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| - I took a speaker to lunch here the other day. I suggested either here, Spice Island, or Panera, and the speaker opted for here, based on the food description. I was actually secretly happy with this decision, since it'd been over two years since I'd been here, and Joe Mama's was on my "want to review but can't write a fair assessment until I go back, since I can't remember details" list.
Unfortunately, this experience reminded me why I haven't gone out of my way to eat here for so long. In terms of food quality, this place is like an Italianized version of Eat'n Park. I ordered the gnocci, which was described as having sun dried tomato sauce with basil pesto and pine nuts. Sounds pretty appealing, right? Well, it wasn't. The gnocci was soft and overcooked, and not al dente like I like it. The sauce, which sounded great on the menu, had a weird bitter flavor. I just finished eating the leftovers for lunch today, and these problems were exacerbated to the point that I ate the gnocci without much of the sauce (I don't like to waste, but it was so awful I ended up throwing out most of the sauce and pine nuts). The dish came with a huge salad (similar to the type you'd get at the Olive Garden), which came with a couple slices of bread (not exactly sure of the type--maybe faux foccacia)? While the bread tasted decent the day of, it was hard as a rock today, except for in the middle. I hate to say it, but I've had better food at the Olive Garden.
The speaker ordered the salmon entree, which comes with linguine and broccoli, and seemed to enjoy it. (Then again, she was starving due to lack of breakfast and was a visitor, so was probably trying to be polite, etc...) The one time I came here before for lunch, I ordered a salad, which was okay but nothing memorable.
Service was pretty lackluster, despite it being a slow time. One thing I noticed was how dirty the place seemed to be (we were seated downstairs). As much as I and others like to hate on E'n P, at least it's clean! Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Joe Mama's.
Based on my experience, let's just say I'm in no rush to come back anytime soon. If I did return, however, I think I'd stick to the pizza and alcoholic beverages.
EDIT: This business closed at the end of Oct. 2014 and has been reopened with a new menu under new ownership as Olio Trattoria (see my review for that business).
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