Mediterraneo: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

On Monday we went to Mediterraneo for lunch. I’d been there a couple of times before and found the food to be “pretty good”, but a tad overpriced for lunch. (90% of downtown Sarasota restaurants are overpriced for lunch, so I guess this is nothing new.)

This time I took a recommendation and ordered the fettuccini with the sausage ragout (I don’t have a menu with me so I don’t recall the actual fancy Italian name, but fettuccini with sausage ragout will get you the right item). We also ordered a veal dish and a salmon dish. Again… no menu on hand so I can’t give you the correct names.

The bread brought out to snack on was standard fare and contained no surprises. We mowed through it and the waitress noticed and mentioned she’d bring some more. We had to remind her after she brought our entrées and she pulled the old, “Oh, I thought somebody else brought it to you” in a weak attempt to cover up her mistake. While I was slightly annoyed about the tardy bread I was more annoyed that she didn’t just say “oops”.

Does my previous statement seem a little persnickety to you? Well, maybe so. I think I was a cranky at the time because the chairs are so uncomfortable that it was souring my mood. In my humble opinion, Mediterraneo has the worst chairs in restaurant history. By the time we were ready to leave I was thinking I might need a visit to a chiropractor to fix this lunch.

It took a while for the lunch entrées to make it to the table. They weren’t especially busy on this day, so make sure you have plenty of time for your lunch. In light of the chair issue you might want to take this time to get up and walk around a bit.

I have to say that I really liked my fettuccini. It qualifies as a “very good”. It completely surpassed my expectations. Most surprising of all was that it was spicy! I don’t know how many readers have eaten in Sarasota before, but finding food with strong flavor in this town is a lot like finding a Marriott Suites on the moon--unexpected and a little daring.

The veal dish was one that had been ordered many times before. I’ve personally never had it, but since it gets re-ordered I have to assume it’s a decent item.

The salmon deserves some special attention. The first words uttered were, “Zoria makes a better a salmon.” Now, I don’t want any readers to get fooled into thinking I’d ever recommend Zoria, but if you do go there the Salmon was the only decent thing I ever ate there. The fact that Zoria makes a better salmon does not bode well for Mediterraneo.

The less-than-proud owner of the salmon did not appear to enjoy eating his lunch at all. That also says a lot because this guy is never without a grin on his face.
However, the real review came a few hours later when he got sick and left work early. The following morning I heard some pretty gruesome stories best left unwritten. Remember the grim warning in “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life”? Don’t eat the salmon!

Even with the salmon incident we’ll probably end up going there for lunch again. With summer approaching we find ourselves less willing to make long treks from the office, and Mediterraneo is pretty close to us. It was never a first choice for us though, and I’m pretty certain we won’t be ordering seafood.

Here’s their info:

MEDITERRANEO
1970 Main Street, Sarasota
(941) 365-4122

PS: I found a menu online but unfortunately it is not the current menu. It has similar dishes to the ones we had above but it doesn’t have the lunch version of the veal and it doesn’t have the fettuccini version of sausage ragout. I suspect it is a really old menu because the actual prices are somewhat higher than what’s listed on this site.

Here it is: http://sarasota-italian.com

Lunch at Bella Gente

Thursday lunch for my co-workers and I is generally at Esca, on Links and Main. However, when we arrived yesterday we found the place closed with a sign saying no more lunch service for the summer. This is a disturbing trend. In the short time I've been in Sarasota this is the third place that closed for lunch, and another has closed entirely for the summer.

However, some one knew of a place that opened not far away so we walked to it. This place is called Bella Gente.

Bella Gente is, of course, yet another Italian deli. I can think of 8 other Italian cafes on Main between Washington and 41, but apparently there's always room for one more. At least these folks are open for lunch.

The cafe is fairly small and well lit. The place has an airy feeling about it. It was fairly attractive and looked clean. Service was very prompt. We had barely been seated when the waitress came over and took drink orders.

When asked for unsweetened tea we were told they don't have that. This is the first place I've ever been that didn't serve plain ole iced tea. However, they have a wide assortment of extremely sweetened tea if you're in to that sort of thing. They do carry some sort of sparkingly water that is not Perrier or Pelegrino. I ended up drinking "Sarasota water".

In a bid to be different Bella Gente doesn't bring bread to the table... they bring a plate full of mozzarella. I added some oil and pepper and it was tastey. It was like a caprese without the tomato and basil.

Their menu is primarily salads and focaccia breads. They have fancy Italian names for them but I like calling a spade a spade. Almost every item on the menu is made with Italian meats (porchetta, prosciutto, salame, etc) and cheese (mozzarella, mozzarella, and mozarella). At first glance the menu seems reasonably priced. In fact, I'd say its inexpensive by normal downtown Sarasota standards.

The three items ordered were: Porchetta focaccia (with artichokes and lettuce), Lasagna (with a bolognese sauce), and the Pasta al Forno.

I ate the lasagna. It was pretty good. I'm a huge fan of bolognese sauce and this was as good as most. The chef added some sort of dry, crunchy thing on top... I couldn't tell of it was bread or something else. It made for interesting texture but definately detracted from the overall taste of the dish. The portion was smallish, but well suited for lunch. All in all, this dish gets my approval.

The Porchetta focaccia got a resounding "it's ok".

The owner of the Pasta al Forna was a little disappointed. Apparently this means "mac and cheese" in Italian. Literally this was a bowl of elbow macaroni covered with various melted (and unmelted) cheeses. The description on the menu mentioned "seasonal vegetables", but I'm guessing Italy has no veggies in season right now since none actually came with the mac and cheese. It looked pretty good for mac and cheese so we'll nudge the score up a little and call this "ok+".

It appears as though my lasagna was the big winner here. As well it should since it was the most expensive thing on the lunch menu coming in at $12.90. The other dishes were significantly less.

All told I'd give a thumbs up to this place. The low cost (for downtown Sarasota) combined with the above "ok" average rating for the food makes this a nice value.

Their menu has some breakfast items on it which appear to be bread covered with sweet things. Its not really my cup to tea so I'll pass on it. If anyone tries this be sure to leave a comment. They appear to have lots of nice deli meats and cheeses (including cheese that is not mozzarella).

Here are the details for place:

Bella Gente
32 S. Osprey Ave
Sarasota, FL 34236
http://www.sarasotabellagente.com

(Note: the URL above doesn't seem to work even though its listed on their menu. Maybe its just not working yet at the time of this review.)

Happy eating.