| rev:text
| - After DH's rave review of Brugo's lunch, I really wanted to like this place.
We had people in for the holidays and the two sets of adults decided to go to dinner and wanting something close to home, DH suggested Brugo's on the basis of the delicious lunch he had there a month ago.
The whole experience was odd. First of all, the decor. I guess in an earlier inception it was supposed to project a hip, urban look. The current owners wanted to give it more of a "cheese-y Eye-talian" theme. So they stuck red and green lightbulbs behind long, elegant dupioni silk wall sconces and laid the tables with red and white checked tablecloths. DH liked it. I thought it was kind of a bizarre mix. What I didn't like: they do have this cool hanging mobile of glass bubbles (you can see it on their website) and as we walked by it, I could see a thick layer of dust on the bubbles. I was really glad I wasn't the couple dining under it with all that crap sifting down on my food. Ick.
The minutes you walk in the front door, you are greeted by blaring flatscreens above the bar.
It's a large restaurant, but only about three tables were seated, and it was the height of the dinner hour. We got a nice booth by the window, but it was a dark and moonless night, so sadly none of the gorgeous view I knew was out there was visible.
Our server (the only one) was slightly frentic but attentive. Our Dining Companions ordered a beer and a margarita and DH and I ordered wine. I got the Hahn Pinot and he got the Raymond Cab. These red wines were served chilled. VERY chilled. My wine was actually quite good, and I can only muse if it had been served at the appropriate 50-55 F and the flavor been allowed to bloom. DH questioned questioned the server about the iciness of the wine and received a frown and a "That's the way we serve it" tossed over his shoulder, although said server did return a few minutes later and offer to open a new bottle that apparently had not been refrigerated. DH declined.
I am not a pizza eater and DH wanted to try an entree, but our DCs ordered the medium Big Combo pizza. I had studied the menu online but looking at the specials, I saw that on (I think) Saturdays they had a sausage and pepper special, which sounded perfect on a chill night so I asked if it was possible to order that. The server vanished and came back and said no, they had no sausages. Fair enough. The Thursday night special was Chicken Parmesan and also Eggplant, according to the website, so I ordered the eggplant. The server said eggplant was not a special. I said it said so on the website. He said let me go check. He came back a few minutes later and said they had no eggplant. Okay. So I ordered the Spaghetti and Pesto (I need to point out that the online menu is NOT up-to-date) and specified that I wanted the pasta slightly overcooked. I do NOT like al dente pasta. (Why do I want pasta sticking to my teeth?) DH ordered the Chicken Parm. Our meals arrived with 15-20 minutes.
DC's pizza was a smallish medium but it just had a "rid-hard" look. It just looked sort of "dry-ish" and the crust looked very, very brown. I asked DC's how it was, and they said: "okay." (For $22.50 for a 12 inch pizza, I would have liked our out-of-town guests to be more enthusiastic!) My spaghetti and pesto was cooked perfectly---just past al dente to a nice softness, but otherwise was bland and tasteless. Thank goodness for the salt and pepper shakers or I wouldn't have known I was putting food in my mouth. The accompanying slice of bread was toasted hard, cold, and unappetizing. DH was sad about his Chicken Parm. He said it tasted (and it looked) as if it had plated earlier and then spent some time under the heat lamps. He said the tomato gravy supposedly from an old family recipe tasted canned and the chicken was not moist or seasoned.
None of us finished our meals, although we packed up the leftovers because we had five teenagers waiting at home and they'll eat anything.
Overall, a disappointing experience. DH said the memory of his lunch was such that he will try it again at noon and urges me to come with and see if I like their sandwich offerings better, but for sure we will probably not be back for dinner. For the quality of the food and the bizarre ambiance, it was a very expensive and lackluster meal.
In defense, El Pedregal is a sad little plaza now that The Heard Museum has moved. Most of the shops are empty and your footsteps echo weirdly in the silence. The new owners of the center have made no effort to attract new tenants and I hear they really want to tear it down and build more condos for The Boulders. Probably with the lack of traffic, Brugo's has to keep their food costs down by really tightly controlling their inventory, and I imagine the rent is pretty high, hence the high menu prices, but that's no excuse for bland, dried-up food.
I don't know if I would ever try again.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)