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Villaggio Italiano is a welcoming, authentic
Italian eatery in Manalapan's Plaza del Mar.
A friend and I enjoyed the friendly service,
and we admired the grand paintings that hung on
the walls. The food tasted as if it had been
prepared in a real Italian kitchen.
Our fried calamari ($9.95) was a prime example.
The chef expertly avoided the common pitfalls of
overcooking and too much breading. Our last few
bites were every bit as tasty as the first.
The Caprese salad ($12.95) was a work of art.
The mozzarella, ripe tomato, basil and olive oil
not only looked attractive on the plate, the
combination tasted heavenly.
We also were pleased with the chicken
scalloppini piccata ($12.95) and ravioli ($14.95).
The chicken's light sauce was a delight, as was
the handmade taste of the cheese-filled ravioli.
As we traded bites, my friend and I had a hard
time deciding which dish we liked better.
Ultimately I decided the calamari appetizer left
the greatest impression on me.
We stayed awhile longer and enjoyed the
pleasant atmosphere as we sipped cups of coffee.
I've never been to a real Italian village, but
this kind of treatment might be pretty close to
the real thing.
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Remember the movie Big Night, that
homage to Italian cooking? If you do, there's
something about Villaggio Italiano, a
half-year-old Italian eatery in Manalapan's Plaza
Del Mar, that will seem familiar. Like the
restaurant in the film, it's a small and intimate
dining destination with the right degree of
classiness (note the white tablecloths). And it's
a place where you'll hear Italian spoken by just
about everyone ¿ from the wait staff to the
proprietor (Naples-born Tony Abouramani, a veteran
of the local restaurant scene). Then, there's the
food. It's not that Villaggio Italiano is the best
Italian restaurant in our midst (more on its
misfires later). But it's a place that doesn't
stick to the same formula of Southern Italian
favorites that so many others do. Rather, the
approach is to take the freshest ingredients and
present them with a touch of refinement, bypassing
the usual red-sauce preparations as much as
possible. The bottom line: Don't come here in
search of a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. But
do come for a perfect plate of cold antipasto ($19
for two), the starter we tried on our two visits.
It's what an antipasto should be ¿ choice Italian
cold cuts (the offerings change, but expect both
meats and cheeses) and a few extras (artichoke
hearts, olives, hearts of palm, some greens)
presented artfully on a platter. With a nice glass
of Chianti ¿ the restaurant's Italian-dominated
wine list has some solid choices ¿ you could
almost make a meal out of this. With entrees,
Villaggio Italiano was less consistent. We loved
one of the house's signature dishes ¿ Chicken
Villaggio ($21), a hearty but hardly ordinary
feast of chicken breasts with roasted red peppers,
prosciutto and melted mozzarella. Typical of the
restaurant's approach is that the accompanying
starch is not the usual ho-hum pasta, but roasted
potatoes. But while Chicken Villaggio always
remains on the menu, other dishes come and go,
depending on what's available. On one of our
visits, the restaurant had gotten hold of some
excellent Chilean sea bass and was serving it
Livornese-style, a slightly spicy preparation with
olives and capers ($29). Again, it proved to be
another nicely flavored dish ¿ satisfying in the
true regional Italian fashion (as opposed to the
overly sauced Italian-American one). Still, other
offerings didn't quite work. Veal Milanese ($28),
a familiar dish in which the fried veal is served
with salad atop, might have made for a wonderful
plus-sized feast ¿ the portion was enormous ¿ were
it not for the fact the meat tasted greasy. Even
worse was Orechiette Mediterraneo ($22), a dish
that combines the ear-shaped pasta with filet
mignon in a broth-like sauce. But the beef proved
to be tough going ¿ literally ¿ and the sauce
bordered on the watery. The restaurant says it
makes many of its desserts in-house, but the
effort didn't exactly show. Tiramisu ($7), another
Italian standby, had a texture that bordered on
the mushy. And an Italian chocolate cake ($7)
lacked the sort of decadent punch you expect in
such a sweet. A better bet proved to be a
tartufo-style preparation of amaretto ice cream
rolled in nuts. Oh, and while the American coffee
($2) was almost embarrassingly weak ¿ we sent it
back on one occasion, but a second cup proved only
slightly stronger ¿ the cappuccino ($6) was among
the finest we've had locally. Service can be pokey
and disorganized: Dishes take forever to arrive to
the table and waiters tend not to think of things
like refilling the bread basket unless prodded.
That said, there's a geniality to the place that
can't be denied. On one of our visit, the wait
staff fawned over our 7-year-old daughter, even
presenting her with a Shirley Temple on the house.
Somehow, such a gesture fits the spirit of
Villaggio Italiano, a place that's homey and
slightly sophisticated all at once. Call it the
Italian way. FOOD: B- SERVICE: C
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