| rev:text
| - "Babe, I don't think we can go here."
"What? Why not?"
"Do you remember Rachel? She gave it ONE star. For service."
"They've been open a while now,. You have to give them time to get the kinks worked out. Let's just give them a chance."
So we've been wanting to try this place for a few months now since we always see it on the drive home. Hoping to be pleasantly surprised, we made the 30-second drive and stepped into the restaurant. It was pretty busy, which was initially comforting, but the absence of a host(ess) for the first couple minutes brought my hopes back down. The hostess arrived and looked stern, stating that it would be a few more minutes before we would be seated. No welcome, just a firm statement. Okay.
Service was definitely slow, but our waitress arrived in a few minutes. I ordered wine and watched in a panic as she haphazardly reached across me to place it on the table, spilling wine down the sides of a tiny, but very full glass. My date and I placed our orders and I made my usual "ew" remark as he ordered his steak rare. The waitress picked up on it and shared an anecdote about her daughter and son-in-law--a strict vegetarian and a meat-and-potatoes guy. Totally us. We had a laugh and looked forward to our meal.
The crab stuffed mushrooms were pretty good, but there was a long wait for entrees, so we ordered another round of drinks. My wine came out in an even smaller glass (!?) than the first and my date was given a different beer (the first was still on the table, so I'm not sure why there was confusion.) I ordered a pasta dish, which was generously sized, but consisted solely of cooked noodles, blobs of cheese, diced tomatoes and shriveled spinach. It lacked sauce, flavor, seasonings--everything that would make it into a $15 bowl of pasta. The boyfriend's steak was disappointing enough that he didn't even bother taking home the leftovers.
The waitress noticed I didn't eat much of my pasta and must have told the hostess, who came over and asked if I didn't enjoy my meal. I told her it wasn't what I expected and she walked away without another word. The server then came over and told me she was "fixing" the bill, which had already been presented. She then gave us the new copy of the bill with the pasta dish taken off. It was a nice gesture, but I'm surprised that the hostess never apologized, told us that she was offering a comp or took the opportunity to ask how they could improve the dish. It's like she knew what to do for customers in terms of service recovery, but not how to actually recover. It left me more disappointed and uncomfortable than if she had not done anything at all.
I'm glad that we satisfied our curiosity about the new Italian restaurant down the street, but this was definitely one of the most disappointing restaurant experiences I've had in a very long time. I would recommend stopping by Serafina's next door instead if you're tempted.
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