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| - Oye, this kills me to write this because I'm such a big supporter of East 4th Street and the downtown Cleveland scene but the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Simply put, La Strada needs to change...yesterday.
My dinner experience was in November with my girlfriend and another couple.
First, the hostess tried to seat us at a tiny table near the front door that looked more like a waiting area than legitimate table. We nicely asked to be seated somewhere else and they obliged, unfortunately. Our next seat was on the second floor above the kitchen. With no exaggeration, the temperature up there must have been close to 90 degrees and our dates thought they were going to pass out. There was an oscillating fan that we directed towards us that slightly abated the incredible heat.
Next, our waiter seemed like a nice kid who was in way over his head. He forgot wine, bread, and silverware and we ended up waiting for quite awhile. Once again, he was a nice kid but was totally overwhelmed or undertrained.
The food was a train wreck. I got the chicken parmesan that turned out to be nothing better than a lean cuisine. The sauce had zero taste, the chicken was bland, and the linguine was just, meh. It was odd really because it seemed like there was just no flavor to the entire dish - I didn't think this was possible. My girlfriend got the basil pesto pasta. Once again, it might as well have come from the freezer aisle at your supermarket - just completely devoid of depth and flavor. The worst part about all of this was the dishes were $20 and $17 respectively. We felt robbed for what we expected and paid. I could have excused the subpar food if it was a 1/3rd of the price - terrible value.
The restaurant is in a great location but just does not approach the standards set by the other places on East 4th. Don't get tricked like we did.
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