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| - Our dining experience began with the hostess seating us and providing us with only a meagerly populated wine list. We perused the list, but having no idea what was on the menu, were not inclined to select a bottle of wine as we had no clue what we would be eating. I opted for a glass of mediocre Chianti for $12 and my husband ordered a draft of Peroni for $6. Our server hastily snatched the drink menu from our hands only to inform us that they were presently out of Peroni and brought a dark version of Moretti, as an alternative, which we later learned when the check came, cost $9, and my husband did not care to drink. It is truly astounding that any restaurant, even in Scottsdale, charges $9 for a twelve ounce bottle of beer! This can be noted as rip-off #1.
Dinner menus finally arrived along with a basket containing four miniscule slices of low quality bread. Our server methodically rattled off the daily specials, one of which included a daily soup that, just like the entrees listed as specials, was accompanied by no description of what the item actually contained. We placed our orders and for lack of anything else to choose from, opted for a bottle of the Chianti that I had previously had. My husband ordered the Caesar salad, which was the only palatable item of our entire evening. I ordered the soup of the day after having asked for more clarification as to what it actually was. The server described it as an Italian wedding soup and highly recommended it over the pasta fagioli on the menu. I was delivered nothing even remotely similar to an Italian wedding soup, which typically contains vegetables and more importantly, has FLAVOR. I received a bowl of hot water that was chock full of cooked spinach with some nondescript and flavorless white items, which I can only assume were egg whites floating in it. The soup was so incredibly tasteless that if I were to have closed my eyes, other than the mushy, chewy texture of the cooked spinach, I would have had no clue what I was eating.
As we were consuming our first course, the hostess arrived at our table after locating the bottle of wine that we had ordered. She proceeded to engage in a physical war with the wine bottle in an attempt to open it, repeatedly telling us that it had been a long time since she'd had to open one of these and it was always very difficult for her to get this right. In her struggle to cut the foil from the bottle, she managed to violently shake the bottle in a vigorous manner, thereby ensuring that any sediment that had settled out of the wine was now once again suspended in the wine. This was confirmed when she poured the sediment-mixed liquid into our glasses. In her course of making conversation, she did ask how my soup was, to which I replied that it had no flavor. She graciously brought me the Caesar, which was quite good despite having the saltiest anchovies that I've ever tasted present on top of it.
Our entrees soon arrived, mine being the eggplant parmesan for $22 and my husband's being the "Linguine Malafemmena" for $27, which is described on the menu as "lobster, shrimp, scallops, mushrooms, garlic, white wine & fresh tomato". My entrée consisted of two thick, tough, bready, and greasy tasting slices of eggplant having a tasteless tomato sauce and half-melted slices of processed mozzarella on top, the entire mess seated on a bed of fresh-out-of-the-box spaghetti drenched in the same flavorless tomato sauce and accompanied by a limp side of overcooked carrots, zucchini, squash, and broccoli. The entire plate was at best lukewarm. The eggplant seemed as though it hadn't been heated throughout, which would explain the unmelted cheese on top. Note this as rip-off #2. That having been said, frighteningly, my entrée was the better of the two.
My husband's seafood pasta dish, instead of having a white wine sauce, was drenched in a sickly, brown butter sauce, which we both despise and would not have ordered the entrée had it been described as such. The worst part, though, was the complete lack of lobster, which is noted as the first item in the description. We both mined through the dish to attempt to find anything that resembled lobster. The only item that we found was a tiny shred that measured approximately 14 of an inch by 1/8 of an inch in size, which we assumed (hopefully) was lobster. The only other seafood to be found in the dish was 2-3 shrimp of mediocre size and quality and one small scallop that had been cut into multiple pieces. Essentially, this was a $27 dish which consisted of a plate of pasta in an awful brown butter sauce with only the tiniest hint of seafood ingredients. Clearly, this was rip-off #3.
I truly cannot express what an incredibly disappointing and excessively costly dining experience this was. I've posted a photo of our itemized bill as evidence since I, personally, would find it difficult to believe that there are actually restaurants that charge $148 for a dinner as awful as this was.
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