| rev:text
| - I wonder why there are no reviews already for this newish location of Tutti Santi. This is the 2nd in Scottsdale, the first being on Greenway at 63 St.
THIS was the location of the former Ristorante Amarone, which I liked, although it was fairly expensive.
So I came in here by myself on a Tuesday night, when they were pretty busy.
I asked the hostess if I could eat at the bar, which I could see a few other people doing and she said of course. So I sat & made myself comfortable and waited for one of the 2 bartenders to give me the menu. And then I waited some more. They were not very busy. FINALLY, I had to wave the bartender over to ask for a menu (he first gave me the wine list - there are VERY FEW wines by the glass here, & nothing that sounded interesting). I guess there were no specials, and no soup of the day listed, but after asking specifically, he told me of a soup (couldn't quite understand what it was except it had chicken).
I also was finally given some bread, which was standard supermarket tasteless Italian. No butter, so I used the olive oil at the counter, which was, I dunno, not quite right. Not rancid, exactly....not herbed, either.
I also ordered and received a Diet Coke which was pretty watery, with crushed ice.
Before I even went in, I'd had the urge for something like lasagna, baked manicotti, or ravioli, so I ordered the "Homemade Ravioli alla Nina" which I understand is one of their specialties.
Well, I was SORELY DISAPPOINTED by this dish, and I just cannot understand the rave reviews of it given by reviewers at their other locations. Now, maybe I am too used to northeastern style Italian food (NYC/Boston) but also food in Chicago & San Francisco, and I'm used to not only the traditional, but also to many different restaurants serving "nouvelle" or innovative Italian dishes, including in Scottsdale.
So, here were my problems with this ravioli dish:
- the 'ultra thin' pasta shell tasted EXACTLY to me like the cellophane rice wrappers used for dim sum shrimp. Which is to say, not much taste really, but it works for dim sum. For ravioli? I dunno so much.
This pasta was also translucent & white, like cellophane rice wrappers. Only mushier. There were I think 6 ravioli's.
- the thin filling was finely chopped spinach & thin ricotta and not much of it. No seasoning that I could discern.
- the sauce was a nearly tasteless cream sauce.
- & each ravioli was topped by maaaybe a scant teaspoon of what seemed to be grainy unseasoned tomato stuff - almost like plain tomato paste?. Not quite sure what to call it, but I sure wouldn't call it sauce. Yeah, like a dab of mild tomato paste.
The whole thing was just so tasteless that I had to SALT them to get any flavor whatsoever from the dish. I've never in my life had to SALT Italian food!
The whole visual impression of the dish was FLAT. Like putting 6 Ritz crackers, each topped with a dab of cream cheese & a slice of pepperoni arranged on a large plate. Actually when they first brought it, I thought it was deviled eggs - all I saw was round white circles with a dab of red on each.
I managed to eat about half of this, then decided why should I waste my precious carbs? So I left the rest.
On the side there was a small green salad, not bad greens, but the dressing was watery as if they hadn't quite drained the greens enough. I can't quite say what type of salad dressing it was, it had little flavor. There was also a tasteless mealy Roma tomato in it. I only bothered to eat about 1/4 of it.
I decided I better cut my losses - surely the desserts wouldn't be any good, so I didn't bother.
The service was okay after the initial being ignored. But the food was so mediocre that I would probably never go back. I looked around & tried to figure out if the clientele were to any degree Italian (American) but they just looked generic Scottsdale/Midwestern to me, so I dunno. I am very
sure that my NYC & Boston Italian friends would be turning over in their graves, if they were dead.
*I* myself am not Italian, but I've eaten plenty of good Italian food in my life (some even in Scottsdale). But not here.
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