| rev:text
| - I'm finding my experience to be rather in line with what many of my review predecessors have said. I went there the other day with my partner and my sister in law; we wound up there by chance, because it was after 8:30p on a Sunday and we're in the Cleveland area ... most everything else was closed.
The place looked nice enough, and they serve Italian food, so how bad could it be, right? I'll start off by saying the food wasn't horrible or anything, but it's far from impressive.
For starters, I was looking for some sort of basic pasta. I don't eat pork or shell fish and I wasn't in a meat mood, and I thought there would be a number of veggie options: ravioli, gnocci, risotto, canalone, eggplant parm ... other than the Chinese, I think the Italian's always have great vegetarian options, don't they?
Well Brio doesn't. The only thing on their menu that came close was some bland looking angel hair pasta thing. For those of you who are wondering, "why not just pick a dish that looked good and ask them to take out the meat or other offending part?" Well the reason is that all the dishes had been created to incorporate everything as an inextricable feature. It would be like asking someone to take the meat out of a meat sauce or the shellfish out of a lobster broth.
So after scouring the menu incredulously, I decided to switch gears, and I chose the roasted chicken. It was one of the less expensive items on the menu at $16, and it was one of the few things without a procuitto crust or an andouille remoulade, or some other extraneous use of a pig, for no clear reason.
My partner got the shrimp & scallop risotto, and the other got a seafood pasta dish. Those dishes were both about $20.
My chicken was perfectly fine. It was a large portion, not dry, and quite tasty. The others, however, found their food extremely salty; the risotto looked like a pile of white mush on a white plate, and the pasta was nothing special either. I clearly got the best bargain, as far as price, quality and taste.
And the service ... wait, what service? Well my co-reviewers are absolutely right, and it's a shame the Brio management isn't reading these reviews, because it seems pretty crappily consistent.
When we were seated, the hostess gave us menus, and our waiter arrived about 2 minutes later to ask if we were ready. We said we needed a few minutes and he told us he'd bring us some bread and come back shortly after that.
After about 5 minutes of perusing the menu - a disappointing perusal for me, as I mentioned before - we had all decided what we were going to order. Our waiter had not returned with bread, nor was he anywhere to be seen. What we did see was a crowd of wait staff hanging out by the pass, chatting and ignoring the tables. Another 10 minutes passed, and still no sign of our waiter ... no bread, no order taking, nothing.
Finally I flagged down a different waiter and told him we were waiting on bread and ready to order, and we'd appreciate it if he could get our guy. He barely acknowledged my request and disappeared. About 5 minutes later (it was at least 20 min total) our waiter came back with bread and asked what we wanted to order - no apology, no excuse, nothing. This appears to be Standard Operating Procedure at Brio.
I already told you about the food, but the poor service continued throughout our meal, while the crowd of wait staff continued to mill about in plain sight near the kitchen. Our waters went unfilled and our plated un-bussed for a LONG time.
I won't go back. The menu selection doesn't meet my taste; the service is atrocious and the prices are on the high end for what they serve. In short, don't waste your time, money, or calories.
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