Maialina Pizzeria Napoletana — Restaurant in Moscow

Small-town faux pas. This restaurant is fantastic in every way. I'm just giving it one star here, to draw attention to a mistake, in hopes that the owner will see it and address it with his short-sighted staff. I brought in eight people to dine the other night. I had the best glass of lemonade I've ever had anywhere-- but, the glass was mostly ice and I drank it down in a minute. A girl, who apparently was a hostess, was standing nearby, so I asked her if Mailina offered free refills on lemonade (like most restaurants do). She said she didn't know, but she'd go ask. She came back, and said "Yes, we do! I'll tell your server to get you some." After a while a server came and said to me very stoically and with no empathy "no, she was wrong, we do NOT offer free refills." I said "even after you just told me you did?" She said "nope". And, that was that. This place is an ultimate example of a small-town restaurant trying to come off with big-city class and polish, but just not able to pull it off. A place with class would have simply brought me another lemonade and said very politely and quietly, "Sir, we are SO sorry for our hostess' mistake, but unfortunately our lemonade is so specially made we aren't able to offer free refills in the future, but here's another one on us to make up for our mistake." Then I would walk away thinking, "Wow, what a classy place... fantastic food, generous, and they know how to treat people." And, the other seven people at the table would have walked away thinking the same. BUT-- Mailina's waitress thought it was worth the 15 cents it probably costs them for the lemonade to have eight people who spent $220 walk away thinking "Wow. Stingy as heck. Another small-town faux pas in N. Idaho. Guess they don't appreciate our business." This is exactly what I knew would happen when Mailina went to a no-tipping policy. The bottom-line is wait staff simply does not have the same motive to be personally charming, creative, and obligingly polite as they do when their own pocketbook will be directly effected. People will simply not work as hard, or care as much, for the collective as they will for themselves (as world history has shown). And, they won't strive as hard to excel for others as they will for themselves. That's simply human nature. First-hand experience the other night-- and, the fact is, in a tipping scenario, if the waitress would have brought me a free lemonade, I would have raised the tip far above the value of a lemonade, which would have filtered to a bigger tip for the dishwashers & busboy, making everybody work more happily (harder), and the waitress more likely to be creative and caring in the future (which would ultimately trickle down to a better reputation for the restaurant and more money for all it's employees. But, now every time eight people drive by Mailina they're thinking "Well, great food, but stingy, pricey, and a...

As we came to the restaurant before 4 PM, the only things really available were salads and pizzas, so I decided to get the Funghi Pizza.

First, we started with the Spinach Artichoke Dip, and I have to say this was really good The bread pieces were plentiful and really well-coated with oil, which made them pretty enjoyable to eat on their own, but especially so when the dip was included. This dip had a lot of cheese - and yet it didn't taste excessively so; rather maintain a great balance between the vegetables and the cheese in its mixture to provide a perfect complement for the bread

Moving on to the main dish, I thought the pizza was pretty fantastic I'm a pretty big fan of cream/alfredo based pizza bases rather than red/tomato based ones, so by default I'm partial to this, but I'm just really impressed by the quality of the pizza here. Probably my favorite pizza taste-wise I've had is a alfredo-based pan pizza from Dominos, and while I think that tastes better due to amount of oil/butter used in that one, I think that this pizza may have the best combination of taste and quality I've seen. This manages to taste really good despite not including that amount of oil, which indicates its high quality The mushrooms are really good - they're cooked well and seem to be marinated in this sauce that's a bit of a mix between wine and tomato juice, which coats each one with a solid amount of flavor. The garlic shines through here as an omnipresent figure as well. There isn't much cheese in this pizza but what is there is pretty good - and mixes really well with the cream base to produce something that's really good tasting Also, the egg on the middle spread the yolk throughout the bottom of each slice, which tasted fantastic

I do have a couple downsides with the pizza, though For one, it's a bit too thin. This leads it to be almost cracker-like, as there's really no depth to each bite. I recognize this is the traditional Italian style, but it's just a bit too thin for me - I could've used more cream / cheese with each bite, along with just more dough This results in the pizza not being very filling - which is a good thing in some respects as you can finish the entire thing without feeling stuffed - but it'll also lead you to being hungrier quickly later The second thing is that the crust was super chewy and hard - it was actually not easy to get through as my jaw would hurt halfway through finishing the crust of each piece.

The price here is pretty reasonable (around 20) , and the portion size is pretty large, albeit not overly filling

Overall, a really high quality, great tasting pizza that is a couple improvements away from being all-time...

The good: Maialinas is a beautiful restaurant. The interior is designed with a one-of-a-kind touch that welcomes you and creates a comfortable atmosphere. The lights are dim. The colors are neutral. There's a lot of real exposed wood. There are wood and steel beams throughout the ceiling making it a beautiful sight to see. Maialinas has an amazing selection of wines to choose from.

The bad: My server was sick and a few time I saw some boogies dangle from her nose just before she sucked them back in. I watched her wipe her nose with her hand while swiping a card to collect payment.... She then touched the card with the boogie contaminated hand, but it's okay because I saw her wipe her hand on her clothes, and returned it to a table. If I had seen this before I ate and she brought out my plates I would have left. I saw it while watching her to see when she was going to return to my table. Watch out for Ms. Jessica J. She could use some food handling training. Overall the food was not good. There is not a worse place to get pizza from in Moscow Idaho. I was so disappointed because I had been looking forward to trying Maialinas for awhile now. I love Italian food and Maialinas doesn't come close to meeting the bar. Their wine selection, and display of it, suggests to me that this is an establishment catering to people who want to socialize and enjoy some wine with mediocre food. Unfortunately I will not eat at Maialinas again. Gambinos is a few blocks away and everything I have tried from their kitchen was well worth it. Smoky Mountain Pizzeria is within a 5 minute drive as well.

I believe it would be a waste of your time to eat at Maialinas if you are in search of amazing food. If you are looking to drink some wine in a relaxing environment with some friends then it may be the...