Bambino's Pizza and Mediterranean Grill

Bambino's Pizza and Mediterranean Grill

6300 San Mateo Blvd NE,

Albuquerque, NM 8710

Bambino’s is another of the “fast-casual” restaurants that are so popular these days.  You walk in, order at the counter, and someone delivers your meal to you.   It’s a typical sort of quasi fast food idea and the restaurant reflects that sentiment.  There are lots of tables and booths, all of which look brand new and attractive, and the dining area was clean.  There was a radio playing very loud music in the kitchen that was rather annoying and we weren’t sure if it was supposed to provide background sound for the dining room or not.  However, it was turned to a station with lots of commercials for cars and sales, so if it was for the diners’ enjoyment, somebody should look for a station with more music or perhaps pipe in satellite radio or put on a CD.

The dining room features large pictures on the walls with scenes from Venice, Italy, Corfu, Greece, Jerusalem, and New York City.  We weren’t quite sure what to make of the selection of locations as some had tie-ins to the Italian/Mediterranean offerings on the menu, but some did not. Generally, it was kind of weird.  Walking up to the restaurant, there are signs on the front window advertising specials and a big neon sign blinking OPEN OPEN OPEN.  Overall there is basically zero atmosphere. 

The menu is extensive and divided in two – one side Italian dishes like pizza, baked ziti, lasagna, etc.  The other featuring Greek dishes with a big selection of pita sandwiches, gyros, and Greek specialties with the restaurant’s own twist.  We decided to stick with Greece and ordered the Pita with Tzatziki for an appetizer, one Fat Veggie Pita, one Fat Greek Pita, and Almond Tiramisu for dessert. Both fat pitas were from the restaurant’s specialty menu.

After you order, you pour your own drinks from the soda fountain and pitchers of ice water on the bar.  The kitchen is an open concept but the only part you can see is the prep kitchen.  The cooking is done further back where the radio is located.

We started with the Pita and Tzatziki.  The pita was warm and soft and cut into four triangles.  The tzatziki sauce was delicious with lots of dill and cucumber chunks, but it was slightly thin and runny instead of being thick and rich.  It looked like the yogurt needed to be strained a couple more times to remove the excess water.  In spite of that, it was very fresh and very delicious.  We did feel that for one pita and a very small cup of tzatziki, the $3.99 price was very high. 

The Fat Veggie Pita was a soft, warm pita filled to overflowing with falafel, hummus, feta cheese, one stuffed grape leaf, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and tzatziki.  It was a large serving and parts of it were quite good.  We could not locate the hummus and wondered if it had been spread on the pita.  The stuffed grape leaf was not good, the filling heavy and not appetizing.  There was about a tablespoon of tzatziki on the entire sandwich, which wasn’t near enough, but the falafel was delicious!  It was crisp and fat, and quite tasty.  Overall there was a lot of good flavor (except for the stuffed grape leaf) and more than enough for one.  Not sure we would order it again because although it was good, it wasn’t exceptional. 

Fat Veggie Pita

The Fat Greek Pita was another soft, warm pita filled with gyro meat, the menu said “chicken fingers” but they didn’t have those so they put in regular chicken,  a fried mozzarella stick, and tzatziki.  First of all, the mozzarella stick did not work in this combination, and we removed them which improved the flavor combination immediately.  The chicken – we’re wondering where the grill is in the “Mediterranean Grill” part of the restaurant’s name – was dry and tasted like someone took frozen chicken and microwaved it to the point of being unappetizing.  We ordered this dish thinking we were branching out and trying something new, but it’s basically a gyro with added dry chicken.  We imagine it would be worse with the fried chicken fingers so we’re grateful we didn’t get those.  There was a lot of grease in this sandwich, and it dripped out as we ate it.  Again, there was about a tablespoon of tzatziki sauce, not nearly enough, and we asked for more, which we got pretty quickly.  The sauce helped, but we wouldn’t order this again. 

Fat Greek Pita
A picture is worth a thousand words...

Moving on to dessert, we were brought a small plastic container with a snap on lid of the Almond Tiramisu.  We’ve had lots of tiramisu and really it’s a crime to call this concoction by the same name.  First of all, there were no lady fingers dipped in espresso.  The base was some sort of cake that tasted pre-packaged and not fresh.  The cream was something undefined.  We are thinking it’s some combination of mascarpone cheese and instant pudding of some sort.  There was the taste of artificial flavorings that we didn’t like, and there was some sort of mystery topping on top with chopped almonds.  We never did figure out what the topping was.  Overall, this tasted pre-packaged, not fresh, and had a cloying, sweet, off flavor.  We did not like it and for the $5.00 price tag, felt it was priced way too high.

Almond Tiramisu

Some things at Bambino’s were very good.  The parts of the menu that seem to be made fresh – the falafel, the tzatziki, and the pitas – were all delicious.  Everything else was uninspired and quite average.  The whole experience wsa dissonant from the flavors to the prices per item to the fact that you can only get forks and knives in silverware, but if you want a spoon, you have to have plastic.  Bambino's menu is extensive and maybe if you went a dozen or more times you would discover what else is good, but that’s not an exercise we’ll take on.  We probably would not go again unless we were in the area and really, really hungry.