Besides just the food, many of us go out to eat for the experience. Presumably, you can eat at home; you leave home for something … more. A sports bar with peanut shells on the floor and a giant big-screen TV. A Thai joint with cool drink glasses. A pub with a working jukebox. Anything to shake up the tedium of home, right?
With Mamma 'Zu, you go to feel like crap. In all my years, I have never been treated as consistently awful as I have dining at Mamma 'Zu, and I've been to Morocco. Everything, from the dank, subterranean inner ambience (great when trying to read the menu board, let me tell you) to the beyond-brusque attending service to their staunch refusal of every major credit card save American Express, works to make you feel glum.
Yet it's crowded every night, and I make a point to hit it up at least once a month. The reason: the food is so good. It's my favorite Richmond restaurant in terms of food quality, hands down, and so I (and many, many others) will put up with a little abuse in order to eat there.
My most recent Mamma 'Zu experience was no exception. My buddy and I showed up early-ish enough to get seating right away, but as a trade-off, the headwaiter practically dragged us to our seats and then silently (and rather resentfully, I'd say) filled our water glasses and dropped off our complementary Italian bread basket. My friend's dish arrived 10 minutes after mine, and by that point in the meal the restaurant was packed with people waiting for a seat, many of whom showed up mere minutes after we did.
But the food! We started out with an appetizer of roasted red peppers ($9), served on top of fresh mozzarella cheese and garnished with olive oil and fresh basil. A simple dish, to be sure, but expertly prepared and perfectly balanced — cool cheese to compliment the warm, moist peppers, not too much oil or basil. Plus, the cheese-to-pepper ratio was precisely one-to-one, a detail that greatly appealed to my inner OCD.
After this, we split a Coke ($1.50), less for the drink itself and more for the novelty of having it served to us in its original glass bottle (yes, Mamma 'Zu brings you Coke in a Coke glass, and that alone is worth something, I feel).
And then, our main entrees arrived (although staggered in their delivery, as previously noted). I went with an old favorite, the eggplant parmesan ($12). No matter how many times I order it, I'm never disappointed — nothing compares to this one. It's the best there is. A perfect amount of cheese, thin and perfectly fried eggplant, and subtle and flavorful breading is subtle and flavorful.
My buddy went all out, ordering the slightly pricier veal marsala ($17). Veal's a tough nut to crack; cook it wrong, and you might as well be eating shoe leather. Except Mamma 'Zu doesn't cook veal wrong, and my friend's dish was predictably awesome. The veal was tender and had very little fat attached to it, and the marsala sauce (which we sopped up with bread) was sweet without being syrupy, a great foil for the veal. My friend's dish also came with a lovely penne pasta side, a simple but tasty red sauce pasta served with grated Parmesan cheese.
Somehow, my friend and I made it through an appetizer and two full dishes (plus bread and pasta) with room to spare for dessert, so we split an order of tiramisu ($6). I'm not a huge tiramisu guy; I acquiesced to it mostly because my friend wanted it and because the dish figures prominently in "Superbad." Well, if all tiramisu tasted like Mamma 'Zu tiramisu, I'd probably be eating more of it than could reasonably be called "healthy."
Our order was extremely rich but without the sluggish, drowsy feeling a rich dessert can cause — not too much rum or espresso. The ladyfingers were wonderfully marbled and crumbly, rather than soggy and chewy. And as punctuation, we got an extra dollop of mascarpone cheese on top. Just a great, great dessert option.
We had another terrific meal at Mamma 'Zu. No surprise; it's the most predictably great eatery in town. With a final tab of $50.50, it is a little pricey for two people, but the food is so good and the portions so generous that you more than get your money's worth.
And the service? As we were leaving, and I asked for an extra copy of the receipt, our waiter audibly grumbled, ran off, and then violently slapped the copy on the table.
It's the little things in life you treasure.
Mamma 'Zu
501 S. Pine St.
Richmond, VA 23220-6242
Phone: 804-788-4205
What's your Mamma 'Zu experience? Leave your comments below!