Mission Viejo has been one of the wettest that I can remember, and I know for some of you that do not live in southern California, you think we are a bunch of babies, but it has been down to like 50 degrees lately. Time to break out the parkas! So on one of these cold rainy nights my girlfriend and I did not want to stray far from home, so we headed to Cicero's about two blocks from my house.

I had always heard about this place, and we always get coupons for them, but I had yet to make it in until now. So lets see if I had been missing something.

On this Wednesday night the place was deserted except for the two of us brave souls fighting the elements for the two blocks it took us to get here. The restaurant is in the corner of the Ralph's shopping center, at Trabuco and Alicia. Pretty tucked away if you are not looking for it. They have four booths and a painted wall, with I am sure some of their loyal customers depicted in the picture. The place seems pretty down to earth, and has me curious about the food.

We both got entree's, and these are the salads that are served with them. Pretty good size and really tasty. I really liked the garbanzo beans and beets that came on this very cold salad.

Katie went with the cheese ravioli. The meat sauce was really good, and the ravioli, stuffed with ricotta and Romano cheeses was also good. This plate and mine really came out hot, very nice on a rainy night.

Here is my cheesy lasagna. Once again the meat sauce on this dish was very good. At first I thought that this was not going to be enough to fill me up, but the serving size for this dish was a very good value for the ten dollar price tag. I would  definitely get this meal again when we come back.

Cicero's was a pleasant surprise in our own backyard. Both Katie and I are very eager to try the pizza next time. As we were there, at least ten people came in to pick up their pizzas, so if these brave citizens were willing to brave the elements to try Cicero's pizza, it must be a decent pie.

In honor of the rainy weather, out of five umbrellas, five being best to zero being worst, Cicero's receives three umbrellas.

If you would like, you can find information on Cicero's here: http://www.cicerospizzeria.com/