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| - Ahhh, so this was a bit of a disappointment. The Wife and I had been looking forward to coming to this place for some time now, drawn by the great Yelp reviews and so we checked it out last night, making reservations beforehand. It is located on one of the ends of a strip mall. When we came inside, there was no one at the wait desk, though there were waitresses around, so we stood for about a minute or so waiting before someone noticed us and came out.
They brought us into one of the rooms on the side at a table for two in a darker corner where there was a light burned out in the ceiling. There were other tables available- I'm not sure why they chose to place us there. At least they lit a candle so we could have some light.
Our waitress took our orders, calamari for our appetizer and then pork ossobuco and the seafood pasta dish. We requested that they switch the linguini from the pasta with some of the home made fettuccine that we had read so much about, which they did without complaint. After about 15 minutes, she brought out some bread and butter. The bread, especially the foccacia was freshly made and delicious, though my wife thought the butter had a bit of an off flavor to it. I didn't mind it.
The calamari was ok- thickly sliced, it was pretty chewy compared to what we are used to. Had a nice crust on it and the aioli was tasty- appreciated how the banana peppers offset some of the richness of it. I like the calamari at Cantine, down the street, better.
Our meals took a really long time to get to us. There was another set of guests seated next to us arrived about 15 minutes after us. They were nearly immediately given some of the bread, even before they had ordered, which struck us as a little strange, and they were halfway through with their entrees before ours even got to us. I also noted that the waitress offered to shave additional cheese on top of their pasta but didn't do the same for us. It was a little bit strange to be treated so differently. It would have been nice to have the fact that it was taking so long to be acknowledged by the waitstaff.
The pork ossobuco was ok. The risotto was well flavored but underdone- you could taste the grit of the granules of rice as you chewed. The pork was slightly overcooked but had pretty good flavor. It would have been more passable if there was more sauce or gravy on it to cover up some of the dryness. The seafood pasta was also ok- the home made pasta seemed a bit soft and flabby, I know that it's not going to be al dente if its made fresh, but I expected at least some bounce. I wonder if it had been sauced beforehand but then sat around while the ossobuco was finished and so became soggy. The seafood was a reasonable portion and tasted fresh, though they weren't the best scallops.
We decided to give dessert a try, since we figured that given our experience, we might not come back to this place. Cannoli was what we settled on and it was definitely the highlight of the evening. Two crisp and well filled cannoli's came out, with pistachio and chocolate chips on them. For $6, they are a bargain- probably the best cannoli's that we've had, and we are not usually cannoli people. Very smooth delicious filling.
Ultimately, though there were some bright spots in our meal, our experience at this restaurant was disappointing. We probably will not come back, unless it is to get take out cannoli's, if it is possible to do that.
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