sanamargaret's Reviews

not even worth a star

2 blocks away from the Washington Convention Center is the only thing recommending this restaurant and that's not much of a recommendation. When my friends and I walked in, we waited for a minute for someone to acknowledge us. Finally, a man stood up from a nearby table and said "Do you want to eat here?" We responded "yes" and were led to a table in the darkest spot in the entire restaurant, although we passed by a woman who was reading the menu by candlelight (each table had a red glass candleholder with lit candles).

While we were perusing the menu, we chatted with the table next to us; they had just finished their meal. One man had enjoyed the eggplant parmesan and the other said to us "The tiramisu here is great!" He also had a clipping of a review of the restaurant, which he let us read. One food item in the review - the calamari - was no longer on the menu; the review was from 2006. The woman recommended the stir-fried greens.

After we ordered, quite some time passed before the server brought a bread basket. More time passed before we got our dishes. Lisa asked for some more bread and we were brusquely told that there was no bread left. We also had to ask for water refills, which was grudgingly done.

I ended up ordering the fettucini verdi, which was not a sterling dish. The spinach fettucini was green, but that was as close to spinach as it got. It was definitely tossed in butter - more than necessary, I think. And no matter how much cheese I shook on it, not much flavor other than lots of butter. My friends' dishes - meatballs and roasted peppers, and the eggplant parmesan - were more flavorful. Lisa was nibbling on the roasted peppers and had just lifted her fork to her mouth when the server came by and took all of our plates away. He didn't ask if we were done, but just stacked up all of the plates and left. We were stunned at the fact that he had just whisked the plates away when one person was clearly still eating.

When he came back, he asked if we wanted dessert. I love tiramisu, and since another diner had recommended it so highly, we ordered it. What we got was the dregs of the tiramisu pan - the soggiest, sloppiest, unappetizing heap of cream and chocolate powder. I tried 2 bites and pushed it away. There were barely any ladyfingers in this piece (if you could even call it a piece) - there was no form or shape to this thing, it was simply a heap.

We finally asked for the bill. He said he would bring it right to us. Well, he came to our table and then walked away to under the light and we could see him writing. He took so long to write that I got a bad feeling, so I got up to get a menu for checking prices. It was a smart move on my part - he upped the price on the tiramisu by 5 cents and $2.50 for the meatballs and roasted peppers! He said that the price for the tiramisu had gone up but they hadn't changed the menu, which is pretty bizarre. When we asked about the price for the meatballs and roasted peppers, it was clear that he no idea which dish we were talking about, he just said we'd ordered a $12 dish. When we asked what he had written down, he just stared blankly at the bill. He finally readjusted the bill, although we're still not sure he did the tax correctly, and we just paid it. No tip. Seriously. My friend Melissa is usually a generous tipper, but even she felt that he treated us so poorly that he didn't deserve a tip.

This was such a disappointing experience.

Reviewed on: July 04, 2007