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| - After reading John Gilchrist's reviews for his picks for best new restaurants of 2014, I have to say he missed the mark big time here. Really? #3 for Scopa?
We went under the recommendation of a friend who specifically goes for the half price wine Tuesdays. As we are not drinkers, we went on a Thursday for lunch and I have to say, it looks very sharp inside. I still see minor bits of the old Boccavino in the bar and I feel that although they tried really hard to make this place upscale trendy Italian, it was not what I was expecting especially after reading the rave reviews.
It was just a random Thursday a few weeks ago so I can't see being out of stock for several ingredients as sufficient reasoning for substituting most of my meal with items that I wasn't expecting. Hubby wanted the chicken parm, they were out...ok, how about the arugula salad with pear? Nope, out of arugula...sigh. The waitress, who was a lovely girl recommended we go with arugula salad to share but she will substitute the arugula with mixed greens and to go with focaccia as well. We agreed to that and the man ended up ordering some chicken pasta dish with peas and mushrooms, and I had the sirloin steak sandwich.
The best part of the meal was the bread. The salad was basically a spinach salad with a few nuts, some grapefruit, which wasn't mentioned in the menu or as a sub that we were informed of, and shredded cheese in a vinaigrette- my house salad kicks this salads ass, sorry. We should have stuck to the spinach salad. My husbands meal was this thick, rich, starchy concoction of penne, roast chicken (think rotisserie chicken with meat pulled off) frozen peas and a few mushrooms in a thick roux like sauce. It came luke warm and just had too much chicken chunks. My "steak" sandwich was basically a random cut of odd meat, because it wasn't beef or if it was, it was sitting around a few days because it was by far the worst cut of meat I have tasted in my life. It was metallic tasting and the texture was off too; I know my steak, and this was no sirloin. It sat on a drenched slice of bread in a demi glaze that was a soggy mess (although the demi was alright) that did nothing to mask the awful cut of meat that was served. The chips on the side looked like chips alright, Pringles to be exact, deep fried golden brown Pringles. They would have been 1000x better as home fries.
I explained to the waitress that I could not eat the steak and inquired as to exactly what cut it was, she described it as being cooked on a spit that they cut? That's F'd up, is this a steak or a donair? She was very kind about the whole thing and removed it from the bill. We tipped her generously because it obviously wasn't her fault and left.
I give place two stars because the waitress was fantastic and the concept is there, I just think we came on an off day. Would I come back? Probably not, I think that some of these peoples perception of this food being amazeballs could be contributed to the half price wine Tuesdays :P
If you are looking for real Italian, drive up 10 min to Eau Claire and go to Prego, best in Calgary, hands down.
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