If you’re expecting this Romano’s Macaroni Grill Chicken Marsala with Linguine dinner kit to taste like the stuff you can order in one of the many Macaroni Grill Italian restaurants across the United States, known for their poorly-lit dining areas, long waits to get a table and servers who have the unnatural ability to write upside down, you might be disappointed and use bread dipped in olive oil and pepper to drown your sorrow. However, it’s significantly better than pouring Ragu sauce over some noodles and chicken.
The dinner kit includes dried linguine pasta, Marsala sauce seasoning, seasoned flour, and Marsala cooking wine. All you need to provide to make this meal complete is boneless skinless chicken breasts, vegetable oil, hot water, butter, your appetite and the ability to turn on your stove.
Preparing the meal is quite simple. All you have to do is cut the chicken into pieces, dip it into the seasoned flour (which smells like powdered alcohol), brown the chicken in the pan, pour in the cooking wine (which smells less alcoholic than the seasoned flour), stir in the seasoning, let it simmer and then enjoy.
Light dimming optional.
Despite all of the alcohol-ish ingredients, it doesn’t have an alcohol taste, which probably burned away during the cooking process, so you won’t get ripped. And I know this because I’m a pussy when it come to alcohol and I was fine after eating it, if you consider singing Journey songs in my boxers “fine.” But, to be honest, I pretty much belt out Steve Perry tunes every night after dinner. It helps with digestion, especially the long notes in “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
Strangers waiting/Up and down the boulevard/Their shadows searching in the night/Streetlight people/Living just to find emotion/Hiding somewhere in the niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
Although the packaging says is makes five 1 cup servings per container, this kit provides about three normal servings of food (or two normal Macaroni Grill restaurant-sized portions). I felt there wasn’t enough sauce to slather the noodles provided, which makes eating the noodles not so exciting. Thankfully the chicken in the sauce soaked up a lot of it, providing most of the flavor, which was quite good.
Like I said at the beginning, it doesn’t taste like the dish you can get in the restaurant, but it’s quite flavorful for something made from a box. However, for the price I paid for it and the preparation I had to go through to make it, I think I’d prefer a complete frozen version that includes all the ingredients in a bag that I can stick in the microwave or conventional oven and then be like SPLIDOW!!!
(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup (prepared) – 330 calories, 13 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 3.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 450 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of protein, 10% iron, 20% thiamin, 10% riboflavin, 50% niacin and 15% folic acid.)
Item: Romano’s Macaroni Grill Chicken Marsala with Linguine Dinner Kit
Price: $4.99
Size: 10.1 ounces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Quite good. Flavorful. Awesome source of niacin! Use of the term “splidow” in a review. Singing Journey songs to aid with digestion. Provides monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Being able to write upside down.
Cons: Its preparation. Having to provide half of the ingredients. Not enough sauce. Nutritional content in normal servings. Not microwaveable. The poorly-lit dining areas and long waits at Macaroni Grill. Me in my boxers singing Journey songs.