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| - Not A Good Value.
Wow, I 'm a bitch. I just realized that I gave Lin's Grand Buffet four stars.
Over the years we have become rather stringent in our reviews. There is no sense in being conciliatory when there are so many other restaurants to patronize. Our dollars go only so far. So if you are a reader who will eat just about anything you may like this place a lot. It starts out very promising. It is neat and clean inside and quite romantic, and the people are friendly. Great date night for intimacy --just not for foodies. If you have a trained palate you will get more out of this review. If you like anything, then you will probably not get much out of this review. We love all food--even truck food. We don't discriminate, but we give fair reviews and credit only where credit is due.
Started with the breadbasket. There were 2 of us, so only 2 rolls brought. They were small and stale. We also had the pepperdews stuffed with goat cheese (six per order at $6 a plate), and the bruschetta (we chose an order with half tomatoes and half crab meat. There were two of each.)
The goat cheese appetizer was cold- not at room temperature- therefore the sweetness of the pepperdews was a bit cloying, but redeemed with the pepper flavored olive oil. A dollar a bite! Kinda leaves a bad taste.
In our opinion the pepperdews should have been packed in extra virgin olive oil and stored at room temperature--and the cheese filling taken out of the fridge an hour before opening the restaurant. The entire appetizer should be room temperature--if they had been we could have eaten another plate of them. The idea of them is appetizing, but the presentation abysmal. Side note: The bit of green on top was wilted to the point of browning and would make Chef Ramsey cry. Flair is not as important in our book. But, just saying...
The bruschetta, for the money, was a huge disappointment. While there was a sufficient amount of crab on each slice of toast, the bread was not fresh, it was not piping hot, and the crab was absolutely frigid. Crab should have been warmed up first, then served over PIPING HOT, TOASTY bread--which it was not. The crab was (obviously fake) another kind of flaky white fish. Barely passable. The garlic was abundant and good. The tomatoes were sweet cherry tomatoes. We would take imported canned San Marzanos al fiorno over fresh cherry tomatoes any day of the week. Just a disappointment.
My Sicilian husband pronounced the bruschetta as an Italian would (broo-SKETT-ah). The waitress passive-agressively shamed him, by repeating it twice as most Americans say it (broo-SHETTA), which only showed her ignorance. Otherwise, she was extremely friendly and talkative and the service was consistently good throughout our meal. I am being very fair here. She was truly nice, but she was sort of clueless.
Our California Chardonnay was $29 for the bottle and our server described it as oak barrel aged. It had zero oak--so we think our server possibly made a bit of a mix up there. Anyway, it was just "okay". I expect a lot more for the money, but even then, we still consider $29 for a bottle a low price/every day price and yet it should have been better, but then wine is totally subjective in our humble opinion.
We ordered a margharita pizza because we didn't think they could possibly disappoint us with something as beautiful and simple as tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. Oh boy-- it was PRACTICALLY INEDIBLE!
The crust was decent, even a bit blackened on the bottom like we like it. And that's where that ends. The cheese was a fancy shred blend--like something you'd buy at the grocery store. HORRIBLE. Where were our fresh dollops of beautiful mozzarella? The basil was fresh and friseed, They put cherry tomatoes on this pizza! Not good Amano! Not good! The tomatoes were too small...too sweet. Just...wrong. This is not the pizza of our homeland. Barely palatable. The reason for one star.
In our ongoing effort to find something noteworthy we did something that is law in our book--if the menu offers creme brulee we order it, even if we are not hungry. Creme brulee is a godsend. Unfortunately, the creme brulee here is "meh". If you've had truly great creme brulee nothing else will compare. The best we ever had was at Cafe Cherie in Montreal. It was in a low, wide dish with a thick, rich custard and thick, hard sugar top. Amano serves a small light creme brulee with a sugar top as light as an angel's wing. If that's your thing you'll love it. The vanilla bean had a good flavor. It just fell short in our book, and again--it was frigid, like almost everything else we ate there. Amano--you must take things out of the fridge! You'd solve most of your problems if you did. We did not order the olives for fear they would be pulled from a fridge.
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