MIDA

We recently dined at MIDA and unfortunately, the experience went downhill after a promising start. We began with the arancini and focaccia, which were pretty good and gave us hope for the rest of the meal. Sadly, that was the highlight. The pizzas — tomato pie and pizza bianca — were both disappointing. The bianca in particular was just plain bad. The gnocchi cacio e pepe was bland and completely unappetizing. The roasted chicken lacked flavor and tasted flat. The mushroom pappardelle was the only real saving grace of the evening, but even that wasn’t something we’d rush back to order again. We made the mistake of ordering dessert, which oddly arrived after the bill. The pistachio gelato had clear freezer burn and left a strange aftertaste — definitely not fresh. The tiramisu was underw

I love this place ever since it opened in the south end! Amazing food options at affordable prices in an upscale dining atmosphere. The Newton location is always nice to go to for a weekend brunch. I love the mida slam breakfast( under $20 gets you eggs your style , homefries, pancake or French toast, meat side, and toast) great value. But this time I went with the Crispy potato hash, which was a nice take compared with the usual oil-heavy hash and eggs you get at most other restaurants. I will go back!

We were able to sample numerous pastas and salad through the “Mangia Monday” deal. Among the dishes we tried were the bucatini All’amatriciana, paccheri bolognese, house salad, another mushroom pasta, and the pepperoni pizza. The pasta dishes were fine but honestly nothing special unfortunately. We really liked the salad though and our waiter was great!

The only major issue was the Risotto. It came out cold, so we asked for a fresh one. The replacement looked completely different from the first plate. We didn't realize until we looked at our photos later, but the first dish actually looked like leftovers or partially eaten food. We thought it was just cold at the time, but seeing the drastic difference now is a huge red flag.

Overall a nice trendy Italian restaurant with a good selection of bites! My partner and I shared three dishes and found that the star of the evening was the pistachio pesto burrata! We also had the mussels which were nice and sweet - the sauce it came with was a nice change of pace from your average red/white wine mussels. Also, the bread service was super fluffy and warm - really liked it! Unfortunately, the mushroom pasta dish was not to our liking just due to how oily the sauce was. It left an overall greasy mouthfeel and I felt that the mushroom flavour was only very obvious if you managed to grab a mushroom with your bite of pasta! Didn’t have room for dessert but the selection looked nice too.