Modo Mio Italian Bistro

I've been on the search for a good Italian place and so I decided to buy Modo Mio Italian Bistro's Groupon - $30 for $60 worth of food for 4 people. 

 

It's a cute little bistro on Avenue road (with lots of other Italian options - including Il Fornaro)

All the tables had these adorable salt and pepper shakers! 

Bruschetta and Grilled Calamari

The bruschetta was on toast (not garlic bread 😞). However, the bruschetta topping of tomato, onions, olive oil and basil tasted fresh. The grilled calamari was very good and I loved the pesto sauce on top as well as the arugula in the middle and the grilled peppers. Quite a hearty appetizer!

Mussels with herbs and lemon

The white wine sauce was actually very heavy and the mussels were a little tiny (maybe not really seasonal?) and there was a little too much sauce even to soak the bread with. 

Chicken parmigiana sandwich 

The breaded chicken and tomato sauce were both okay, but the sandwich felt like it needed something else since it felt a little one-dimensional in flavour and taste.

Gnocchi 

I found the pasta little too mushy and the sauce had a lot of cheese flavour rather than cream.  The pasta felt a little boring and I think it needed something to kick up the sauce a bit. 

Maverick pizza: grilled steak, arugula, onion, mushroom, cherry tomato

As you can tell, there was lots of arugula on top, but not as much steak.  The pizza had a nice thin crust, but there was no base sauce other olive oil.  Overall, it was an okay pizza, but it was a little hard to eat and divide since it wasn't pre-cut. 

Linguine clams

The pasta was a little too buttery and salty, especially since there were salty clams in their shells as well.  The dish had lots of olive oil and a very salty white wine sauce (which may have also been made saltier by the pancetta). 

Lasagna

This was probably the best pasta of the three we had.  I loved the 7 layers of pasta, it was delicious and so easy to eat.  The meat sauce was decent, but it lacked a little something for extra punch of flavour.

Tiramisu

The waitress told us that the tiramisu was a homemade recipe from the owner's mom and it was definitely pretty tasty from the first bite, but as you kept eating it felt like it was missing something.  I think I would have liked more cream/mascarpone cheese

Overall: The Groupon was good value (since everything was 50% off) and we ate a lot of food! The food was okay for the most part and everything here was pretty reasonably priced.  The service was great - the waitress was really attentive and helpful. 

Website: http://www.modomiobistro.ca/