After my recentlasagna taste-test, I embarked on a chicken parm edition across southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts.
And after consuming enough cheese-crusted chicken to last me a year, these were the results.
The results, though, were less than nostalgic.
Photo: Shutterstock. Design: Eat This, Not That!
The look:Literally none of my notes, regarding appearance, were good.
It smelled pretty goodbuttery and garlickybut not even aroma could salvage this insult to Italian cookery.
The taste:Flavor-wise, this chicken parm lived up to its deflating presentation.
Photo: Matt Kirouac, Eat This, Not That!
The bread was indeed as dry, bland, and forgettable as it appeared.
And the chicken, although again being the best part of this dish, was still a thudding disappointment.
At the end of the day, this tastes like something someone would make at homeand not well.
Photo: Matt Kirouac, Eat This, Not That!
Based on this visit, however, it’ll probably be even longer until I return again.
This dish cost me $17.99.
Mostly, it was the sheer volume of the dish that came off as daunting and needlessly indulgent.
Photo: Matt Kirouac, Eat This, Not That!
The taste:Uno can talk the talk, but evidently it can’t walk the walk.
For as big and bold as it looked, it didn’t taste nearly as bright.
In fact, the chickenwhich was allegedly breaded in panko and cheesewas shockingly bland and one-note.
Photo: Matt Kirouac, Eat This, Not That!
The pasta, which looked so promising, was just as bland.
All in all, it was way too much of something I wanted almost none of.
The look:Again, my first thought here was how much this reminded me of cafeteria food.
Photo: Matt Kirouac, Eat This, Not That!
And again, that’s not a compliment.
The spaghetti, too, comes off as a random aside with a dollop of standard-looking red sauce.
The taste:Fortunately, the taste fared quite a bit better than the ho-hum presentation.
The texture is amazingly crispy, resembling a well-fried schnitzel, while the interior remains plump and succulent.
Some of the edges were a little burnt, but not really in a bad way.
And the spaghetti was just as random and forgettable as I assumed.
I loved the convincingly faux design, reminiscent of a Tuscan villa, and the brick-oven pizza.
The taste:Indeed, my first impression was that this was Italian chicken schnitzel.
In a good way.
I absolutely loved the crunchy edges, the vibrant sauce, and the well-balanced, well-melted cheeses.
The look:My immediate note says it all: “yum!”
Everything, too, looked refreshingly wholesome and balanced, once again opting for quality over quantity.
The taste:Honestly, this was pretty great.
For classic red-sauces dishes, it seems, Carrabba’s is hard to beat.
