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| - The poster child for bad restaurants. I stopped in for dinner with a family member. I ordered one of the Seasonal Specials, the Chicken and Bacon Penne Al Forno. Expecting the typical "Italian Serving" I was surprised to see my $18 gets a modest portion served in a tiny 6" cast iron frying pan. For this portion size, $12 is fair. I had also ordered a side of shrimp, expecting a decent meal in all. No such luck.
First, the shrimp were dry and tough--a feat you need to work at achieving, since it is pretty hard to make fresh shrimp tough unless you just cook them badly. But the pasta has a ghost pepper level of heat that was certainly not mentioned on the menu. It was spicy to the point of being flavourless. I got through about a third of the serving before I gave up.
My relative ordered the Baked Penne Carbonara, and requested it without scallions. That would have been fine, since they left out the scallions, but it had onions! What was the point of deleting the scallions and adding onions (don't recall the onions being listed on the menu)? Kind of defeats the purpose, huh? Also, I have never had a "spicy carbonara" in my life. Nearly $19 for that dish, when $11 would be reasonable. Two thirds of that dish was also packed in a take-out box although I don't know why we took the leftovers.
Our server was excellent. She could tell there was something not right and made an outstanding effort to find out more, and then approached the management, apparently a waste of her time. A prime example of a staff member that is way too good to be working there.
We walked out with our $50 mistake and went across the parking lot to 3 Brewers and had a great dinner and awesome desserts for $45.
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