Mutu's Italian Kitchen

I am notorious for my forgetfulness, and love to eat out. To keep from accidentally eating twice at a place that I didn't like, I decided to start "reviewing" the restaurants we visit while we're here in Colorado. If you're ever passing through, maybe we can take you to one of our favorites :)

One of our first dates here (without the kids!) was to Mutu's. Despite their food being great, our experience left a bad enough taste in my mouth that we haven't been back. The weekend we went, the hostesses and wait staff were extremely unorganized and inattentive. We were told by the hostess to just "find a table on the patio" and proceeded to wait 45 minutes for a server. When one never showed up (no one even came by with water), I loudly protested (that's saying it nicely), stood up, and we started to walk out. The manager stopped us, and with much persuasion convinced us to stay. Most of you know my temper (or if you haven't seen it, have heard fantastic stories about it), so rest assured it took MUCH PERSUASION for me to sit back down. To the manager's credit, he bent over backward to try to make it right (although offering complimentary alcohol didn't impress us like he had hoped) and explained Mutu's had recently gone under new management and the transition was not as smooth as he would have liked. Hopefully he has since trained better employees.

On to the food. We started with the Beef Carpaccio and the Antipasto Plate. I'm not normally a fan of raw-ish meat, but I tried it and was impressed with it's flavor. The Antipasto was delicious: toasted bruschetta with salami, prosciutto ham, roasted peppers, mozzarella and provolone cheese, assorted cured olives, marinated artichoke hearts and mushrooms. It was big enough it could have ended our meal, but after waiting for so long, I was hungry and wanted to get the most out of my time there. I ordered the Deep Dish Lasagna (cheese, not sausage) and Mike got a virgin mojito (like I said, the antipasto was big, and he was full). The lasagna was large and tasty. I ended up taking half of it home and eating it the next day for lunch - it even reheated quite well. Mike says his virgin mojito was "completely unmemorable" (it's kind of his signature drink, and gets it everywhere we go). We took home the Pistachio and Chocolate Cannoli. It was gross. It tasted processed, and I wouldn't be surprised if they'd bought them from Costco's freezer section.

I love Italian food, but I've been really reluctant to go back, for fear of poor service again. Mike has been back for business dinners and hasn't had a problem, so maybe when my craving for pasta reaches an all-time  high, we'll chance it.