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| - I really like Fiamma and go there fairly often with my wife for lunch but this visit was a disaster. First, this place is a beautiful white table cloth restaurant but does not feel super formal. We were promptly seated and the waitress was quickly at our table. The food selection is extensive and the menu offers a more complex selection of dishes than your usual Italian restaurant. We came this night with our two young children who are both under 10. However, this restaurant is not for children. There are no children menu options presented and nada special done for kids (forget the menus, crayons here). So we asked if we can get pasta with noodles and that was available. We also asked for Pizza but we were told they typically don't do that but because we came in early (6pm) and they were not busy yet, they can accommodate. So we ordered pepperoni pizza for one of the kids. We also ordered drinks, a beer and wine for my wife. The waitress, who was really nice btw, came back a few mins later saying there is no pepperoni (strange for an Italian restaurant to have no pepperoni but I get it, this is not a pizza place after all). So we opted for just cheese. On her next trip back, she brought our drinks which included 2 lemonades for the kids - yes, about the only kid thing they had.
Unfortunately while setting drinks on the table she dropped the beer bottle on top of me. Beer all over the table, floor, and partly on my wool coat. No biggie, it was an accident. She hastily started cleaning 'some' of it and another waiter came back and gave me a couple of napkins to clean up my coat. I did not make a big deal about it because it really was just an accident. However, the cleanup was poorly done and I sat next to a puddle of beer on the floor throughout the night (she did come back about 15 mins later with a small hand towel to wipe the floor but that was a job for the mop which never came out).
Next comes my caprese salad (tomatoes and mozzarella). This was delicious and well presented. The kids meals came out shortly after. That was problem #2. My daughter's pizza was BURNED on about 30% of the side, and completely RAW underneath. I wish I would have taken a picture because this thing looked like it was baked, well, by my daughter, using a blow torch. My guess is that what had happened was that they did not expect anyone to order a pizza so they probably fired up the oven on the spot and did not wait for it to be preheated and just put the pizza while it was heating up but that is a theory. We called the waitress and she profusely apologized and told us it will be taken off the bill (more on this little detail later).
We asked for just spaghetti and butter - plain, nothing else. That came out later, but wait, it was not spaghetti but a severely overcooked flat noodle (more like a long egg noodle). The pasta was so overcooked that it almost turned into a mashed potato like GOO as soon as my daughter tried to stir the butter into it. By that time she had nibbled on some bread so we made no big deal about it.
Finally our main entrees arrived. We had both ordered specials: Lamb Osso bucco and Sea Bass. Both were very well prepared and delicious and came promptly to the table. When we were done we were offered dessert. We ordered a tiramisu and asked if the coffee was fresh. The waitress said the coffee was made just 2 hours ago - Wow, that is fresh. Why would they make coffee at 5pm for a restaurant that was essentially empty at 6pm when we got there? She did say it was in a sealed container so we went for it. It was not a 'bad' cup of coffee but I almost wished she would have lied and said it was just made.
Dessert came quickly and we were surprised with a second dessert on the house to make up for the mistakes we were told. This was a nice gesture (another one to come at the very end) and both desserts were delicious. The Tiramisu was excellent, fresh and spongy but not soggy. Very well done.
In the end we were presented with our bill which was for $140. The specials were about $30 and $35 each and add 2 drinks, dessert, coffee, and bad kids meals and it added up. Gave my card and paid and it was on the way out that I noticed that darned burned-undercooked pizza was not taken off the menu and not only that, it was almost $11 bucks. Yikes. At that time we were just exhausted and wanted to flee as fast as we could. Before we got up our tables, another waiter came back and gave us two house-made limonccelos on the house, again for our trouble.
So in the end they did gain points for trying to recover. We did get 2 freebies as a gesture to try to make up for the experience, our main dishes were very good, and the waitress was very friendly and apologize no less than 3 times for the mistakes done. I will give Fiamma another visit but oh man, I really hope we don't get the same bad karma from last night.
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