Rafael's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Trenton

My husband and I had lunch there two days ago. Appearance and cleanliness upon everything was good. There were others dining in, and they were doing takeout orders, as the young lady behind the counter answered a call for takeout. She was friendly and polite.

I ordered eggplant parm and side salad (which was extra). I didn't realize the meal came with pasta, she only told me it came with garlic toast. Presentation at first glance was nice. Second glance, you could see the oil puddled under the eggplant. When they deep fried it, either the oil was not hot enough, or it was prefried earlier, then refried before serving. Either way, it was greasy. I tried using a napkin to soak up some of the grease, but every piece was soggy. I did eat a small portion of the eggplant parm because I was hungry (this was about 2 pm), but I wasn't thrilled with it due to the grease. My meal came with (linguini ?) pasta and spaghetti sauce. I don't like green bell peppers, and they were in the sauce. The sauce had a strong bell pepper taste, so that turned me off. I ate two bites.

The side salad was in a small, clear takeout container. The tomatoes in it were not ripe. This wasn't a big deal, because I usually just remove them. The lettuce was brown in many places; too many to simply remove. I didn't even put salad dressing on it, and closed the container without eating a bite.

My husband ordered a ham calzone. He raved about it. Knowing I wasn't enjoying my meal, he offered me some if his. I had a couple bites of it, and it was delicious.

My husband doesn't like to say anything if the food isn't good. As a result, I didn't say anything. I wish I'd taken pictures to add to this review.

We're new to the area. If we go back, I would order a calzone, or possibly try...

Rafael’s is great. Simply the cleanest restaurant in 100 miles. The owner is very strict about cleaning. The front employees break down the the entire drink machine every night and sanitize is the shakers napkin holders everything, washed and sanitized. I don’t understand people giving a low rating and saying the sauce is can sauce or the meat is frozen. I promise you the owner makes sure every item is fresh and uses local farmers and meat when possible. The only “heat up food” is things like their fries and cheese sticks. The bread sticks, hours are spent make them. Yeah at times it can take longer for your meals to be cooked. I seen one person say that the girl at the counter told her that it would be 20 minutes but it was 30.. well those are humans making your food. Sometimes humans aren’t perfect. That happens with those darn humans sometimes. One day the restaurants will be ran but robots who can make sure to get everything right and one time down to the second.

If you go try the Italian cheese streak. It’s the best. Also if you want they also have a wide verity of options like Tex mex and fried burritos. The sweet tea is amazing. This is a self service place. The plates are disposable and so are the cups and forks so if you need to eat off of a plate and a fork 100s of thousands people have their mouths on this is probably not the...

As my wife and I were driving through, we found this “Italian” restaurant. The quotation should already tell you that this is in fact not that. They serve a wide range of Tex-Mex, to burgers, and more. The staff was super sweet and were very friendly, however the food was absolutely bland. Their “Chicken Alfredo” wasn’t made with a cheese sauce, but tasted like a can version of cream of chicken soup. The cheese sticks were over cooked and instead of your typical marinara sauce, they provided meatball sauce (which also tasted like it was straight from a can). The food is served on plastic plates and you are given plastic utensils and styrofoam cups. This place could have so much more potential with some basic upgrades and a little more carefully planned menu. We took a couple of bites and had to toss the rest…we ended up just cooking at home. I wish them all the best and would love to come back when they start being passionate or better direction about their food again. 2/5...