One of my favorite restaurants in San Jose and byfar at Santana Row. I come here for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries and my graduation! It’s romantic and dim lit and has tasty pesto!!! Stay for desert, I get the large mocha that comes with biscotti. mmmmm.

The atmosphere of this place is casual. The service is above average. I love the pasta here as compared with many other Italian places. The portions are very generous.

My follow-up review for this restaurant. Read my previous review for this restaurant here

So, it turns out that the only thing that is crappy is the family style dishes that you can get (from the first page of the menu).

This time I went there with my parents, and we ordered separate dishes. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

The service was pretty good too, I’d have to say. They checked up on us often, and the water was fairly full most of the time. Perhaps the Xmas spirit made them nicer, but I was overall impressed with Maggiano’s this time around.

And yes, still lots of food. I think we ordered too much (2 main dishes, 1 salad, 2 appetizers = 3 people), but hey, having a left over is nice. :)

On the side, my mom enjoyed the margarita and the mojito drink here, so it might be worth trying.

I agree that the food isn’t that great here. I’ve tried almost all of their pasta dishes and I don’t really like any that much. BUT, they do have good pizza and tiramisu, and this place is better than say, Buca Di Beppo. You could get the same kind of food at Pasta Pomodoro for much cheaper.

Confucius says: Forced family style with a set menu is no different from prison food.

OK, maybe the food tastes OK, but it’s ridiculous that when you have 6+ people, you HAVE TO do the “family style” dinner and pick 2 dishes from each category (salad, entree, etc.) for the entire table.

We had 12 people, and this automatically translated to no variety as everyone is forced to eat the same thing. Worse still, it costs way too much for this kind of food.

I’m clueless as to why the place is still jammed packed with people. Each table is almost right next to each other. It does feel like a prison canteen!

I remember doing the all-you-can-eat thing too, but I wasn’t too impressed with the food that came out. I did enjoy tine tiramisu dessert quite a bit though.

If you ever come by Seattle, you should try the Maggiano’s here (in Bellevue actually) because I like it a ton more. But to be fair, at the one in Seattle, I actually had an entre, where as in SJ, I’ve only eaten the all-you-can-eat style dishes.

This place is worth the money, especially if you get the all-you-can-eat deal. They serve you large portions of several courses (including salad, pasta, entree, and dessert), and you can always ask for seconds. The trick is to finish everything, ask for seconds, and take it home! It is frequently compared to Bucca di Beppo, but it really is much better than that.