Mi Piaci

Disappointment, would be the word is use to sum up our meal, the atmosphere was great and the locals highly recommended it. The staff was kind and attentive.
We had the calamari to start, it over breaded and rubbery, the dipping sauce was bitter and bland at the same time. The salad was from a bag o salad with pre packaged shredded cheese and one slice of a fresh tomato dressing on the side.
Our main dishes came fairly quickly and we found the shrimp to be over cooked and chewy as if they where from a frozen precooked package. My sun dried tomatoes where burned. My mushrooms did not taste fresh, and were slimy as if they were from a can.
The potion sizes are huge. We could have split one and still had leftovers.
I wanted to like Mi Piaci but sadly for $ 45 dollars, The Olive Garden is a better value.

Calamari was obviously frozen, Alfredo sauce had no flavor. Waitress was sweet and did a good job, she was just busy. Not worth $ 15+ a plate.

Came in on a recommendation, and sure glad we did. Let me say, when you walk in, you are blown away by a delicious, authentic aroma!
The bread that came out was fabulous, fresh, and plentiful! !! We got a massive meatlovers pizza, stuffed mushrooms, and chicken murphy.
The shrooms itself were ok, but the sauce they came in –WOW! !! You will lick your plate clean! Nice peices of garlic, fresh lemon to squeeze on top, fantastic flavors! Pizza had nice flavors aswell. The chicken murphy was wonderful! ! Everything hot and fresh! Also, I got a great salad with super house dressing. Our server was so sweet too.

It’s practically impossible not to fill up on the bread because it’s just so good! Sometimes I order just a side of the delicious Alfredo to dip the bread in and call it a meal (although they will charge you extra if you do this.)
This place is definitely not diet friendly and always puts me in a carb-​coma but it’s crave-​worthy.

So, I read a few reviews, most good. And then a co-​worker, born in Italy told me this was the place. So, tonight we got a first look and WOW. If you want friendly folks, home made Italiano, great food, you have got to go here.
Mike is a friendly greeter and a bullet proof server. Patient, had great recommendations (try the hot oil-​crazy!), and gave me a tour of 2-​banquets rooms. If you’re gonna have a party of 20−50-folks…this is your place. And they don’t charge for the room (they should start… nice digs).
15-​minutes for some amazing «Chef» entrees and the pizza… wow a cheese pizza, the best ever (according to my son). It is a must have… and it was cheese! What the heck is the supreme like… our next visit will have to tell us.
Anyway, thanks a ton, a must visit to my friends visiting and our favorite place to eat. Don’t forget, BYOB, drink responsibly, but bring a nice beer or wine.

It’s a pretty good place if you like pasta, small and a great place to take a date. They also got pizza the size of your face. The food comes out good, there is a lot of oil used in it though, but it is a hearty meal. My love and I can usually split a meal and both be stuffed. Portions are huge.

Waited over 45 minutes for a table, italian food is my favorite but I was not impressed with the food or service here at all. I had the lasagna and it wasn’t very good

Great food but the wait is crazy long. After calling in an order, then waiting the 20 minutes they told me it would take, then waiting another 20 minutes at the restaurant. Simply unacceptable
Note you should wait where they can see you as otherwise they will forget your there.
However once they learned I was waiting for such a long time, they did offer me a free desert but when the food came they had forgotten the salad. Very underwhelming

Best place in town for Italian, that I know of. Service has always been good. The food is exceptional and well priced. The only drawback, if it is a drawback, is the amount of bread. I yet slit just eat the top off of just one piece. The bread portions are so big that just one is enough for me. Actually the food portions are enormous. Overall you’ll like the place.

The 20 inch pizza was absolutely delicious! We have been back several times since. This is our favorite pizza by far after comparing to Olive Garden, Schlotzky’s, etc. Definitely, try it out and be amazed!

The pizza is good. I wish they would cook the dough more because with all the topping and sauce the middle gets soggy. Putting it in the oven when I get home solves the problem but I shouldn’t have to do that. The spaghetti with meat balls is pretty good. The garlic bread is awesome.

Good Italian food. I wanted to get pizza but it was honestly too much for just a slice. If you want a whole pizza then it is more reasonable. I got a pasta dish and it was pretty good.

So, after reading several Unilocal reviews about this place including a fair amount of somewhat negative ones I decided to try it anyways. I’m very glad I did!
Being the Italian food fan I am, and wanting to find somewhere good in Odessa I landed on this place. I must admit I did look into a couple other review sites simply because there just aren’t many choices in Odessa for Italian food. Mi Piaci is the top choice of all of them.
I ordered a calzone and it was very big, and amazingly good! Probably the best calzone I’ve ever tried. It had the perfect mix of ricotta, and mozzarella cheese. It also has ground beef on the bottom, and very flavorful marinara sauce «on the side» as it’s supposed to be. I experienced no waiting, and very good service from beginning to end.
The restaurant seemed to be clean and kept well. I am eager to return there and try other things, and I most certainly will next chance I get. There is something holding me back from giving it 5 stars and I am not certain what that is. However, if I am really wowed after my next visit I’ll update the review and do so.

Devon is an amazing and personable server and deserves 5 stars on is own. Thanks Devon.
I appreciate the opportunity to bring my own bottle of wine, and the portions are large, beginning with the delicious bread.
I am not much of a baked pasta person, so that lowered my enjoyment, but I am not being critical of the quality. I believe if you like baked foods, this is a very good restaurant.
I ordered the manicotti, and the red sauce, while good, was a bit spicy and I could not eat it because I have a bad reaction to chili spices. I think it wise to note on the menu that the food is spicy.
Because of Devon’s personality, I will definitely give this restaurant another try. I will just be cautious to ask for items that are not spicy

I have eaten here twice. The food was delicious until I found a dead fly in my Hot Oil appetizer. Probably the most disgusting thing I have ever seen finding an oil covered fly on my bread right after I spooned it out with the garlic bits from the Hot Oil. I can only imagine that the kitchen is unclean and grotesque. Glad I noticed the bug before I digested it and ended up with worms. Hopefully the city of Odessa is inspecting it’s restaurants for proper cooking conditions and that this was just a random isolated event.

