Christina's Italian Restaurant

this place was a real dump  thus it closed

Stopped on my way home for pizza and a Greek salad.  This is by far not the pizza I'm used to being from NY!!!  It tastes like a frozen pizza but my husband says the dough old.  I asked for it well done because pizza here in AZ tends to be doughy, it wasn't well done....nor sure if i should give it a second chance ir just never return?  this place needs A LOT of work!

My husband and I have our favorite Italian place but decided to give Christina's a try. What a mistake that was. Since I had suggested we try there, I felt terrible and apologized to the hubby. Yes, it's that bad.

Upon reading the menu on their website, it looked promising. We already had a few things in mind we'd like to try. This place is a hole in the wall. It looks like an old building someone just moved into. Not a problem, some of the best food I've ever had was in hole in the walls. Inside was clean with outdated everything. The tables are possibly the cheapest things they could find and cloth chairs. Uncomfortable but okay, I can deal with that.

We were seated within minutes upon arrival and noticed only Michelle was waiting tables. There were 2 other tables but they left as soon as we got there. From the time we ordered our drinks to the time we got our check, we were the only table. It took her more than 5 minutes to come get our order so she was slow but that's okay, no big deal.

We ordered fried ravioli to start, he had the stuffed haddock and I had the chicken primavera. Let's talk about drinks. Happy hour beer price is great, alcohol price is comparable to any other restaurants. I had water which tasted like it came straight out of a tap and hubby got a soda, which Michelle kept forgetting what kind it was despite the fact that we were the only one there. I felt the food was a bit pricy for the restaurant but if its good, I wouldn't have cared.

My meal came with a garden salad. They call THAT a salad? It was ice berg lettuce, 3 strips of bitter green peppers and 2 chunks of tomatoes. I got it with their homemade ranch which was really runny and warm. I never use a lot of dressing but I had to pour the entire little cup just to get some flavor with my lettuce. I only ate half of it as the bottom was swimming in ranch of course but still no flavor.

The ravioli. The homemade pasta was good and used good breading. The inside however, was nothing but ricotta and parsley. It would be okay if they used some spices but nope, just those two. It lacked flavor like the ranch dressing. It came with their marinara sauce for dipping and hubby and I took one bite and that was it. Their red sauce tasted and looked like nothing but can of crushed tomatoes, sugar and little bit of garlic. Red sauce is staple of good Italian eating. Hubby and I ended up talking about what kind of jar sauce we'd rather have. (I make my own so that's saying a lot)

Michelle brought our food and she actually got my order wrong so had to send it back. She checked her notepad and she had written down the right dish but somehow she told the kitchen the wrong one. I'm certain it was her mistake, not the kitchen. (will explain in a bit) His stuffed haddock came with two sides so he got the sausage and sauteed spinach. The sausage was swimming in the red sauce so he had to scrape off as much as he could. It was very tender, great texture but again, lacked any flavor. I tasted meat, that's it. The spinach.. Oh dear goodness... It was swimming in lemon juice and butter and when he took a bite, he made a really bad face. I took a bite while saying, "how bad could spi..." and stopped talking. I've never had such bitter spinach. His haddock.. It was small, thin and swimming in sauce that looked cloudy and had developed a nasty skin on top. He said the crab stuffing was okay but like everything else, just lacked flavor. The haddock itself wasn't fishy which is good but again, no real flavor.

When he got done, I finally got my right dish. The veggies were small and thinly sliced and alternated between okay bite and bitter bite. Judging by the bitterness and how soggy they were, I'm certain they use frozen vegetables, which is NOT okay. The white wine sauce was just butter with splash of wine. It's been nearly 3 hours since I ate and I can still taste the butter.

Small restaurants are better than chains but not this one. It is completely unacceptable to use frozen vegetables, especially for the price they charge. When our meal was over, she brought the check and there was a 20% gratuity added onto it!! I asked her to take it off as there was no way I was giving her a 20% tip. But I had to go up front to ask her to do that as after she dropped off the check, she didn't come back for 20 minutes.

Oh and how I know she screwed up my order - when we were done, another table came in and one of them ordered a sauvignon blanc but she brought a cabernet. She admitted she heard sauvignon and brought the cabernet. She doesn't pay attention basically.

I feel like we completely wasted our money on this place. I'm all for trying new places but experiences like this makes me want to just stick to my usual Italian place. So, RUN, do not walk, AWAY from Christina's!