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| - My wife & I went to Arrivederci in Ahwatukee last night to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. We were less than impressed, unfortunately.
We had been there twice before, as we love good Italian, and the restaurant is closer to where we live than other places. Here's what we experienced:
- The waitresses were very good and I don't blame them for anything. Let's get that out of the way.
- The ambience is okay. We were put under a stronger light by the waitress station as opposed to one of the more romantic tables. But it was busy and we came in with no reservation, so we were ok with that, though it wasn't our first choice.
- As we get into the food, understand that the kitchen was ridiculously slow. We were sitting there for 45 mins before we got our entrees (though our appetizer came out in reasonable time). We decided not to send our dishes back because of the fear of the extended wait time again.
- We got the beef carpaccio as the appetizer, it was smaller than I anticipated ... But very good. So thumbs up there!
- For entrees, my wife got the main eggplant dish & I ordered the Chicken Parm. We waited a loooong time for it. By the time I got it, the Chicken Parm looked and tasted like it was either left under the broiler or under the "French fry light" too long. The cheese was brown and the chicken was over cooked. The side of penne looked & tasted like it was right out of the box, but the marinara was nice.
- My wife's eggplant dish was a similar quality. There was a flavor we traced to the cheese on it which she didn't like. She actually said to me "this is the first time I don't like eggplant."
-For dessert, we got the Chocolate Tiramisu. It was good, but seemed store bought.
I wish I could say that Arrivederci over delivered and was wonderful, but that just wasn't our experience. The atmosphere and wait staff were solid (hence 2 stars instead of just 1), but IMHO, the kitchen needs help.
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