Bambinos Restaurant

Great Italian grinder sandwich. Good onion rings! Server was attentive and helpful with menu suggestions. We may have found our new go-​to pizza joint. Plus half price pizzas on Wednesdays are also a perk.

We had a great experience at a dinner for twelve. The food is delicious with a homemade feel; their Italian dressing is homemade and my guess is that their rolls may be as well. They have vegetarian options and the omnivores in our group said the steaks were delicious. The menu is vast with many different pasta dishes, steaks, appetizers, etc. Our server, Frank, was very attentive. Finally, the atmosphere is super cozy, which is important to me. This is a hidden treasure in WDM — it is a family owned business that has been going strong for 20 years, but has only been at its current location for two years. Do not confuse it with the prior eateries that have made it at this location. You should really give this one a try!
One afterthought, some past reviews mentioned bland food. I think it is tough for places that make authentic home style food because it is not overly processed. So many places use MSG or a form of it under a different name that we are addicted. We stopped using sodium at home and over time our tastebuds have become more sensitive so we found the food to be very flavorful. The take-​away here is that the food is not highly processed my guess is that it is not highly salted; but they have salt shakers on the table — so you can always add salt.

«Authentic Italian»? Someone should tell that to whoever makes Pizza there. The pizza I ordered (to go) had burned crust. Not just in a few really small spots but the majority of the crust was burned. I can’t say much for the flavor either. To be honest, I’ve had much better Pizza from Caseys. I could maybe understand getting a crappy Pizza if the place was really busy, but when I was there the only other people in the place was an elderly couple. That’s it. One elderly couple !
I’ll never go back. I would not recommend this place for Pizza.

Have eaten at the current, and two previous locations and we have never had a bad meal or bad service! Sometimes a bit slow, but always courteous.
Good portions and reasonable prices. We have taken groups of up to 16 and plan to again this fall.

Today was my moms birthday — and so we decided to try out this restaurant. We were friends with the owner of Paradise Pizza which had previously been there– and used to eat there on a regular business. I was hoping that this place would live up to the expectation.
Before this restaurant had an open kitchen– where you could look and see the cooks making the food ect– they closed that off with some tacky looking siding that actually stuck out partially into the dinning room. It makes me think that they are hiding something back there.- Other than that the atmosphere was alright– bland but clean.
They only had one waiter when we came in and he left quite a bit to be desired. — My mother filled out their «birthday club» form on the table — and then told the waiter today was her birthday– and he didn’t seem to care– just said well maybe you’ll get something next year. We ordered a large pizza with extra cheese and two house salads.- The salad was warm and the blue cheese dressing flavorless. It was obvious that all they do is take a prepackaged iceberg mix and stick it on a plate. — The pizza then proceeded to take another ½ hour to come out after our salads were done. — and we did not see heads or tails of our waiter for that period of time. The cheese and sauce were good– but as a fellow reviewer said– the crust was bad. It fell apart in your hands and was flavorless. The waiter brought out two tiny side plates instead of real plates — and the pizza was cut into rectangles so if we would have used them– the pizza would be hanging off the sides. — When we asked him to fill the water he only filled one glass even though both of them had been set out for him to do so. — and over all– just was a moron. He actually wanted to fold our pizza in half when we asked for a box, rather than giving us a larger one.
I had to yell out at him to get the check– and then he took forever to come get it– so I ended up walking up to the counter. — the pizza was half off but it was still $ 17. The waiter got no tip because of the slow timing and bad service. Doubtful that I’ll ever be back– even for take out.

I was excited when Bambinos moved to this location. I remembered the pizza being good when they were located in Norwalk. I think they’ve been in two other locations before moving to West Des Moines.
I still like their pizza. The crust is thin and crisp and the sauce has a good flavor.
The rolls seem to be homemade and are are good. Salad is nothing special-​just the iceberg lettuce variety.
I don’t know what possessed me to try their Fish and Chips, but it was a big mistake. The fish tasted muddy like catfish can. The batter was not crispy, it was almost chewy. Weird. I only ate a couple of bites then threw the rest away. It came with homemade potato chips not fries as expected. Unfortunately most of the potato chips were burnt.
On another occasion I tried the Cavatelli and meatballs. The meatballs were decent but the Cavatelli was terrible. It was mushy. Again just a few bites and into the trash it went.
Prices are high-​especially when most of it is inedible.
I can’t report on the service since I just ordered takeout.

Service needs a lot of work. Our waiter was friendly and knowledgeable but wasn’t attentive. When we arrived, the place was busy so we were tolerant when it took us 15 minutes to get our waters and drink order. However, by the time we got our food, we were one of only a few tables and still weren’t getting attention. The food was excellent which saves the experience. At our table we had cannelloni, manicotti, cavatelli, and a version of steak deburgo. All were very good! This place needs more servers, more training on customer service, and it can get to 5 stars.

This is the new location for Bambinos, formerly Paradise Pizza. Ordered a caserole and a side salad that was just decent but super small!
Definitely not worth the $ 15 bill! There are plenty of other great italian restaurants around town that are less expensive and better than this. I won’t be coming back to a place that is over priced and not that good. Sorry Bambinos but I don’t think you’ll stay open very long in this location either.