Mama Maria — Restaurant in Milford

I love Italian food. Even though I do not have a hint of Italian blood in my veins, seafood pasta is my go-to dish, either when eating out or when cooking at home for my picky toddler. If I were competing on "Beat Bobby Flay" on Food TV, I think I might end up picking linguini with shrimp in an alfredo sauce (And yes, I know Italians don't do alfredo; it seems to be a uniquely American creation). I say all this to simply note that I have some understanding of Italian food and even though this place has a distinctly Italian vibe with paintings from Italy, a server who surely looked like she had Italian ancestry in her DNA, and menu items in Italian, the food itself failed to make much of an impression on me.

We ordered the calamari as our appetizer. My wife had the Frutti di Mare - clams, mussels, shrimp and scallops in white wine broth whereas I had the cozze - mussels in spicy marinara. None of the three dishes made much of an impression on me. I am used to seeing calamari that is golden brown in appearance and is often served with fried bell peppers but here the calamari had a more pale yellow appearance and the batter was remarkably flavorless. Neither were there fried bell peppers which seems to be a common accompaniment to the calamari. My own dish - the mussels in spicy marinara sauce - was fine but not exceptional. There was far too much oil but too little cheese. I was almost tempted to ask for cheese but refrained from doing so. I also tried out my wife's dish - the seafood in white wine broth and found it to be too salty and again, quite bland. My wife indicated that she had already squeezed a ton of lemon on her pasta and it was still quite salty. Thus, having tried out three dishes, I can say with some confidence that none of them resonated with me and to a great extent, this was true for my wife as well. (In all fairness, I think she enjoyed the calamari more than I did.) Accordingly, even though we had some room in our bellies at the end, we decided not to order a dessert.

All in all, the place disappointed us. I don't see myself coming back here again and would much rather try out a different place if I were in the...

My husband and I went to the Milford Mama Maria's Restaurant a week ago for lunch. The decor at this new location is very clean, beautiful, bright and welcoming. Although it took us about 15 minutes to decide on our food selections, the server, Carla, was very considerate of us needing more time to make a decision. When we finally placed our order, Carla returned a few minutes later to give us some unfortunate news. Something was wrong with the gas line meaning they would not be able to prepare hot cooked foods which included what we ordered (shrimp alfredo, a cheesesteak sub and chicken wings). The good news was they could still make cold sandwiches, cold subs, salads, etc. I then asked about pizza. Since they had some slices already available, Carla said if I wanted, they could reheat those slices in the oven as it was still hot enough. I chose two slices of pizza and they were hot and delicious!!! My husband decided on an Italian Cold Cut sub which was also delicious. While we were eating, there were at least three or four other couples who came in for lunch, but then shortly after Carla explained about the gas line problem and the limited menu options, each of them got up and left the establishment. We felt really bad for the owner as this situation really put a damper on his business that afternoon. As we were getting ready to leave, the owner approached us and thanked us for our patronage and he sincerely apologized for the unfortunate gas line problem. We told him there was no need to apologize and that we were fine and the food we had was very good. We then thanked the owner and Carla because they treated us with kindness and consideration and the food we had was very good so all is well! My husband and I will definitely be back again and will be bringing our family and friends with us in the near future. We highly recommend Mama Maria's...

Maybe it was an off night based on all the great reviews but we were not impressed at all. It was our 1st visit and will be our last. We waited about 15 minutes for a waitress to take our order and that was only after I waved another waitress over. When we finally met our waitress she brought only 1 salad and I had to ask for the other one which when she brought it had the wrong dressing. Then we had to ask for the bread. So hubby ordered the Frutti de Mare and I got the Sausage and Pappardelle. His was $24 which is to be expected since it has seafood, and mine was $18 which included a $3 upcharge for the homemade Pappardelle, also expected. Hubby liked his ok but said it was not spicy at all like it was supposed to be. He said he actually liked it better at Rudy's in Harrington where he usually gets it. Mine on the other hand was inedible because the pasta was so extremely salty. I really tried to eat it anyway but just could not so I had to send it back and get angel hair instead and they didn't even take the $3 upcharge off my bill! Also the sausage was so overcooked that the meat inside the casing was actually crumbly. And I picked a lot of brown stuff out of my salad. Our waitress said she took 10% off our bill because of the long wait and the salty pasta and said it was the best she could do without getting yelled at any more! Really?!?! We will definitely not...