We went to Island cafe for dinner. It was still a bit early, so it was nice and quiet. They are located at Collier Plaza, and had plenty of parking.
Since they are at the left end of the plaza, they didn’t have much of any foot traffic other than the customers coming to this restaurant. With that, they had a nice and peaceful outdoor seating space. The inside was not so large, but not too small. They didn’t have tables on top of each other as they do in NYC, so it was roomy and comfortable. I heard that they have recently renovated the interior to be a bit more modern.
Once we were settled at our table, we received a basket of complimentary bread. The bread was super hot, fresh out of the oven, which was great.
Their dinner entrée items comes with a house salad or soup of the day. On this day, Creamed Asparagus was the soup of the day. Intrigued, I chose to go with that one. It came super hot, creamy and very flavorful.
Our server also told us that we could upgrade the soup and salad with additional fee. Soup of the day can be upgraded to French Onion Soup for $1 extra, and my hubby decided to try that. It looked pretty good, and the cheese was nice and gooey! The bread cubes in the soup was thick and tough…but other than that, it was a nice cup of soup.
We also ordered one appetizer item to share. We chose Truffle & Porcini Mushroom & Goat Cheese Ravioli ($10). It is made with creamy wild mushroom sauce with a side of garlic bread. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they forgot to bring the garlic bread… It is always important to read the menu carefully! It had four large ravioli with loads of plump mushrooms. It had a really nice aroma of truffle as well.
For the main entrée, I went with Pappardelle Pasta ($29). It is made with Seared Sea Scallops, Wild Mushrooms ragout, goat cheese, and white truffle oil. This one actually sounded better than the real thing… First of all, it didn’t really have much of truffle aroma or flavor. It came with four scallops that was nice and plump. They were quite tasty. It had a good amount of mushroom more than anything. I liked that it didn’t have too much seasoning, and the rosemary twig added great aroma to the dish. The sauce was nice and creamy, but at the end, it was not as good as I expected.
My hubby went with Creole Jambalaya ($29), made with Shrimp, Andouille Sausage, Scallops and Mussels. It is served over rice.
It had a nice sized shrimp and mussels. Even though the quantity of each of the items were not that many, but all combined together, they had a good amount of seafood. The sauce had a nice kick to it. The sausage chunks were found mixed with the rice, adding extra flavor and texture. This one was quite tasty! I liked it better than my pasta for sure.
At our table, we also had Chicken Piccatta ($27), and Twin Tournedos Grille ($34). The Chicken Piccatta is made with Boneless Chicken Breast sautéed golden brown with white wine, butter, lemon & capers. The steak is made with two Filet Mignons, char grilled, served on a bed of roasted red onion, served with a duo of Port Wine and Béarnaise Sauce. These entrée dishes also come with medley of fresh vegetables & starch of the day. The chicken was delicious, they do sauce really well here. Mashed potato was whipped and piped nicely on the plate. The steak was cooked just as requested. They were more flat and bigger than how other restaurants serve this dish (thicker and smaller). However, they done a great job here, and again, the sauce was really flavorful.
Our server, Aaron was very nice, friendly and polite, knowledgeable and attentive. The food was mostly good, other than the pasta dish… And the fact that they forgot garlic bread was sad too. I would still like to go back again and try some other dishes in the future.
Island Cafe – 918 N Collier Blvd, Marco Island, FL 34145