Maggiano's

We have been to Maggiano's many times in the past (but so far this is the first time since we started the blog).  There are a few Maggiano's locations in the Chicago area, so Natalie has been frequenting them since the early 90's. Nick had never been to one before moving to Illinois. If you don't know what it is - Maggiano's is traditional Italian fare and usually they serve huge portions. We decided to go this time (to the Oak Brook location) because we had a coupon.

Chopped Salad

Maggiano's has a regular deal on their menu where for $12.95 you basically order 2 entrees. You eat one of the entrees at the restaurant and you take the other entree home with you (it is already packaged and labeled for you).  This is available on all of their 8 classic pastas dishes, but not any specialty pastas.  In addition to this deal, our coupon gave us a side salad for just $2 more.

Chopped side salad - iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, crumbled bleu cheese, avocado and crispy prosciutto, served with a house dressing. Good chopped salad, nice to have before heavier pasta.

Four Cheese Ravioli

Natalie ordered the Ravioli for the restaurant and the Lasagna to go.  Nick order the Ziti for the restaurant and the Eggplant Parmesan to go.

Four Cheese Ravioli - ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella and Provolone.  Served in a pesto-alfredo cream sauce with a touch or marinara. Large ravioli with nice combination of cheese.  The pesto-alfredo nice was really nice with the ravioli and it really didn't need the little bit of marinara sauce - probably just there for color.

Baked Ziti

Mom's Lasagna with Italian sausage and meat sauce - good lasagna, it was bit difficult to get the piece heated all the way through in the microwave because it is so sizable.

Taylor Street Baked Ziti with Italian sausage, pomodoro sauce with melted Provolone and Parmesan. Nick felt this was tasty and fulfilling pasta.  It was a huge bowl so he couldn't finish all of it so had the rest wrapped up to go. So he had 2 more meals out of this experience.

Eggplant Parmesan - good eggplant, but not nearly as awesome as the eggplant parm he had at Rosebud a few months ago.

Final thoughts on Maggiano's:

Food - good traditional institutionalized Italian fare.  Great value for the price, got 2 or 3 meals out of this.

Service - pretty good, we were kind of stuck in a corner but that didn't prevent our server from getting to us

Atmosphere - this restaurant is always busy; we actually made a reservation through open table on our drive to the restaurant just to be safe.  It probably saved us about 10-15 minutes by doing this as we were able to walk right in.