Mi
Piaci — Odessa, Tx. Jewel of a restaurant.
Italian Mama would be proud of the chef/​owner Rush’s cooking.
Rich, rustic Italian dishes. All reasonably priced
Bring your own favorite vino, no corkage fee.
Mi Piaci can outdo any Italian village restoranti anytime.
The Salmon Picata specially is delish to the max.
Take it easy on the Hot bread brushed with olive oil and top w/​shredded Parmesan to save room for the huge portion of entrée following.

Unfortunately, a disappointing experience. Previous reviews made us excited about eating here, but I would rank it average to below average. Server was a nice guy, but seemed to have little wait experience and did NOT know the menu or the specials. Also, he was in a black random logo t-​shirt, which seems inappropriate in a restaurant with $ 16 — 18 entrees. He never brought the appetizer we ordered and forgot our soup and Caesar salad until AFTER he had brought our entrees.
Food, too, was average to below average. We had chosen this restaurant over Olive Garden or Carino’s, either of which would have been better. The garlic rolls brought to the table to open things up were the star of the meal, seemingly homemade and tasty, but sadly we were only provided margarine instead of butter to go with them. The pasta e faglioli soup tasted suspiciously like slow cooked pinto beans and arrived after my veal Parmesan, which I would swear was frozen breaded veal cutlets deep fried with marinara. My wife ordered a new off-​menu item (on the board at the entrance, unknown to our waiter), chicken Jerusalem, with lemons and artichoke hearts, but virtually no sauce, rendering it with little flavor. Desserts were ok, but clearly frozen from the food distributor.
Despite the promise of other reviews, I would rate this ‘short-​order cook’ Italian food and not worth a special trip or the price charged. Sorry guys.

Mixed emotions!
Ordered mushrooms for app and they were ok, didn’t expect them to come cold. Our tables drinks never got refilled, service was ok, just ok. For dinner I ordered the seafood fettuccini, seemed like it might have lacked all essential spices to make the dish taste like a good dish. Lacked all sorts of flavor, and really disappointing. The garlic bread that they serve at the table also lacked flavor. Everything was ok to say the least, not good or great just ok. So, to say the least, will not be going back.
Also, the restrooms were absolutely disgusting, stains all over the walls and near the paper dispenser. The trash was falling out of containers and needed to have been thrown out, like yesterday. Would not recommend.

My boyfriend and I have gone to Mi Piaci on 4 different occasions. My review is an overview on observations from the combined visits.
1. I love the fettuccine alfredo. It is creamy and peppery as it should be. Yummy!
2. The marinara topped pastas need some improvement. Each time I ordered lasagna and/​or ravioli they were literally DROWNED with a massive amount of marinara which really overpowered any other flavors in the dish. If they were more light handed with the sauce it would be good.
3. On one occasion I ordered the garlic cheese bread appetizer, but it had chunks of garlic throughout. Biting into a big chunk of garlic is not a pleasing experience. Yuck! Had it not been for the garlic chunks, it would have been good.
4. The Philly cheesesteak sandwich is good, but doesn’t come with any side at all. It should come with a side of fries or chips to make it a meal.
5. Service is OK. Just OK. The place is small and can get backed up quickly in a short amount of time. We warred about 5 minutes just to pay. Not acceptable.
Overall, the place is good, but it is overrated. There is definitely room for improvement.

Mi Piaci makes some really good Italian food but falters in other areas. If they would change a few things, they could easily be worthy of a four or five star review.
I came here a week ago for dinner with my parents and my girlfriend who was visiting the Permian Basin for the first time.
The décor of the restaurant could use a little work. There was a door leading to a private section of the restaurant that had quite a bit of paint chipped off of it. This is a fairly simple fix that would make the place noticeably nicer. Also, they lined the divider between the booths with empty bottles of wine. This could look classy if done right, but they used empty bottles of $ 5 wine that hadn’t been cleaned out, so it just looked a bit trashy.
While our server was friendly, she could have benefited from some more training. When we asked her what the soup was that came with the meals, she said, «Uh,…something with chicken, I think. I’ll check.» She never checked. Also, when she brought out our food, she handed us the plates instead of placing them on the table. There wasn’t any reason for her to do this. Lastly, they forgot to place cutlery on our table, so we had to ask them to do this. Again, all of these problems are easily fixed with training.
Our food was very good though. They bring every table a large basket of freshly made rolls which tasted really good. Most of the meals come with a soup or salad. Because she never told us about the soup, we opted for salads. The salads were nothing special, but the vegetables were fresh enough. Based on my mom’s suggestion, I ordered the calzone. That was a surprise (see picture)! The calzone was eyebrow-​raising-​ly large. I’m not normally one to take pictures of my food, but I had to get a picture of this thing. Don’t worry; most of the inside is just air and it deflated fairly quickly after I cut into it. Taste-​wise it was just as good as it looked. I ended up getting two meals out of it. In fact, the portions for all of their meals are very large, so all of us had leftovers.
The last thing to mention about Mi Piaci was that it was awkward when we paid for our meal. Our server took our check, rang it up, and brought back the credit card. Then she told us to take the receipt to the register at the front. She could have either told us to pay at the front, or she could have given our signed receipt to the person at the register herself.
I enjoyed my food here, but I think they should work on their service.