Down at Posner Park on Rt. 27 near Davenport, my wife and I noticed a few months ago a new italian place going in near the PetsMart. So, we were looking forward to trying this new place once they opened. I usually don’t want to try a new place like this in the first week or two so they can get the kinks worked out for a new restaurant. But the other night, since we were on our way to PetsMart, we decided to try D’Oro Palazzo.
Walking in, we were greeted quickly and shown to our booth. It’s in a strip mall and, well, the ambiance, at least for now, is a little sterile and doesn’t have a whole lot of character (wooden booths and italian saying pictures on the walls they could have bought at Target), but we were there for the food, not the atmosphere. Looking through the menu, they had a number of very tasty looking dishes, as well as some classics such as lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs (which is what my wife got) and chicken parmesan (which is what I chose). They had a very appealing looking chicken pesto dish, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted pesto and it comes with walnuts on top, not pine nuts, so that was a little curious to me. Any way, we also chose to add a couple of salads (most items are additional to your main course.) The waiter also brought out some fresh made foccacia that was excellent! They also make their own herb infused olive oil for the bread that was really wonderful. The salads were both very, very good. The dressings on both salads were home-made and not overpowering on either salad. Both had a nice mix of greens and cheeses as well.
Now, here is where our dinner became a little uneven. My wife’s spaghetti and meatballs was good, but nothing to write home about. The sauce was tasty and the noodles cooked very well, but the meatballs didn’t taste hand-made at all. In fact, they almost tasted as if they were from a microwave dinner. I tried one and it had that hard crusty taste when you’ve over cooked something in a microwave. My dish, however, was excellent. The chicken parm doesn’t come all smothered in cheese, they cook a very lean chicken breast and then melt fresh parmesan on top. My linguini came with a ragu that was perfectly done and really flavorful. I enjoyed my dish very much. So, needless to say, we had one dish that was good, but lacked a little something, and one that was outstanding. We’d recommend giving them a few more weeks to work things out, but D’Oro Palazzo has a lot of potential. We’ll be going back.
They don’t have a website and aren’t even listed in Urbanspoon yet, but if you’re down a little west of Disney and exit I-4 at Rt. 27, Posner Park is about 1 mile on the left side and D’Oro Palazzo is right beside PetsMart. Check it out and check out our pictures of our dinner on our facebook page!
themadfoodguy
donnahejl