I’m torn about this place. How to begin?
When we arrived we stated we had reservations and we were checked off on a list. That’s it, we were checked off. I thought we were waiting on something but after sometime I realized that we were still waiting. So I went over again and said “we have reservations under so and so”. This was a different lady, and she said ok, I looked at her and asked, “may we be seated then, we have been standing here for sometime”. She then asked another female to direct us to a seat.
We mentioned we had a cake and we were told there was a $35 cake fee. Dude, the cake cost $25! The fee to put the cake in plates and to play the super loud albeit humorous birthday song on the speakers was more than the value of the cake itself! That really put a sore note on the evening for me.
We were seated and we were starving. Our friends arrived not long after we were seated. Quite a long time passed before we were ever given any bread. Did I mention we were very hungry? My son was starving and getting a headache. I’d expect bread to come out faster, it’s bread. Okay.
Ok, so the actual food was delicious. I had a grilled calamari appetizer and a margharita pizza. I felt the sauce, bread and cheese where delicious. The one thing I didn’t like was that the sauce made the pizza bread somewhat soggy. But I was able to deal with that, and the sauce was REALLY good.
The pizza takes some time to prepare, so order it in advance. The appetizers on the other hand came really fast. The grilled calamari comes in a salad of sorts, the salad was also pretty good. Although at one point I must of eaten some olive oil paste or something. That caught me off guard and was very difficult for me to swallow. I’m not a big fan of olives.
As far as the pizza and ordering, the folks were somewhat accomodating, they were patient when others may not have been. That was definitely a plus for them. Do order in advance cause of the queue and everything is made to order.
At some point they adjusted the fire in the fireplace cooking thingamajig and the smoke was really powerful, it was burning all of our eyes, and we all ended up coughing and tearing. Most of us left at that point while the others paid the bill. They need to work that portion out, it really messed up our eyes and had us coughing really badly.
I struggled with the grading for this place, I wanted to give them a 3, but little things I found annoying that would probably keep me from returning forced it down. If I give these guys a 3, then I have to give many other places a 4 to be fair.
On sheer food quality, they are definitely a 3 or a 4, the food was really good. But the overall experience jacked it down a bit for me.
Just a life long New Yorker sharing the journey through my lens. Please take note of a post’s date. The views I express here are subject to change and evolving as I grow and learn.
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