First thing I noticed - it's October 1st and we're covered in Christmas decorations.. WTF.. just a little odd.
Odd decorations aside, the food was good. I was here for a business dinner and we got to try practically everything on the menu as part of this set menu, so please excuse the fact that I don't remember the names of everything I tried!
Course 1 :
Salad - blah
Calamari - perfect
Caprese Salad - one of the best I've ever eaten. Their homemade mozzerella was to die for !
Course 2:
Smoked salmon pasta: I'm a salmon person but this stuff reeked of salmon. Super fishy. Not very good.
Pasta with sausage: Sausage was very tasty. Pasta was undercooked. None of the pasta tasted homemade. Maybe it is but I'm a bad pasta taster.. but if it's homemade, they suck at making pasta.
Course 3:
Veal parmesan - My fiance's favorite dish of the evening. It was perfectly pounded, perfectly breaded and with just the right amount of cheese. Their red sauce is incredible.
Fresh fish of the day - seemed to be salmon again. This time it was well prepared and good. Nothing exciting here, just fish they didn't screw up.
Lemon chicken - Way too lemony for anyone at my table. This was served family style and 8 of us didn't even come close to finishing one order of it.
Course 4:
Canoli - the nastiest canoli ever. Some of us were spitting them out (yes, at a business dinner - it was that gross). It tasted like medicine. NO idea WTF they put in this crap.
Fresh berries and cream - hard to screw that up.
Apple tart - DELISH. We were fighting over this.
The Rao's signature Cianti is also worth mentioning - quite good. We noticed meatballs weren't on the set menu and the server was kind enough to bring us some. These were the highlight of the evening! Best meatball I've ever eaten.. wow.
Overall it was good, but I don't get what the hype's about. The NY location must be much better to be as famous as this place is.