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| - If you don't want to read a story: go anywhere else if you value your hard-earned money- this was the most disappointing expense of $70 I have had in recent memory- and I frequently Amazon Prime while drunk.
Portofino's disappointed me in a way I haven't been disappointed by a restaurant in a very long time. I enjoy a 'greasy spoon'-styled restaurant/diner of any kind- there's a time and a place for a big, crazy burger and huge plate of fries or onion rings and I love the brusque service of a mom-and-pop joint that puts out great food. I want my servers at places like that to not come and think "What else could he want?" with confidence, and know my answer would be "Nothing, this is everything I was looking for."
What I didn't expect when visiting Portofino's was a verbatim translation of that to a low-tier Italian restaurant, and it frankly will ensure I never recommend this location to anyone.
The positives:
A Sangiovese-Cab blend I wanted with the meal was sold out, the bartender (via our server) recommended a substitute Super-Tuscan at an identical price point. It was at perfect temperature and opened up flawlessly for exactly what I was looking for from the bottle I earlier preferred. This restaurant does not employ a sommelier, but this was the mark of a bartender who knows their wine. I come from a wine sales background and have a very solid understanding of my regions and grapes, so for the recommendation to be this close to what I was seeking told me very good things. The wine turned out to be perfect- and the only redeeming factor of a $70 dinner.
The hostesses were keen to seating us quickly during the dinner rush and I noticed their attentiveness to leap to action in seating larger groups by merging tables and adjusting seating with lightning-speed.
The house salad dressing is good. Not the salad- but the dressing. Their angel hair pasta is good.
The cons?:
The atmosphere was unfortunate. After waiting 7 minutes for our table, my girlfriend and I were seated in the most poorly positioned and tiny table in the building- ensuring we would be passed on both sides by staff moving food into the dining room and outside. With a sizable table this is a non-issue, but given the large plates and unnecessary accoutrements stationed on the table, along with our order of a bottle of wine, two glasses, the oversized menus, a poorly spaced wine list that could be a single page in lieu of a bound book- we were already struggling to properly apportion the table before those items arrived. This table simply should not exist in the workflow of the restaurant, it serves strictly to increase total head count by two. I understand during a busy dinner rush as it's more important to put the people in their seats than to have them milling about in the lobby, but other 4-seat tables were filled by groups of two against a wall in lieu of being in direct egress of the kitchen and dining room. I was left with the impression I was expected to be in and out as quickly as possible and simply 'filling a seat' versus 'dining in their restaurant'.
Service was just poor. It spoke volumes that the most attentive member of the staff to my girlfriend and I was a young man who was not our server, nor anyone's server, and may have been a busboy that ensured we finally received attention from a server after waiting at our new table for the better part of 10 minutes. Our server was conversational and friendly, but hardly attentive- we spoke with her exactly 5 times, two of which were her ensuring we had left a card for payment while we finished our wine. After relocating from our anemic and uncomfortable table indoors to one outside (a request which was met by a brusque departure and no further attention for a further 10 minutes after being re-seated by the hostesses) we placed our orders with hope the food would speak for itself.
50 minutes after walking in, our salads were weak, supported only by the heft of their dressings. My veal marsala was utterly mushy- it had the texture of a McDonald's burger patty and no crust or browning to speak of with perhaps the most egregious error being the literal pool of red/brown grease it and my pasta sat in that tasted nothing of marsala wine and broth as it should, but instead of the remnants of boiling a veal cutlet in butter and lard poured onto a plate, as I suspect was what happened. Seasoning was nonexistent, and this dish was very much inedible, as I have developed an unfortunate case of acid reflux since. My girlfriend's tortellini alfredo reminded us of a bagged pasta we had purchased on sale at the grocery store months before doused in a wimpy saucing that had nothing to offer for texture or depth.
After leaving significant amounts of food on the plates, the best part of our meal was the wine and a busboy's attentiveness. Yelp describes a one-star as 'Eek! Methinks not.' Yep, sounds spot-on. At least Amazon sends things promptly and as I expected them to arrive.
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