I had several locations in mind for this week’s Dining with Dad so I let the kids pick a cuisine and we’d go to the one that matched. They chose Italian so we headed on over to a local staple in Blacklick, Milano’s. I’ve shopped at the Kroger and gotten my haircut in that same plaza since before the kids were born and yet as many trips as they’ve made to that location, they said they never realized the restaurant was there. Is that the ultimate definition of a hidden gem??

We didn’t have reservations, mainly because I was thinking we didn’t need them. When we pulled into the lot, there was a school bus in the parking lot. The restaurant being cut in half by a wall, we didn’t see everyone on the other side until all the kids funneled out and back onto the bus as we were eating a bit later. Even though we didn’t have the reservation, we were able to be squeezed in.

I will say that if you are looking for a “quick” meal, this isn’t the place for you. The service was very very slow. We weren’t in a rush so it didn’t bother us, but given we are usually in and out in 45 min – hour, this visit was about 1.5 hours. After about 10 min of being seated we were finally greeted with some bread. The bread was actually really good! It reminded me of Pillsbury biscuits but in bread stick form?? I don’t know quite how to explain them but they were delicious. They were so good we ate half the basket before I grabbed a picture of them.

Our server showed up again another 10 min later after all the breadsticks were gone and asked if we were ready to order. I took the opportunity to order our drinks finally! The kids went with their standard Sprite (Sierra Mist here) and I went with a nice Chianti (sorry, no fava beans). Knowing that we may not see her again for a while we went ahead and ordered our meals as well. Our meals came with either a soup or salad. Alex and I both went with the salad and Chloe decided to try the wedding soup after asking me what it was. I knew she’d like it and she sure did as she ate it all.

Alex was looking at the Manicotti at first but wasn’t sure what it was. The techie in me obviously told him to google it. I’m not sure if what he found changed his mind at all but he ended up going with something else. He said that as we walked through the restaurant, he saw a woman that had a big piece of chicken on her plate covered in cheese and wanted to know what that was. I told him it was the Chicken Parmesan and so he instantly decided that was what he wanted.

Chloe was up next with her order. She was feeling a bit shy tonight so she had me order for her. She went with the tried and true spaghetti and meatballs. They had asked if I had been to the restaurant before on the way there and I told them that I had, although it was more than 15 years ago since I was last there. Knowing that, she was asking me about their Marinara sauce. She wanted to make sure it didn’t taste like Hudson 29’s sauce which had a very tart flavor that she didn’t like. I blindly reassured her that it was a good sauce, although I clearly don’t remember. She was very pleased with it and ate almost all of it. It was another great dish, so we were two for two!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned in my previous posts that anytime I go somewhere that has lasagna, I have to order it. But I also wanted to try some other foods as well. It’s always the hardest decision when there’s several dishes you’d like to try and want to do it all in one dinner. Well lucky for me, they have an Italian Sampler on their menu that includes a meatball, sausage, lasagna and fettuccine alfredo. The meatball, sausage, and lasagna were all smothered in marinara so you can’t really tell from the very poor picture that I took, but I will tell you that it was all delicious!! Did I NEED all that food? Well, no, but I’m glad I ordered it!

There’s also another favorite store in this same shopping plaza that the kids like to frequent when we are grocery shopping. They love to hit the pet store and play with the animals. I had to run over to Kroger and pick up Alex’s prescription anyway so they hung out at the pet store while I ran my errand. They had a ton of fun playing with all the critters!