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| - Our dinner club went to Michaelangelo's with very high hopes. We made reservations at least 2 weeks out for 15 (only 10 were able to make it) and we were given a private dining room for a 7:15 reservation. The ambiance was wonderful and we had a great interaction with the bartender while waiting for the rest of the party to arrive.
Once seated, it took 20 minutes before we were able to place the order. Between the 10 of us we had a range of hot and cold appetizers, salads and entrées. The salads came out promptly, but noticed the appetizers, which we said to bring all at once, were delayed. Apparently, the kitchen has a standing rule of 30 min between each course. By 9, we did not have entrées and some of the party began requesting bills and to-go boxes. My entrée arrived and it looked great - risotto and pork shank. The meat was very tender and falling off the bone, however had no flavor. The risotto was watery and bland. My husband's Osso Buco looked very unattractive and was very disappointing for a $40 dish.
One of the members of our group went to discuss the timing with the manager and he proceeded to tell her to expect a 2 hour dinner (we were closer to 3 at this point) and basically that we were wrong for having different expectations. The server treated us very rudely from that point on. When the reservation was made, it was clarified with the manager that we would have split checks and all pay with cash. The server seemed to know nothing about this and when trying to split the bill told me she would come back when we "got it figured out" and stormed out of the dining room. By the time we paid the bill it was 10:30.
Long story short - we planned ahead, they did not. We had a 3.5 hour sub-par dinner that did not include dessert or coffee, one of the greatest parts of an Italian restaurant. There are so many great places in Little Italy that I wish we had visited instead.
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