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| - It pains me to write this review, but as an honest Yelper, I call 'em as I see 'em. I've been here twice within the past month and had 2 very different experiences.
2nd visit:
Came back on a Friday night, party of 5, with a reservation. I was excited to take my DC's here after my pretty good 1st visit. I was late, and 2 of my DC's arrived early. Apparently, they were asked to move tables, so they were given 2 glasses of white wine on the house. Nice. We were seated at the back, along the wall with the black, white and pink graffiti. I had a great view of the open kitchen (more on that later...).
We were disappointed that they were sold out of the suckling pig. However, I don't see that as a bad thing. It means that they get their meat very fresh and order in small quantities, and our server (the same server I had on the 1st visit, an older and very Italian gentleman with cool round glasses!) was quite apologetic.
Between us, we ordered:
- Salumi board with mortadella, wild boar salame, and ragusano cheese.
- Octopus carpaccio
- Seared tuna encrusted with sesame seeds
- Ricotta ravioli with fresh tomato sauce and toasted almonds
- Pasta special - spaghetti with half a lobster in tomato sauce
- Whole red snapper
- Tiramisu
- Chocolate souffle
- Rasberry gelato
The dinner started off great. Our server was very jovial and attentive with water, etc. The place was packed and the atmosphere was fun and lively. Appetizers came quickly, and I especially enjoyed the mortadella. The octopus was also excellent.
Then things went bad. There was a super-long lag (almost an hour?) before our mains came out. Open kitchens are great, but it also allowed us to witness some drama between the staff. I don't know what happened. At first, it just looked like the kitchen staff were stressed out and overwhelmed, as the whole restaurant was full and they were obviously busy. On several occasions, I saw the chef, Roberto, help himself to wine at the bar and he kept drinking through the night. Suddenly, there was yelling (very brief, but loud enough to cause some awkwardness amongst diners) and the chef stormed out to the back of the restaurant, quickly followed by another guy (the manager? he didn't seem like one of the servers). I watched the rest of the kitchen staff look stressed as the chef was gone for a good 15 mins. or so.
The pasta dishes finally came out. I had the ravioli and quite enjoyed the mix of flavours and textures. Had a bite of the tuna, which was delicious. However, they really dropped the ball on the whole red snapper. I saw the fish get brought out of the oven and placed on a plate in parchment paper. I don't know why, but our poor server was left to debone the fish himself (standing at the bar, no less). The fish came out plopped haphazardly on the plate with a few random vegetables. Seriously, the 'plating' was not presentable at all for a reastaurant of this quality. He brought it to our table and clearly improvising, started drizzling olive oil (the same one we used for our bread) over it. [Later, one of my DC's mentioned that it was supposed to come with a sauce, which was missing. She had seen the fish dish at another table and those diners sent it back to the kitchen, which may have precipitated the drama... ]. But my DC's were too polite to complain or make a scene. We were here to celebrate and just wanted to make the most of the evening. The fish was bland and my polite DC's just asked for salt and pepper to give it some flavour. Maybe they wanted to send it back but were worried that we would have to wait another hour if we ordered something else, since the chef at that point was still gone.
The chef and that other guy returned and things were back in order in the kitchen eventually. By the time we ordered desserts and espressos, they were back in the zone. The tiramisu was spot on -- letting the simple freshness of the ingredients speak for itself. I tried the rasberry gelato which is made in-house. It was bursting with flavour. So, at least we ended on a high note. However, I found the kitchen staff's behaviour unprofessional and I only gave the server a huge tip because I felt bad for him having to deal with everything and the bad fish was not his fault. In hectic circumstances, he tried to smile and keep it together admirably. But charging full price ($60) for that fish was really unacceptable. Sending out an incomplete dish and hoping patrons don't notice is just wrong. While the kitchen drama was actually somewhat entertaining, it makes me not want to return, even though I had such a good 1st visit. Maialino Enoteca... when they're ON, they are great, but when they are OFF, watch out.
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