First, the good. The service is terrific; very friendly, eager staff -- including the guy refilling our water -- who all seem to care deeply about patrons having a good experience.
I just wish the food had been as good.
We started with the roasted sausage appetizer. If the sausage was roasted, it was then sliced and sauteed in a fry pan. Not a big complaint, but imagine paying $10 for about six pieces of nickel-sized sausage, each about 1/4 inch thick surrounded by onions, peppers over a piece of breaded, deep-fried cheese. Not awful, but for $10?!?!?!? $4 maybe.
The salad greens were a bit limp and several of my pieces were brown.
The bread was bland "white bread" shaped like a baguette. What startled me, though, were the individual packets of Land o' Lakes butter pads. Honestly? Fast-food butter in an "upscale" cafe?
My wife ordered Chicken and Prosciutto with Pasta. If you're going to list an ingredient in the title, it should be featured in the dish. There maybe a dozen very small pieces -- the diameter of a pencil eraser -- in the sauce. So it was essentially chicken and penne pasta with a "flavoring" of prosciutto.
I had the Chicken and Shrimp over angel hair pasta. Decent, but only three shrimp in the dish. $27.00. Pul-leeze.
I'm not a cheapskate. I spend good money at a number of high-end restaurants in Pittsburgh (check out my other reviews). This just seemed WAY too much for what the food we received.
At least my Johnnie Walker Black was only $8.50. I expected to pay more for that!
Disappointed. I was really hoping to find a good spot for dinner on the South Side. I need to try Gypsy Cafe next...