The fried goat cheese with raspberry honey was a revelation. Although they didn't give us enough…read morecrostinis (only five quarter sized slices to accommodate a circle of goat cheese the size of a bar of soap), The flavor of the honey was delightful. The raspberry flavor was evident, and putting it onto the crostini and goat cheese really was a delicious bite of joy.
Unfortunately, that's the only nice thing I can say about this restaurant at all. Our server came to the table and asked us what we wanted. We told her that we wanted the goat cheese and the lasagna, but we were unsure what type of pizza that we wanted. We had boiled it down to two separate choices. She responded both of our choices were her favorite, but she loved one because it had pesto sauce. That was it. Not because of the cheese, not because of the accoutrements that they put onto the pizza to make a standout, none of that. The thing she liked was the pesto sauce, and she said it so earnestly that I knew that she didn't like that pizza at all, she was just trying to make a sale. So we chose the other pizza which was one with prosciutto and arugula with a balsamic glaze on top. We also ordered water.
We never saw our server again. She didn't bring the food to the table, and she definitely didn't follow up with us to see if we needed anything, or at the flavors of the food was okay. If she had been there, and she had asked, maybe the car accident that happened later on in our dining experience would have never occurred. But she wasn't there, and somebody had to drive their car... So the crash happened. The lasagna that we were served was quite possibly the most oversized piece of wet noodle that I've ever had in my entire life. You legitimately could not taste anything but the fresh pasta noodle (which in itself was a very well cooked fresh pasta noodle) and tomato sauce. The basil? Non-existent. Oregano? Not here. Red wine? Where do they do that at, because it definitely wasn't there. It tasted like Hamburger Helper lasagna that you used to eat when you were a little kid. The pizza itself had an issue in that prosciutto is a meat that if not cooked correctly does not come apart in one bite. In that, they just laid it directly on top of the cooked pizza dough and raw arugula. So the meat did not have any texture to it besides elastic, I guess.
After getting tired of waiting for our server to come back to our table, and we were at this restaurant for about 45 minutes, I finally walked over to where a gentleman was sitting at a table with another man standing at the table talking to him. The gentleman who was standing at the table had come over to other tables around us to bring checks and whatnot, so I figured he was either the manager or the owner. When I asked him about it, he said he was the owner of the establishment. Cool. I introduced myself and gently advised him about the lasagna after telling them how great the fried goat cheese was. His response about the lasagna not having any flavor past meat and tomato was, "did you taste the cheese?" Yes. I tasted the cheese. What I didn't taste was basil, oregano, red wine, salt, pepper, garlic, onions or anything else that you would think would go into a good lasagna. He then responded by saying that they've been in this place for 50 years, and he's been there for 8 years, and he's never gotten a complaint about the lasagna. He said that since I'm a chef, which I am, it's akin to a construction worker going to a house and seeing all of the faults in the house.
He seemed really insulted that I noticed the faults, by the way. He said that he's never had a complaint about the food until I got there, and that was it. He and the other two gentlemen at the table then just sat quietly until I stood and went back to my table where our server had miraculously reappeared, because I also told him about our server's absence. The first question our server asked me was, "what did you tell the manager?"
The food was as flavorless as an Andrew Dice Clay joke. There's another restaurant next door. Go there.
