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| - We were staying at the Rio with friends this past weekend, and failing to have made reservations at a decent restaurant, called down to Matarano's. They made us wait a half an hour for the reservation, and when we went down to the restaurant, had us wait in the bar for another 15 minutes. The bartender was rude and we had a hard time getting drinks. We were finally shown to the dining room, which was about 25% full. Right.
Things LOOKED promising at first: three separate servers came up to our table to say they were part of the "team" waiting on us. Then one waiter berated another for talking to us. We asked for a wine recommendation, and were poured an absolutlely AWFUL 2007 Chianti that, if it wasn't faulted, really should not have been on the wine list. We are NOT people who send back food or wine, but there was NO WAY we were going to drink this. We ordered a bottle of California wine that we knew was going to be good.
Then it took a good 20+ minutes to get anyone to return to our table. Our "team" of waiters was no where to be seen. We finally flagged someone down to beg them for bread--which we were CHARGED for!
My BF and I split a Caesar salad (which was the best part of the dinner by a mile) but were brought no extra plates. Nice.
I ordered the pork chop special, which, while cooked properly, didn't have a lot of flavor. Interestingly enough, my BF, who ordered the Red Snapper special, had the SAME salty sauce on his fish! REALLY? Our friend who ordered the Chicken Parmigiana got a piece of chicken with cheese & what appeared to be canned red sauce slapped on the plate--no pasta, no veggies, no presentation whatsoever. Our other friend ordered the Seafood Fra Diavola, and said it was quite good.
We'd had dinner the night before upstairs at VooDoo Steak & Lounge, and it was excellent. Skip Matarano's and head upstairs. You'll be glad you did.
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