La Casa Mia — Restaurant in Santa Clara

La Casa Mia (My home) is located in Santa Clara, CA. When you first walk in, the aesthetics in the interior are very pleasing. I love the pops of green inside and overall it’s just a cozy, cute environment to dine in. This place is known for their creative Japanese and Italian fusion which is a combination fusion that I never heard of before. It’s basically Italian inspired dishes combined with Asian flavors. I got to try a lot of dishes that were Italian inspired but have these parts of Asian flavors that I did not expect and the flavors were just exceptional. They do not disappoint in terms of their big bold Asian flavors while still keeping the Italian cooking in place.

My favorite dish out of the dishes I got was the uni pasta. The only pasta was very rich, creamy, salty, and had a nice umami flavor that brought the dish together. The sauce was so perfect and I love the texture of the pasta when you mix the only and every ingredient in the pasta dish is just an 11/10 and it’s just an exceptional dish that I would love to eat every single day. If you are a pasta lover and they offer the Uni pasta as a daily special, make sure you get it because it’s just the most bomb pasta dish I’ve ever had.

Another interesting dish that I got was the mochi cheese pizza. I never heard of mochi in a pizza but the mochi texture comes from the cheese and part of the crust as well. You get a good chew on the Mochi pizza but I wish there was a little bit more mochi but at the same time, I do enjoy how it is. You have a nice thin crust that is so pleasurable and the cheese actually tastes good. I think it should have a little bit more mochi texture but the flavor combination of the pizza itself is a nice sweet and salty flavor. Overall, this was a great pizza!

For the appetizer, I had the Carpaccio, which is a dish of meat or fish ( such as beef, veal, venison, salmon or tuna), thinly sliced or pounded thin, and served raw, typically as an appetizer. The chef made the carpaccio with tuna and made it like a sahaimi. The flavors of the tuna carpaccio were Asian inspired flavors that had a nice sour and fresh taste. It was absolutely delicious as the sahimi melted in my mouth.

The fried tofu salad was a pretty platted and yummy tasting dish. The tofu texture was great and nicely fried. The dish did need a little bit more salt in the tomato sauce and the dish itself. Overall, it was a nice light salad that was pleasurable.

For dessert I got the matcha tiramisu which is super Italian and I love how they add matcha because the tiramisu was very light but it had a nice bitter aspect of the dishes well. Overall this Italian Japanese fusion restaurant is exceptional and I love how the dishes are Italian so far but they add Asian flavors to make the dish pop. The bold umami flavors were so exceptional I would definitely come back to try this place again and get more dishes. They even have a nice ambiance as well. This has been by far one of my favorite restaurants in...

Went here on a GNO with my friend. We had reservations for 730 on a Thursday and luckily we had them because the store was filled throughout our stay. It took a while for the hostess to see us, and it was a bit weird because there were a server avoiding eye contact with us for a while too.

We waited around 15 minutes for water.

We waited another 15 to put in an order. Our server/hostess apologized for the wait.

I got the sake with a bear cartoon and my friend wanted the strawberry Soju cocktail, but they were out of that. As a heads up, the strawberry and Melona soju cocktails are very popular, so they tend to run out by the end of the night! My friend got a fruity non-alcoholic drink instead.

Takoyaki - So flavorful and good! I recommend cutting it in half or at least waiting a while before biting into them because they come out hot. There seems to be the perfect amount of sauce and bonito flakes on them. I like that you can pick it up with a spoon and dip it in sauce if you need to, so it stays crispy and the sauce doesn't get overpowering.

Mentaiko pasta - This was delicious! The noodles were perfectly al dente. I've only had this in the instant pack and also by making it at home from frozen mentaiko paste. This experience was cool because we saw the actual sacks of eggs. When you mix it up, it breaks down and disperses across the pasta. Definitely better than the times I've had it before on my own.

Risotto - This was the first thing I I had a bite of and oh my gosh, this is pure seafood goodness. I'm not even a huge ikura fan, but this flavor of fish, mushrooms, and creamy risotto was amazing. I was sad to eat my last bite.

The ambiance is cute although a bit cold. The service can be improved, but our server was nice. Make...

We visited this restaurant after watching someone on social media strongly recommending it, only to find it disappointing and OVERHYPED. To start off, we had a soju cocktail which turned out to be meh and more to be desired. The Takoyaki has a good amount of toppings and flavors. I only wish that it could be cooked for tiny bit longer since the center is still a little too gooey. Teriyaki chicken pizza is an interesting choice: the crust is very thin and toppings tastes good(and Japanese) too. Overall, it’s definitely the better one we’ve had here, even though I’d not order again because I’m not a fan of frozen pizza doughs. The popular wagyu meat sauce and pork cutlet pasta though, was the biggest disappointment! Normally the wagyu I had was a lot more buttery than this ground beef, tbh I can’t tell this “ground wagyu” here apart from grocery stores’ regular ground beef. Meat sauce flavor is very simple and cut through: it just tastes like canned tomato sauce; I would suggest them to put a little more spices, aromatics or herbs to make it taste like something people can’t just easily make at home by dumping sauce into a pot. Pork cutlet has a good crunch to it, but the pork is big time under seasoned. Pasta is just store-bought pasta so really nothing much to say about it, if you don’t like your pasta Al dente then this is the place to order from… To sum up, we paid 80 dollars and it was not worth it. My husband said that it was his first time seeing my looking depressed at a dining table while eating (the pork cutlet pasta). Fooled by the social media hype, I think I have to post an honest review here even though I don’t normally review restaurants online, so that we may have one less social media hype victim...