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| - My parents (who live in Cornelius) first tried Derado's following a friend's recommendation and had a fine experience. They have been back several times since and enjoyed their meals -- very much in line with the other reviews.
This is why they decided to order a large portion of Derado's homemade lasagna for our 2013 Christmas dinner (I was in town visiting from Manhattan). We were planning to serve a larger-than-normal proportion of people (and small children), which is why we opted for something easy and more broadly appealing as lasagna.
Unfortunately, the lasagna was not up-to-par with Derado's usual standards. Once we reheated the pans to serve our party, it became clear that the seasoning was off. More specifically, the sauce was incredibly spicy. And I'm not talking about just a bit of heavy-handed seasoning, I'm talking about an overwhelming flavor of spicy crushed red pepper that made the lasagna nearly inedible. In fact, it was all everyone would talk about at the party, which was incredibly disappointing. Especially considering what we paid.
My stepfather and brother-in-law went in to Derado's this afternoon to make the management aware of our disappointing experience and were met with nothing but stubborn arrogance. First of all, we understand this is "Uncle Vinnie's special recipe," however, a polite heads-up that this particular recipe includes an overwhelming proportion of red pepper spice would have been nice. I'm completely serious when I say not a single adult at our party (Italians included) felt the lasagna was edible. All this on top of an insult from the team at Derado's that people from North Carolina don't know good Italian sealed the deal on this place for us. (Note: I've lived in NYC for over 6 years now, have had my fair share of authentic Italian, and this was by far the worst.)
Honestly, it's just disappointing that Derado's wasn't open to hearing our feedback as local customers. Almost half as disappointing as the lasagna we ended up serving all of our guests on Christmas day.
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