I ate here w a friend after we worked all day and we were really excited to have Italian food. I have spent a lot of time in Italy and so has my friend (she is married to an Italian) and we all know standards of good food. We ordered two appetizers: fried mozzarella and a chop salad. The mozzarella was not warm, not fully cooked and the marinara was watery and lacking flavor. The chop salad was just chopped iceburg lettuce with overly tossed vinegary Italian dressing...with only one piece of arugula and a tiny piece of radicchio. It was bland. But we were still hopeful and politely excused their preparations, looking forward to our main courses.
I order chicken parm and my friend ordered linguine with clams. The first bite of my chicken parm made my stomach hurt, which was strange as I eat and make chicken parm all of the time. I had my friend try it and she said it was probably from the super thick soggy breading that wasn't cooked through on the over cooked piece of chicken. The spaghetti noodles were all over cooked and broken and the sauce was not flavored, watery (again) and just really not up to standards for the price is cost. How can they charge full price and cut corners on product by extending its use by diluting it?!
My friend's review of the linguini and clams were that her noodles were also morosely overcooked to the point of breaking into tiny pieces as the forked searched for a place to lift the soggy pile. The creamy (what?) sauce had no essence of clam juice nor any flavor of any sort ... creamy water has never been on anyone's list of being palatable especially involving seafood. She really tried to give the clams a chance proclaiming "at least there is no sand." But as her chewing continued on and on she she said "I can't. I have to send this dish back."
When I tasted the linguine she was right, it was also over cooked and completely broken. No Long noodles, they were all one inch. The clams were over cooked and inedible . The sauce was just cooked wine with no flavor at all. We sent both meals back.
We told the waitress (who was very helpful and kind) of our issue and she brought the manager (Dora?) who tried to intimidate us by bringing over a chef who seemed confused why she was even there. We politely and discreetly as possible told her how terrible the food was and that we could not consume it. (Serious warning this is the type of place you would potentially become ill). The manager then tried to tell us that egg based noodles just cook that way and that we should understand since she is Italian. (How could she be making such a disgrace of her wonderful culture). I spent years traveling back and forth from Tuscany and never have I had such terrible noodles. I definitely never had a meal make me sick as soon as I took a bite of it. After arguing with her for a few minutes and her acting condescending towards us, the manager said she would fix it and walked away. We sat for half an hour with the plates of food still piled cold in front of us and no one returning to our table.
Finally the server asked what was going on and we shrugged our shoulders and she returned with our bill charging us for everything, full price!! We said the manager mentioned "taking care of it." Off she went leaving us for even longer. We never saw the manager again but it certainly became a big deal for the server leaving service to the kitchen to negotiate on our behalf.
When we were about to leave a generous 25% tip for her original patience and kindness on the table and just leave, the waitress returned with only one entree removed from the bill which we swiftly and reluctantly paid. It was such an awful experience minus the waitress, she was great. But the food was absolutely awful and the manager does not know customer service at all.