Cafe Valentina

By -
Located in a small strip mall behind a gas station, Café Valentina isn’t easy to find. This small, somewhat cramped neighborhood Italian restaurant offers a casual atmosphere, with an intimate dining area in the front and a tiny bar in the back. The menu isn’t imaginative by any means, but features a nice selection of Italian standards, including pasta, pizza, veal, chicken, and seafood dishes.

Jeff’s Take:

Café Valentina is known for its delicious garlic bread, and deservedly so. Each table gets a serving of large, pillowy dinner rolls, drenched in extra virgin olive oil with fresh chopped garlic and a sprinkling of parsley. What makes it so good is that rather than serving the olive oil on the side, like most restaurants, the plated garlic bread at Café Valentina is already swimming in the olive oil and garlic, so the bread has gotten a chance to absorb the flavor. Despite the large size of the rolls, a second helping was necessary.

For my entrée, I ordered the Veal Saltimbocca Romana—a thinly sliced veal cutlet topped with prosciutto and fresh mozzarella, served in an olive oil, broth, and white wine sauce. The sauce was excellent—light and zesty with some nice Italian herbs. However, the veal was much too bland and tough. Veal is supposed to be much more tender than a regular beef steak, but this one was rubbery and overcooked. Not even the prosciutto, mozzarella, or the sauce could save this one.

The meal also came with an underwhelming salad and a side of pasta with marinara sauce. The light, simple marinara sauce on the pasta was on the sweeter side, which I liked, but was too watery.

It was disappointing to have a meal start off so well and falter at the main course. I wouldn’t consider Café Valentina to be a destination for great Italian food, but if you love garlic bread, a special trip is warranted.




Mike's Take:

I have quite a different take on Cafe Valentina than Jeff. While I agree that the salads are completely underwhelming and probably come from a Grocery Store Bag-O-Salad, I have thoroughly enjoyed my dishes on both my trips to Cafe Valentina.

Jeff has already touched on the fantastic garlic rolls, which are probably the best I have ever had, but I believe he made a mistake in ordering the veal. On an earlier trip, I had Cafe Valentina's Homemade Gnocchis. While these were not the best gnocchis I've ever had, they were very scrumptious. Cafe Valentina's strength is clearly in the starches and homemade recipes. On this past visit, I went with a homemade spaghetti pasta with meat sauce. Again, the homemade pasta was perfectly cooked and quite good. I also prefer my sauce to be on the thinner side, so I definitely disagree with the assessment that it is too watery. To me, too watery means a lack of flavor in the sauce and an overall blandness. While Cafe Valentina's sauce is thin, I think it has an excellent sweet flavor. The thinness of the sauce allowed my sauce to drip down into the pasta and left all the delicious meat on top allowing the sauce to be absorbed by the pasta.

Cafe Valentina's weak point is certainly its weak salad (and apparently it's veal) but is strong in its homemade italian recipes and starches. It's hard to penalize the place on its salad since the little restaurant is a great value with huge portions that include amazing garlic rolls and a salad. I definitely would petition Jeff to give Cafe Valentina another shot and recommend he try a pasta dish. Though, Cafe Valentina is clearly lacking in the slaughter department.




1323 McKennans Church Rd.
Wilmington, DE 19808
(302) 996-0301
http://www.cafevalentina.com/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beau Monde Creperie

By -
Image
This authentic French creperie is located just a block from the lively South Street shops and bars in Philadelphia , and offers both elegant indoor and outdoor dining. Beau Monde’s crepe menu is divided into two categories: savory and sweet. For either type, you can either order from a list of house recommendation crepes, or you can get creative and build your own crepe from a bevy of filling options. The savory crepes, which generally run for about $12-14, are served in a thin buckwheat pancake and can include fillings such as cheese or sauce and meats such as ham, chicken breast, andouille sausage, or fish, and vegetables such as tomatoes, mushrooms, or roasted leeks. The sweet crepes, usually from about $8-10, are made with wheat flour and also feature numerous options, such as flavored butter, chocolate, fresh fruit, ice cream, or custard. Jeff’s Take: For my savory crepe, I went with the coq au vin—a classic French dish that’s slow cooked with chicken, red wine, baby onions, mush
Read more

Food Country: About Us

By -
Image
The idea of Food Country came up almost by accident. When arguing with a vegetarian friend in high school, one of us remarked that she was “a disgrace to our country.” “And what country is that?” our friend replied. And Food Country was born. Food Country has since stood as a symbol of our food ideals. We love meat (or as we sometimes call it, “slaughter”) in its many forms, and believe it should be incorporated whenever possible. We’re not saying that other food groups should be excluded—in fact, they often complement meat well or can even stand on their own. But meat serves as the foundation of Food Country. In addition, we have high standards for our food in general. But we’re not snobs about it. We believe that good food doesn't have to cost a lot. For that reason, we plan to review everything from food carts to upscale restaurants. We started this blog because we love food, and because we want to provide a trusted resource, honoring the values of Food Country, on where to get
Read more

Taqueria Moroleon

By -
Mike's Take: Taqueria Morleon is a little hole in the wall Mexican Restaurant on the outskirts of Kennett Square. It is in a shopping strip next to a Capriotti's. My work colleague and I were debating on eating at the Capriotti's or trying this "quaint" Mexican restaurant. Let's just say we made the wrong decision. Taqueria Moroleon's atmosphere was adequate, having all the typically bright painted walls and Mexican flair. The lighting is a bit dim, but the atmosphere and facility is not where Taqueria Morleon stumbles. Let me start off with the highlight of the meal - The tortilla chips and salsa. Chips were good and there were 2 salsas to choose from: a mildly fresh salsa and a waterier spicy salsa. That's pretty much where the positives end, so let's move onto how this was one of my worst restaurant experiences of recent memory. The chips were ok, but the iced teas we ordered were pretty awful. My colleague described them, as "Dirty Waters.
Read more