Four of us went with high hopes for a terrific Italian dinner. Our experience ended up being something we never would have imagined; one of the least enjoyable meals that we've had in a long time.
Let's start at the beginning. Parking...it is extremely limited. The restaurant is at the outside border of the busiest street in Piermont, and snagging a parking spot is very unlikely. You will need to walk about 1/10 of a mile from the public lot to the restaurant, which in our case was especially memorable considering it was raining. The owner might consider hiring a valet service if he cares at all about his clientele.
Next, the seating. You couldn't squeeze another table into this space if your life depended upon it. It was ridiculously over-crowded, and the only way some tables could accommodate patrons is if those tables were moved out of place so folks could get to their chairs. Fortunately the patrons were all good sports, so people dealt with having to get up to allow the moving tables with relatively good humor. In our case, every time a waiter needed to get by our table I'd have his butt squeezing past the back of my chair. Not a good image for the restaurant.
The drinks are mostly a major rip-off. The menu has a large page of wine and beers, which becomes less impressive once you are told that most of the items listed are not available. The average price for a bottle of imported beer is about $19, and some bottles are $25 and even $46. All bottled wines are $60 (by itself, not bad), but any glass of those same wines is a hefty $20.
The service was fine, but now we come to the most important part...the food. I started with the Caesar salad, which actually was excellent. A nice-sized portion loaded with romaine and cheese and a very tasty dressing. The two ladies got the eggplant appetizer and they were both totally unimpressed with it, calling it mediocre. My friend got the seafood salad, and declared it absolutely tasteless. Little did we know this was to be the theme of the night.
The entrees... Two of us ordered shrimp scampi, and two ordered chicken Milanese. The shrimp scampi was four jumbo shrimp and linguini with a few sliced rounds of zucchini, swimming in hot water. I could not even call it a broth; it was one of the blandest dishes I have ever had, with not a hint of seasoning. The ladies got the Milanese, and in my wife's words you needed a chainsaw to cut through it. Talk about half-heartedly eating a meal; that was us. We didn't hang around for dessert; we squeezed our way out of there and headed to a diner for coffee.
If you're reading this and think I'm just a complainer, please take a minute and look over some of my other reviews, most of which are 4 to 5 stars. I feel confident saying that we will not be back. read more