A recent long day of driving to see accounts in Kansas City and Wichita ended with a trip to Springfield, MO. I've done that trip from K.C. to Wichita to Springfield about three times now and I vowed after this time that I would never do that again. The trip between Wichita and Springfield is taxing and I always get into that city way too late. I stayed at a new Hampton Inn along Highway 65 at Battlefield Rd. and decided to go find a place to eat. A Brazilian steakhouse was next door to the hotel, but I wasn't up for that much food. (Plus Brazilian steakhouses aren't fun by yourself.) I looked on the GPS to see what was in the area and not far from my hotel was an Italian place called Bambino's. I took off to find the place.
The Faucett family - Mary and her son, Andy - are the two main people behind Bambino's. Mary started Nonna's Italian Cafe in 1996 continuing the tradition of some pretty good Italian restaurants in the Springfield area. Meanwhile, at the same time Andy Faucett - along with business partner Brian Ash - decided to open their own Italian restaurant in Columbia, MO debuting Bambino's in 1996. They added a managing partner, John Sweeney, to open a second location in Lawrence, KS in 2001.
The same year, they opened a third location in Springfield, and in 2006 Mary Faucett sold her interest to Nonna's to a group of investors and joined her son at Bambino's. With capital raised from the sale of Nonna's, the Faucett's were able to renovate their little cafe near the Missouri State University campus. (see map)
(Click here to see Road Tips' entry on Nonna's Italian Cafe.)
Last year, Andy Faucett bought The Buzz coffee shop in the Half a Hill shopping center on the southeast side of Springfield at the corner of E. Battlefield Rd. and S. Lone Pine (see map). He continued to run the coffee shop until the winter time when the building underwent a full renovation to turn it into Bambino's on Battlefield. The new location opened in March of this year. (This was the location that I went to.)
Bambino's on Battlefield is located in the back corner of the strip mall. It was a sort of rainy evening and they had their small patio in front of the place pretty much shut down.
Entering Bambino's, the small dining area up front featured some small parlor tables and chairs for people who want to come in and enjoy some coffee and gelato, but larger wooden tables were available for overflow dining from the main dining room in the back. A number of pieces of artwork by local artists hung on the wall in the dining rooms of Bambino's - all of which were for sale.
The main dining room is larger and features a number of sturdy wooden tables and chairs. The tables can be easily moved together to accommodate larger groups such as the group of about 10 women who were finishing up their meal when I walked in around 8:30 p.m. I was shown to a table in the dining room and given a dinner menu. My server, a nice young lady whose name I accidentally deleted when I was purging notes on Bambino's, came over to greet me and take my drink order. I ordered up a Boulevard Pale Ale to have while I took a look at the menu.
The menu's at both Bambino's are exactly the same - appetizers, soups, salads, pasta entrees, and pizza were the prominent items that they serve. I'd had pizza a couple nights earlier or I would have took a closer look at what they had to offer. But I was in the mood for some pasta that evening and from the looks of what they had on the menu I knew that I had a lot of choices.
Some of the things that caught my eye - the Tortellini Gorgonzola featuring cheese-filled tri-color tortellini served in a gorgonzola cream pesto sauce with broccoli and roasted chicken. The Nonna featured linguine tossed with roasted chicken and red pepper slices in an alfredo sauce. The Poppa had penne pasta, Italian sausage, and sliced mushrooms served in a spicy tomato cream sauce. A lot of stuff sounded pretty good.
I ended up ordering the Diana - fettuccine alfredo with shrimp, sliced mushrooms, and broccoli. After I ordered up my food, my server brought out a loaf of fresh baked Italian bread along with some freshly chopped garlic. Olive oil and parmesan cheese were already on the table. Now, if you've ever had really fresh garlic it's actually somewhat spicy. This garlic - when spread on the bread - had a spicy taste. There weren't going to be any vampires hanging around me that evening.
A dinner salad came with the meal that featured fresh greens topped with a house Italian dressing, parmesan cheese and finished with chopped red peppers, sliced red onion rings and sliced cucumbers. The greens were very fresh - and plentiful - and the combination of the house dressing and parmesan cheese was very good. This was turning out to be a pretty good meal.
When the main entree came out, I was a little taken aback by the size of the portion. The fettuccine was served in a large and deep bowl and was swimming in a light cream sauce. The broccoli was fresh - not mushy from being overcooked. The shrimp weren't large, but there was plenty of them in entree. The mushrooms were also fresh and tasted wonderful in the alfredo sauce. I was amazed at how good the fettuccine alfredo at Bambino's really was. And there was so much of it that I was having trouble finishing the dinner thanks to the delicious bread and the rather large dinner salad.
Actually, the most amazing thing about all of this - my meal was only $9.99! I had a couple of Boulevard pale ales which were $4.50 each, so my bar tab for two beers was about as much as the fettuccine alfredo - with shrimp, broccoli and mushrooms - that also came with fresh-baked bread and a good sized dinner salad. I'll have to say that the value of the meal at had at Bambino's was excellent. The food was very good and very plentiful. And the service was also very good. I'm amazed that I've come across so many good Italian restaurants during my many travels to Springfield. Bambino's is one of the better ones - not only in terms of delicious food - but possibly the best value I've ever encountered for an Italian restaurant.
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