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| - Friendly staff and convenient location (halfway between our friends' new house and ours). Awful food. Our friends just moved and after helping them rearrange furniture, we needed to find some food quickly. Wanting to support this recently opened, non-chain restaurant, we agreed to try it (despite my Italian skepticism at any restaurant that misspells "Buona" in its name!)
Like Nicolas M, I too am Italian. I traveled across Italy and sampled the bounty of small town Italy, feasting at my cousin's home in Molise. I appreciate great food, but also want to see the small business owner succeed and applaud anyone who has the chutzpah to open a restaurant in this still-crappy economy.
Our non-Italian friends were here before and said it was OK (I know, with that glowing endorsement, why didn't I steer them elsewhere?).
We entered on a Saturday just before 6pm. We were the ONLY patrons! We've dined out several times with our friends and their 3yr old son. This is the first time I've seen the boy so spooked at a restaurant. Maybe he was having The Godfather flashbacks or just didn't know what to make of a restaurant with no other customer?! This is a great kid who is normally well behaved in restaurants, but here, he was nervous and on the verge of tears for about 10 minutes!
There was a man and a woman (possibly the owners) and then a chef. After her first visit, my friend said she thought they were speaking Italian. However, I quickly confirmed they were speaking Spanish (not that there's anything wrong w/that but I wouldn't be confident at a Chinese restaurant to hear the staff speaking Polish)! I really really wanted to ask them what region they were from in Italy, but my husband made me keep Princess Snarkella locked up.
They brought a basket of mediocre garlic bread. It was nicely garlicky, but had a fresh-from-the-Costco-freezer texture. Sad to admit, but we ate it, so they brought us another basket, which was overcooked and not as garlicky as the first batch. REALLY?? With only 1 table, is it that hard to achieve a little consistency with the bread?!?!?!
We perused the overly crowded and confusing menu. Confusing because of the many spelling errors and typos, as well as the "Feline" or "brown sauce" mentioned by Nicolas M. What the heck is "Feline" sauce?!?!? I Googled to see if it was misspelled, trying such variations as Fellini or Felini but found nothing. Needless to say, if you're going to misspell or misname a sauce, you MIGHT want to avoid any connotations that conjure up family pets.
Also strange was the way the man presented the daily specials. He came to our table with 3 plates wrapped in plastic wrap, featuring the actual food items that they probably would have put flame to had we chosen one of the specials. Again, too many choices. Is it really necessary to offer 3 daily specials at a small cafe? They would be better off following in the steps of the fabulous Postino by choosing to focus on a few menu items while preserving the utmost quality, rather than a landslide of "meh" options.
My pasta Genova was probably the best at the table, a creamy pesto sauce with linguine. The sauce had an OK flavor, but the pine nuts were like a rainbow....some very light, some a nicely toasted golden color, some a darker brown and a few overcooked to a deep chocolaty hue. My husband ordered some creamy type sauce with peas and pancetta over penne. It was flat. Our friend's chicken with red sauce was abominable. I think I would rather have Ragu!! The only item I didn't try was my friend's husband's lasagna.
Although they have no liquor license yet, they do have a very reasonable $5.00 corkage fee, and had I realized this policy, I would have happily grabbed a bottle or two of Seghesio Zinfandel at the Safeway.
Dessert tray was impressive looking and our friends' son adored their chocolate cheesecake-type selection, but we were again meh about our creme brulee type dish.
Please La Buona Pasta, check your spellings (consult an Italian-English dictionary, pick up a Lidia Bastianich cookbook, hell, even visit a Macaroni Grill, at least they have proof-readers). And cut the menu options by at least 60%. Find a few items you can perfect and stick with those. Less is best. Any good Italian knows the most delicious food consists of a few top-quality ingredients simply prepared with love
Buona Fortuna!.
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