Gino's Restaurant - 11/19-08 - First Visit

We had trouble finding Gino's the last time we attempted to go because we had thought it was closer to downtown. Actually it is closer to Oak Park/Highland Park; just to the south. Fast forward to months later when we're all wearing winter coats and we drive up to a hugely packed parking lot around 6:30 pm. At first I was thinking we'd just have to go somewhere else, being as that I hadn't eaten more than some dorito's all day, but then we found the extra parking to the north.

We had read many reviews on Gino's that basically said to expect it to be old. I was suprised at how much it truly was indeed old. Everything is wood paneled, except the bathrooms which were teal, and it smelled a lot like my grandma's house which was last remodeled at the same time as this place. Gino himself was serving as the receptionist. It appeared that a daughter had taken over most of the management of the restaurant. Gino gave some preference to the two men who came in behind us and seated them first, but after a while it became obvious that we were suffering for our youth.

The crowd was generally made up of people who had obviously been coming to Gino's since it opened (circa 1966). They had a good 40+ years on us (for the record, I'm 25). It was nice to be at a restaurant with 0 children for once. Unfortunately, we got a waitress who seemed to have been working at Gino's since it opened :P

Most people would be irritated at the slow service, but in this instance, it turned out to be one of the best things because it gave us time to pack away the massive amount of food we were presented with.

We started out with four toasted raviolis which were among the top toasted raviolis I have ever had. With that we were brought some plain italian bread, butter, club crackers, and those little prepackaged italian breadsticks. Gino's sauce is extremely tomatoey, with less seasoning than most people expect in a red sauce, but we took what was left from the ravioli (like half a cup) and put it all over our italian bread.

Most of the meals at Gino's come with bread, salad, and potato or pasta. For our salads, we both chose the house dressing which was a creamy garlic. It came covered in a layer of sweet paprika, which was quite a suprise for me, but it did lend quite a bit to the salad. The only downside was that every piece of lettuce looked rusty which was a little unnerving early on.

I ordered the chicken roll which is chicken stuffed with proscuitto, romano, mozzerella, and italian spices. Not only that, it was breaded. It comes with spaghetti with red or alfredo sauce. I can't do alfredo so I had it with sauce. The chicken itself was amazing... Tim swore he could have ordered just the breading on it and been happy. The spaghetti was al dente but I just didn't have much room for it.

Tim had the cavatelli with meatballs. Gino's cavatelli is made on site, so it is fresh rather than dried pasta. The one thing we noticed was that the pasta was on the blander side... like they needed to kick up the salt in the pasta water. The meatballs were huge and flavorful and suprisingly moist and tender, but really not comparable to the chicken roll at all.

We were full so we ordered two pieces of their white chocolate rasberry cheesecake for the road. And really all I can say about that is: OMFG! The cheescake itself is a silky white chocolate with a faint rasberry stripe through it, but then they ladled a generous portion of sauce over the top. The sauce, which is black raspberry, is more like a thick reduction and is just insane. I would pour it over everything if they bottled it.

As Tim put it, "A+++++++, Would engorge again!"