| rev:text
| - It's with regret that I rank Felice with only two stars. If it were merely about the food, I would rank it at least three if not four, but the service on more than one occasion has been disappointing.
I rated Felice once before, based on its Saturday brunch, which unfortunately is a thing of the past. While it was a very tasty brunch selection, I was not surprised to hear they had quit offering morning fare, considering we were the only diners in the place at 10A on a Saturday morning.
But this review is about dinner, or dinners rather. Felice is one of the few places on the near East side that stays open late on weekends. Their kitchen closes at midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, which is great if you're not an early diner.
I have been there three times in the past six weeks for late night dinners, and each time, I greatly enjoyed my meal, but was frustrated by the service each time.
The first time I went for dinner was with a group of nine people. We got there at about 11P, and the place was rather busy. The restaurant is in an older two story house, and the former porch area has been closed in and is now used as additional dining areas. We were fortunate to get a large table in the front porch area; we were told that it was heated, but given that it was January, it really wasn't insulated well enough.
That evening there were a few large parties, and considering the hour, the slow service didn't really phase me that much. I had a delicious meal of chicken thighs with seasonal vegetables. The chicken thighs were well prepared, although that's hardly impressive, as it's one of the most forgiving types of meat there is. The seasonal vegetables, however were delicious - in particular the brussels sprouts. I'm not usually a fan of the cabbage's smaller cousin, but these were delicious and I was sorry there weren't more of them.
Although our meals were very slow in arriving, the server was attentive and checked in regularly. Had I rated Felice after that meal, I probably would have rated it with 4-Stars.
I returned with my partner for a 10P meal on a Friday the following week, and was expecting an equally good meal, but with better service. I was to be disappointed. Again, no real complaints with the food, but the service was worse ... much worse.
I ordered the steak frittes, which was deliciously prepared, but the piece of steak itself was a little smaller than I would have liked for the price. The frittes were fine, but not amazing. My partner ordered the boullabaise, which he found tasty, but unimpressive. His biggest complaint was that no bread was served with the soup, and he had nothing to accompany the seafood broth. The meals rated at least a 3-Star, but then there was the horrible service.
We conjectured that the server may have been working his first night at Felice, and based on watching him with other tables, it seemed like it may have been his first night working in any restaurant ever. We waited at least 15 minutes after being seated before we were approached for our drink order, and another 15 minutes by my watch before he returned with a single glass of wine. It was another 25 minutes after we placed our orders, before our meals were brought out from the kitchen, and we had to ask twice for refills on water. In the end, we had to flag down the manager to get our bill, after waiting more than 20 minutes after our plates had been empty and clearly pushed aside for removal; we would have ordered coffee and dessert, but couldn't stand the idea of waiting longer.
All told it was more than an hour of waiting, and it wasn't just us; we watched as all the tables around us waited and grumbled about slow service. Subsequently I have spoken with at least five other people who have dined at Felice, and they all say the same thing: Good food, horrible service.
|
![[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)