My Cousin Vinny's
 Niagara Falls, Canada         Date of Visit  05/29/16           http://www.vinnys.ca  

After a fair bit of driving this weekend, we finally ended up in Canada and were early for our room. We were handed a coupon for the restaurant across the parking lot which looked an awful lot like a cookie cutter franchise from the outside, but we were tired, cranky and creaky and took to the low hanging fruit.

Turns out there is apparently only one My Cousin Vinny’s Italian Grill, it’s at Niagara Falls and features scratch Italian. The interior continues the polished and “science of selling” theme. I’m reasonably sure our servers accent was embellished if not completely put on, right down to the compulsory ‘eh.

There were a couple of moments in which it appeared the whole service was put on but it seemed more moment of concern over something else and she was quickly back.

Dry crusty bread was served with a salad of mixed greens, shredded carrot and garbanzos. What made the salad was the serious black pepper punch in the balsamic vinaigrette, it brought (through downright submission) the sweetness of the carrot, the bitter of the greens and the starchy nuttiness of the cici’s together. Best bit of the day.
 

Crusty Yeasty Start
 

We tried a perfectly functional chicken parm. The chicken was pounded thin but still juicy and armored with a parm heavy crispiness. Their sauce was no where near as remarkable as the house dressing but there were no complaints about it’s flavor or its marriage with the well cooked noodles. Better than expected. The second sih was a Risotto Puttanesca which was also better than expected. Herb roasted chicken, sharp tang from capers/olives, onion, garlic and parm coated just toothy rice thickly enough to resemble a wet blanket (if there is a positive connotation to wet blanket). Chain look, homemade and better than average fare was a welcome consumer of time until our room was ready.