Cenare Italian Cuisine

Cenare is like Olive Garden in where in the Olive Garden commercials they tell you that they send their chefs to Italy to learn how to cool Italian food properly, except all the people that work at Cenare are actually from Italy, and speak Italian, and might be in the mob.  Okay I'm joking about that last bit (please don't put a hit out on me Mr. G).

Seriously though, if you're looking for a good date place, this works well.  I would put it somewhere between Olive Garden (blah) and better known local Italian restaurants such as Caffe Capri. - Please note that this is just an example, I haven't been to Caffe Capri in years and need to revisit it for reviewing.  But I digress, the pricing and ambiance are a step up from Olive Garden, but its still a little weird.  They have genuine wax candles but they're battery powered.  And there was definitely some 80s music playing that didn't quite fit the atmosphere.  But all this can be ignored when your waiter is really from Italy and has an awesome accent and sweet hair.  Seriously, if you go, ask for Giovanni you won't be disappointed, he's a cool dude.

On to the meal!  I had the Lasagna which I was assured by Giovanni was one of their best and I wasn't disappointed.  Others had the chicken and other pasta dishes and all enjoyed them.  To top it all off, Mr. G showed up at the end and talked to our table.  

Overall it was a swell night at a semi-fancy Italian place.  It felt like I was eating fancy but the prices were reasonable which made things better.  The restaurant is also connected to Terrazzo so if you want a fancy dessert too you can get that.

Italian food is like Mexican in that a lot of restaurants make it but few do it well.  Cenare makes me wish for more Italian restaurants with more options in the area.  That way I could eat more breadsticks without being judged.

You can save some time and money by going to HEB and buying the exact same food yourself. And I mean EXACT same food except with better sauces.

But it wasn't awful. There are better italian restaurants in town, including the chains, just go there.

We came in and did not think this was a very upscale place. The most expensive thing on the menu was under $20 dollars and not a super amount of variety. I ordered the lasagna, my son had spaghetti with meatballs and my wife had the linguine with clams.

They started us with fresh warm bread that was pretty good. They didn't have butter but brought us olive oil after asking. The salad was average and I ordered stuffed mushrooms which were 5 and decent.

There was a single waitress covering all tables at 5pm and the owner came out and talked to 2 couples who seemed to be regulars. She did not stop by our table while I tried to flag the waitress running around to get tea refills. Eventually another person came and helped, but it did not seem like much interest in good service expect for the single waitperson who was hustling. I tipped her well but thought the owner and other person could have helped out more.

My meal wasn't outstanding for flavor or style but good average Italian food.  I did feel pleased as sometimes Italian food is super small portion trying to be snooty and super large portion sacrificing quality. I would say the portion was just right so made me feel pretty good in the end. My wife said the same thing.