Ristorante Genovese
214 North Tustin St.
Orange, CA 92867
Italian food is always a good choice during the colder months. In case you are not reading this, in Southern California, we have been hit by a series of rainstorms for the last month and a half, which have freaked many people out. We are getting three days of rain every week, and for us Californians, that is a big deal. People are planning their days around light to moderate rain storms by doing all their errands four days a week when it is not raining. We were lucky to dodge the raindrops on a recent restaurant meet-up with my parents at a spot I had never heard of, Ristorante Genovese in Orange.
I must have passed this place hundreds of times since it opened in 1984. Right beside the Sky Palm Motel and breakfast favorite Arthur's, Ristorante Genovese is a small, white, green-trimmed restaurant with plenty of signage facing busy Tustin Avenue. The Genovese's are a restaurant family. They operated Genovese Steak House in Santa Ana from 1947 to 1984 and then reopened as an Italian restaurant in their present location. Their website lists three generations of family members who have worked here and employees who have at least 10-plus years at this establishment.
The menu at Genovese's is slanted towards Sicilian-style Italian. There's a good assortment of appetizers, pasta dishes, house specialties, Italian seafood offerings, and last. Still, not least, they have their chef's extraordinary specials, which are big-ticket items like Osso Bucco, bone-in ribeye, and a veal dish. These all go for right around $30. Checking out the menu beforehand, I was still undecided when driving up for dinner with my parents.
Ristorante Genovese was packed on the recent Friday evening we were here, but we were lucky to be seated rather quickly in a pretty spacious booth near the restaurant's back entrance. There's plenty to take in here. There are many knickknacks all over the place, plenty of Elvis pictures lining the walls, and a small eight-seat bar in the front of the restaurant. A patio's also out back, which would be ideal for the warmer months. They also were fully decorated for Valentine's Day, with plenty of hearts everywhere. Love was definitely in the air, and I hoped that would carry over with a love for the food. Let's see if that would be the case.
The menu at Ristorante Genovese states that only two servings of Garlic Bread will be served per guest. I guess they had a bunch of deadbeats sitting there all day scarfing down their garlic bread. Can't really blame them, as this was a pretty solid version. This may sound like a diss, but it's not. This bread reminded me of the garlic bread my mom made when we were growing up. She would spread some of the Lawry's Garlic Spread on some bread and place it under the broiler. I loved it as a kid, and that's what was conjured up in my mind as we each had our allotted bread quota.
Most dinners include your choice of soup or salad, and the two of us who had that option went with the Dinner Salad ($3.95). This basic salad included some fresh greens, a few shredded carrots, and just enough blue cheese dressing. Nothing is earth-shattering about this, but I always enjoy it when a dinner salad is included.
Let's start the entree portion of our meal with Katie's selection, the Tortellini ($16.25). The fresh tortellini was meat-filled and came bathed in one of the better Alfredo sauces we have had. The bite I tried was good, but I would not have known that there was meat in the tortellini if it were not stated on the menu. The Alfredo sauce was definitely the star of the show with this entree, as both Katie and I scraped her bowl clean with our allocated garlic bread before her bowl was taken away.
My mom was torn between the spaghetti and the lasagna. As you can see from the above pic, the Lasagna ($17.25) won out. This came out of the kitchen on fire, with noticeable steam rising from it once it was placed on our table for a good amount of time. My mom initially liked this but thought it was too soupy. It lacked the structure and crisp edges that are some of her favorite parts of other lasagnas. My bite was acceptable, and I could see what she was talking about with it being soupy. The cheese took over here and made the noodles and inside guts of this lasagna insignificant. Not awful, but she's had better.
My Dad got the Chicken Piccata ($23.50) for his meal at Ristorante Genovese. The chicken was topped with plenty of mushrooms, capers, garlic, white wine, and some lemon. The big guy made quick work of this, which he thought was good. The chicken was tender, and he loved the mushrooms and sauce this came out with. It was also accompanied by a portion of spaghetti with meat sauce and the day's vegetable, which was green beans when we were here. Both were fine.
I need to order more veal. I decided to rectify that situation by getting the Veal Saltin Bocca Alla Romana ($28.50). With this one, veal medallions are topped with prosciutto, provolone, and mushrooms. I was unimpressed with this dish. You get veal because you want it to be very tender, and this was not that. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say they made a mistake and had given me chicken instead. The veal in this was lost in the shuffle and was outshined by the mushrooms and cheese. My dish also came with spaghetti with meat sauce and green beans.
Because my meal was a little on the small side, I definitely had room for dessert, and apparently, so did everyone else since we got two. The first was a Gelato Truffle ($5.95). This ball of gelato came out hard as a rock. We had to let it sit for a few minutes until it got softer to break into it. It was OK but not very noteworthy. I did not even write about it in my notes. The Chocolate Fudge Cake was better. It was joined on the plate by some raspberry and chocolate streaks and three whipped cream piles. The cake was moist, and the icing was not sickeningly sweet. I would have liked this even better with ice cream, which would have made this more like the hot fudge cake at Bob's, one of my childhood favorites.
Our visit to Ristorante Genovese was satisfactory but not mind-blowing. My meal was a real letdown, as it was not what I expected when ordering veal, and the serving size and price were all out of whack. I was still hungry after leaving the restaurant and did not feel like I got $30 worth of food. In fact, all of the meals were a little on the puny side. Not one of us took food home for the next day, which is rare when my light-eating mom is eating in a restaurant. The garlic bread and Katie's meal were standouts, but that's all I'll remember about these meals months from now. Service was good, especially considering how busy they were. Since we probably only have another month before we start heating up in OC, I look forward to more Italian food on these frigid, high, 50-degree evenings.
Out of five palaces (because the surname Genovese means a person from Genoa, and one of the most popular attractions there is a small street lined with giant palaces, the Via Garibaldi Palaces), five being best to zero being worst, Ristorante Genovese gets 2.5 palaces.
For more information about Ristorante Genovese, head to their website here: http://www.ristorantegenovese.com/Index.html
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