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| - After a shopping trip to Ikea nearby, we settled for some Italian- American comfort food, excited by the idea that we could "pig" out on their all-you-can-eat salads and bread.
This is a casual family dining restaurant, reminiscent of Olive Garden for their menu options, minus the overall warmth and look of the place. Service is snappy, almost excessive, I had a feeling they wanted to take our orders as soon as possible and rush us out of there. We weren't even done looking at the menu and the waitress had come by three times asking if we were ready. Since it was only a bit past 5 pm, we informed her that we'd start with salad and would like to wait before ordering our main meals. Barely through our first plate of cesar salad, which by the way is a good mix of creamy and garlic-y, our pastas had arrived. We didn't want to send them back for our meals would get cold, but again I felt too great of an urgency on their behalf. The restaurant was half empty, it's not like they needed to turn tables that quickly.
I opted for the firecracker shrimp bowtie pasta which is a mix of sauteed shrimps, tossed vegetables and pasta in a primavera sauce. Great flavors, but very oily. my partner had a monstrous looking 16 layer lasagna, the pasta to filling ratio was off. I don't understand how anyone could eat 4 inches of stacked noodles.
In terms of price and portion, East Side is satisfactory.
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