Amelia's Restaurant

Ok, this is my first slam review... wish me luck. I am not one to bad mouth someone, or to speak poorly, in fact I hate confrontation. However, my experience was so poor I feel it is my civic duty to save others.

Upon detouring 90/94 one night, my wife and I took our normal shortcut on Grand to get to Logan Square. After passing several decent restaurants my wife and I have frequented in the past, we decided to try something new. Amelia beckoned our names. How bad could it be? Amelia is such a pretty name. Answer? Bad. Real Bad. Upon entering, I noticed the decor looked more Hispanic then Italian. I am not a world traveler however, maybe this is a part of Italy I am not familiar with (BTW I'm half Italian). Instead it turned out to foreshadow the horrors that were to follow.

It was dark. I figured... romantic? After sitting, a group of 6 girls came in and asked to be seated for drinks. I overheard them order margaritas which they were told they no longer had... Huh? Italian? Then it hit me. This place USED to be Mexican. However, after a unsuccessful run they switched to Italian (my guess not fact). It is obvious why they would. The other successful restaurants in the area are Italian so let's try serving that. Only problem is now you are directly competing with good Italian food. That is my food CSI guess however.

Can anyone confirm? To sum up my meal, I had a seafood pasta dish that was soooo hot (spicy) the devil would have sent it back. It was watery and bland too. My wife ordered a spinach chicken thing. It was so bad, that I pitied the poor chicken that gave it's life to be part of that dish. At least her spinach was fresh tasting. I am unsure what our total was, but my dish was $17. I know restaurants that serve a decent steak for that. The service was good. Nothing to note there. I guess to sum it up, whenever I watch Kitchen Nightmares, I think this place would be a great candidate for the show. You have been warned. Eat here if you dare, or eat here for a laugh, just make plans to stop somewhere else to eat after.

I had some Fettucine Alfredo delivered from Amelia's when I was working late one evening. The service was quick, less than half an hour!

The shrimp was outstanding, but were very powerful smelling. I had to take the tails outside because they stunk up the whole office.

The sauce was about as bland as Alfredo can be. I had to use a lot of salt and pepper to make it taste like something other than skim milk. The chicken was ok, not awesome.

It also came with a huge garlic bread which was good. Overall, the food was ok, but too pricey for the quality. I would probably not order again.

This was a mediocre place when it served Mexican food and they disappoint as an Italian place. All they changed was the exterior when they changed the menu. The interior remains the same. My wife and I went about a month or two after they changed over and we could not remember what we ate the next day. The food is standard and boring and not very good. If you want Italian in this area, go down the street to Oggi.