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| - My friend and I were excited that a cute chic-casual spot was opening up in our neighbourhood. But sadly Annabelle was quite disappointing.
The experience was bad from the first moment I got there. My dining companion arrived before me and was told it would be a 20 minute wait, and the server suggested she go next door to Bob's Coffee bar to grab a drink (same owners). After we waited for about 15 minutes we were told by who I think was the owner that our table for 2 was ready. My friend still had about a quarter of a glass of her wine left, so we asked if we could bring it over. They said no. So then we asked if she could just finish her drink and then head over. The gentleman proceeded to say that he would only keep the table for us "maybe for 5 mins, but then he'd have to give our table away. We're really busy tonight". Like, it's not gonna take my friend 20 mins to drink a bit of wine, but how about you don't treat us like we're not welcome? He could tell right away that we were very peeved and then offered to get her a free drink once inside. So we were whisked into the restaurant. The free drink was a decent save but honestly, who treats customers like that, right off the bat before we even enter?
Then there was the food, overall pretty mediocre. The burrata and garlic bread was very tasty, especially the bread. So warm and soft, I would definitely recommend that. The pasta dishes we had, however, were very disappointing. The pasta itself is tasty as it is made in-house, but the sauces were very lacking in flavour. I had a pork and beef ragu that lacked salt and depth, and my friend's dish was similar, just kinda flat flavours. The mocha panna cotta for dessert also had an unsettling jello-y consistency which was not great. We had a few spoons and gave up on it.
The drinks I would say are on point here. They specialize in negroni's and the rosewater + ginger negroni I had was great, as well as the wine. That is one star, and the other is for the bread and burrata. But otherwise I was quite disappointed in our initial service and the pasta, which is supposed to be their specialty. They're a new spot so I'm hoping they're just working out the kinks and things will improve, but I won't be returning anytime soon for that reason.
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