Market City Cafe

Italian food is my favorite food of all time. I especially crave fresh pasta such as handmade ravioli, fresh handmade pasta or inventive sauces. I also love good sausages and meats. Tonight, for dinner we decided to try a Burbank restaurant that we pass all the time but never go to, the Market City Cafe. The restaurant is right in the heart of the new Burbank Town Center area at the edge of the AMC 16 Promenade on Palm and San Fernando.

The patio area of the cafe always seems crowded when we walk by, but I have never seen a line of people waiting. This may be because there are 2 other Italian restaurants within walking distance, so if there is a crowd people may just move on. But, if there is a crowd, I recommend waiting.

We opted to eat inside the dining room with our party of three. There was no wait and a lot of empty tables--but it was Wednesday night, at 8:15 or so, which isn't necessarily a popular night to dine out. We were seated right away at a nice booth. The lighting was a little dim and the music was hardly noticeably which lends the restaurant for ample conversation without having to yell or anything. It was really quite quiet the whole time--some might even say romantic.

The waitress was busy with another table at first but then came back with a glass of tall breadsticks and took our drink orders. The bread sticks were tall thin loaves of warm bread with a crusty outside and chewy inside. There was a bottle of rosemary infused olive oil on the table for dipping. To drink, two people in our party ordered the passion fruit iced tea. It seemed like a complicated process when the waitress came back with a pitcher of tea for the table, two full glasses, a box of sweeteners and a carafe of liquid sweetener (probably just a simple syrup). Since the tea was passion fruit, it didn't even need any sweetener.

There was a long list of daily specials she read out and ample variety on the menu with pizzas, paninis, pastas and salads. There is also an antipasto bar with unlimited refills.

I ordered the daily ravioli which is handmade on the premises. Because today was Wednesday, the ravioli of the day was Italian Sausage Ravioli. My friends got the Allison salad and the pepperoni pizza. Our meals came pretty quickly after we ordered.

The pizza was personal sized. It looked good, but turned out to have a dry crust so the usual softness you get from a grease coated pizza was missing. The salad was a mixture of greens, cucumber, tomato, cheese and salami with a vinegar and oil dressing. The salad was tasty but not anything special.

The ravioli, was a whole different story. It seems to me, if you're going to go to a place that claims handmade fresh daily ravioli, you can't pass it up. As usual the ravioli plate came stacked with only 8-10 reasonably sized pieces. The ravioli triangles were smothered with an orange creamy sauce. The waiter grated fresh Parmesan cheese onto my dish at my request. The sauce was a perfect compliment to the ravioli. And the ravioli, I don't know where to start. The pasta was thick with a nice texture. I think it was slightly under al dente, but at least it wasn't soggy. The Italian sausage was slightly sweet and very flavorful. To my surprise, there was no cheese inside the ravioli. I expected it when I first bit in, but didn't miss it. The ravioli tasted very fresh and blended well with the sauce. Between the bread sticks and the ravioli, I was sufficiently full by the time we left the restaurant.

I feel I must explain my rating today. If I was rating this purely on service, the bread, the drinks and the ravioli, I would probably be closer to 3.5-4 stars. However, because the other dinners weren't nearly as inspired as the ravioli, I have to stick to the low side of 3.





Market City Cafe
164 E Palm Ave.
Burbank, CA 91502
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