| rev:text
| - I'm shocked by the good reviews of this place. Perhaps we were just there on a bad night but we'll never know because we certainly will not return.
The place was busy which we expected for a Saturday night. We fully anticipated the 30 minute wait and had no problem with it. What we didn't anticipate was the seemingly chaotic and unorganized front of the house. No one really seemed to be in charge and everyone seemed to do a little bit of everything. With a crowd waiting to be seated, it took almost 10 minutes for a 4 top to be cleaned and prepped for a new party. That's not really acceptable.
We like a bottle of wine with dinner and were not impressed with the wine list. Not enough choices at various price points. We were paying $25-30 if we wanted a bottle. I have no problem shelling out that kind of money for a decent vino but give me better choices! Plus, as we would come to find out, when the food at crappy Olive Garden tastes better, I'm good with a cheaper wine.
The bread was good. I will give Eddie's Casual this much - they make good bread. However, the olive oil for dipping was not tasty and with just a dusting of black pepper, nothing to get excited about. Boring.
We shared the Mussels Dominic appetizer. The mussels were overcooked in my opinion. And the broth - the whole point of ordering mussels is to have that yummy nectar to soak into your toast!! - was awful. It tasted like basic chicken broth with a ton of garlic dumped in to make taste Italian. Where was the wine?? Where was the flavor from the mussels?? If anyone can find it, let me know!
We also shared an entree. This is something we do almost all the time and we usually end up taking some home. Not this night. We ordered the $18 portion of the veal marsala. We received about $2 worth of flavor and it was all garlic. This dish had ZERO flavor beyond the garlic and mediocre olive oil. Zero. Zilch. I even checked under the table to see if it had fallen off while being delivered but nothing. No wine, no veal, no mushroom, no peas.....none of any of those flavors. When we finished eating, there was a pool of olive oil on the plate that rivaled the one used for bread dipping. Note to the chef(s): adding tons of garlic and an extra 1/2 cup of mediocre olive oil to a dish does not make it Italian or tasty. It just makes it gross. My stomach felt icky the rest of the night and I'm pretty sure I can still taste the garlic two days later.
I will not return. I hope that this place improves drastically or gives way to something more deserving of the prime real estate in downtown Lakewood. There are way too many GOOD options (not even mentioning great options) within a 10 mile radius to even consider giving this place a second chance.
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