East Side Mario's — Restaurant in Pickering

Super family friendly! We recently visited this location 3 times, since my 3yo daughter discovered it at the mall and every time had been a good experience.

First off, the internal mall entrance had been closed off, so if you're shopping and want that short-cut, it's no longer there. You need to exit the mall and use their external doors.

Food choice 5/5: their menu is quite extensive for the usual family italian fare, and they offer the all you can eat salad/soup on some of the entres. You get a fresh bread roll to start. The kids menu is pretty decent with actual meat in some of the dishes. Kids meals come with a drink and a dessert choice.

Food taste 4/5: we've tried several entries now, and some are definitely better than others. The most recent kids meal (pasta meats broccoli) really didn't taste that good (really just boiled/steamed pasta, broccoli, chicken breast, and tomato sauce on top but didnt seem like a well thought-out dish with cohesive flavour), and my daughter didn't eat any of it. She tried the Cheese Cappelletti before and she gobbled that up. Everyone enjoyed my husband's Linguine Chicken Tetrazzini though! It was creamy and very well done. I had the Ultimate Canadian Pizza on our recent visit, and it was better than I expected. The crust was soft and pillowy, the flavours were delicious although I think they should add more mushrooms. The tilapia was very fishy and soggy and I wouldn't get it again, but I'm eyeing to try one of their sandwiches next visit!

Service 5/5: everyone has been spectacular each time. There was one occasion where our server was very overwhelmed/exhausted dealing with another table (it appeared their young infant spilled a lot of the soup everywhere and mopping was needed), but she took a deep breath to collect herself and continued on with service. We really appreciated her efforts, and our service was great!

Family friendly 5/5: I love that the backside of the kids menu has some colouring and activities for the kiddos! They also give new crayons that are sealed along with it. My 3yo loves picking out her dish and colouring in the "princess" character. The kid's drink comes with a lid on the cup; I'm not sure if it's totally antispill but definitely helps minimize any accidents. My kiddo always looks forward to her gelato pushpop ice cream. It's a good small serving size in a convenient tube shape, squeeze the bottom to...

We came here for lunch after church. Apparently there was a broken water main at SPCC (formerly Pickering Town Centre) . Most of the mall was closed and some restaurants were closed. We came across East Side Mario's and decided to give them a try. The restaurant was not busy and we were seated right away. There was a special menu for Chicken Parmesan which gives you some options to choose. This place is known for their unlimited soup or salad and garlic homeloaf with select entrees in the menu. The caesar salad comes with real bacon strips which definitely adds crunchy texture to the dish. I was able to eat 2 bowls of salad. The garlic homeloaf was freshly baked and we ended up eating like 6 of them.

I ordered the Mario's chicken parmesan. I was kind of disappointed. The spaghetti was not cooked well enough and was dry and lacking sauce. The chicken breast is breaded and topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. The chicken and spaghetti lacked seasoning and even with the generous serving of parmesan cheese added on top. My wife got the roasted garlic fettuccine alfredo with chicken. She told me there was not enough alfredo sauce and lacked seasoning. My mother-in-law had the double bacon carbonate lunch portion and it was average at best.

The server was kind and was attentive. The overall experience was disappointing because the food didn't meet East Side Mario's standards. I would recommend more training for the line cooks to ensure the food is served with adequate seasoning and sauce. Maybe this was an off day but I am probably not going to come back anytime soon. By the way you can collect Scene points and CAA members get 10% off...

Used to love East Sides but after the experience we had this evening, I probably won't be going back.

We were seated by the host and about 15 minutes went by before our waitress came over to introduce herself. By that time, we had all already decided what we were going to order- so we gave her our drinks and food order. Drinks came with the bread, but no bread knife.

Finally, soups and salad came out and then no more than 45 seconds after that, all of our main dishes came out- my daughter and husband had taken 1 spoonful each of soup before their pasta was brought out. I had a salad so I was able to put that aside while I ate my pasta before it got cold (which by the way- my pasta sauce was hot but the meatballs weren't even luke warm in the middle) . By the time my husband finished his soup and started his main, all of his veggies were ice cold. He didn't touch them for two reasons 1- them being cold and 2- they didn't have a pinch of seasoning on them. Plain, bland, ice cold veggies......

Our server wasn't really any better- she had come by our table 3 times the entire time; to take our order, to deliver our food and then came with the bill. I ended up having to ask another server if I could get a glass of water because ours was no where to be found...

Seriously doubt if I will ever go back after this evening. Shame because I used to love this place, but it seems it has seriously...