DAY 2 (Part 1) Starring Rolls and Mama Melrose
We were up & at 'em for DHS Extra Magic Hours and after D and Melissa rode Rock'n Rollercoaster, they were feeling a bit peckish. I must admit this excited me, because I could steer them to Starring Rolls, a place I'd been dying to go to. Sadly, I don't have ANY pictures of this outing, but I got one of the best butter croissants I'd ever had. So LIGHT, so FRESH - a real pleasure to eat. I did see the legendary Butterfinger cupcake while I was in there, but it didn't appeal to me. D got a cherry danish. Starring Rolls is tiny and cute, though people seem to find it a bit hard to navigate, for some reason.
Our next meal was at Mama Melrose. Melissa had always wanted to try it. I was a bit apprehensive. To me, Italian-American food is what I think of as homecookin'. My paternal grandmother was Italian and an excellent cook and she taught my mom all her recipes (fortunately for us, since my maternal grandmother was a lovely lady with a couple of good dishes in her repertoire, but was also known for atrocities like 'Hawaiian lasagna' - so named because she used pineapple cottage cheese accidentally). Also, I'd read a lot of terrible reviews of this restaurant.
At any rate, we were seated super-quickly for our lunch. The decor is faux grapes, dried pasta, bottles of wine/olive oil and exposed brick. Comforting and familiar, if not ground-breaking. Our waiter came over to ask what beverages we wanted. Melissa asked if they had cherry Coke. They did not, but he offered to put grenadine in a Coke for her. A Roy Rogers! I hadn't had one in years! Of course, we all got them.
He brought over some warm rolls and olive oil for dipping. Bread at Italian restaurants is why I never, ever order pasta dishes. Its siren call is too hard to resist. The olive oil was pretty low quality for a dipping oil. I could feel the acidity burn at the back of my throat. Easily fixed by just eating plain bread, which is fine by me when it's still warm from the oven/breadwarmer.
Melissa and Derrick both ordered the chicken parmagiana while I asked for the pork saltimbocca. I was happy to see a pork dish on the menu as it's one of my favorite meats to use in Italian cooking.
The chicken parm was an enormous piece of breaded chicken smothered in red sauce and cheese and served over spaghetti. For a piece of chicken that thick, I was surprised at how tender and well-cooked it was. Honestly, chicken parm is something I never, ever order because it's usually awful (plus I'd rather have eggplant or veal parm), but this one was pretty tasty. The red sauce wasn't too acidic or offensively sweet - just simple and good.
The saltimbocca was pork tenderloin topped with prosciutto, sage, fontina cheese, and a lemon-caper sauce served over mashed potatoes and broccolini. I love broccolini and these were cooked al dente and still nice and crisp (though I had to borrow the knife they gave D for his chicken parm so I could cut them). The mashed potatoes had rosemary and garlic and were just a rough mash, so there was still a little bite to them. I feel like I've eaten those potatoes a million times, so they weren't that exciting - but still tasty and hot all the way through. The pork was lovely. Tenderloin is SO easily overcooked, but this was fork-tender. The lemon-caper sauce looks a lot more voluminous on the plate than I remember. I'm pretty sensitive to lemon in a savory dish. It's WAY too easy to overdo it and if it's overdone, I'll stop eating it. I know I ate all the pork, so the lemon-caper sauce clearly didn't overwhelm me.
For someone who is iffy about lemon in savory dishes, I can't get enough of citrus in my desserts! I was excited to see some citrus desserts on the menu (though I would DEEPLY love to see a different Italian dessert once in a while. A rum baba or slice of cream cake would be a welcome change). Melissa got the Ghirardelli Chocolate and Cherry Torte to go, while D and I ordered the cannoli and the dessert sampler to share there.
Dessert Sampler (left to right): Valencia Blood Orange Cake, Lemon Cheesecake with Passion Fruit pearls, Tiramisu
Cannoli
(The chocolate and cherry torte is not shown because it fell over in the box and looks wholly unappetizing. Miss said it was good, though.)
Okay, cannoli - I grew up with cannoli that were filled with rum-flavored pastry creme. I didn't have one with sweetened ricotta until I was much older. Back home in Boston, a good Italian bakery serves both kinds of cannoli and I get my fix when I go home for a visit. Still, I am always the teeniest bit disappointed when I get a ricotta cannoli. All that aside, these were decent cannoli. The menu describes a 'hint of citrus', but they were quite orange-y. I was thrilled - D, not so much.
In fact, there was more citrus in the cannoli than there was in the Valencia Blood Orange cake. Bleargh. It just tasted like wet cake. I don't like wet cake. I also don't care for tiramisu, but D really enjoyed it (as you can see, he ate it before I could take a photo of it). I do like a crustless cheesecake, so I enjoyed the bite of lemon cheesecake with passion fruit pearls - but I was full from lunch and the cannoli.
Our service was good. The meal was well paced and we never felt rushed. The only blip on the radar was that our server couldn't get his Magic Band reader to read my Magic Band, nor D's. Melissa ended up putting all our meals on her plan, so we got her back when we went to Hollywood Brown Derby. This was the only time we had Magic Band issues at a meal, so no big deal.
Mama Melrose provided a fine meal, but it joins Fairfax Fare in the "I'd eat there again, but after I tried everything else" list.
Coming Soon: Day 2, Part 2 - Min & Bills and the Symphony in the Stars Dessert Party.