Christina's Italian Restaurant

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  this place was a real dump  thus it closed

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  Posted on 05.19.13 Roman V.

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  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!

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  Posted on 07.18.12 Heather L.

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  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 Inside was clean with outdated everything.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!

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  Posted on 06.20.12 Hanna T.

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  Having recently relocated to Queen Creek from the Chicago area, we are struggling with finding decent restaurants in this culinary wasteland.  I don't need fancy; I need good food.  So, RUN, do not walk, to Christina's.  I just ate some of the most amazing Italian food ever (and this is by Chicago standards, not Arizona).
  My husband and I started with drinks.  Stick to the wine list - it's small but the wines are decent and cheap.  I had ordered a cocktail and it's pretty clear they don't have a professional bartender.
  The meal started with a so-so garden salad.  With a little more effort, it could have been very good.  We appreciated that the salads were not just out of the fridge cold.
  On to the appetizers.  This is where things start to really get good.  There were a few calamari choices and we ordered the one with jalapenos.  The calamari was well prepared (NOT eraser-like) and the jalapenos provided just enough spice.  This arrived in a very light cream sauce with sweet red peppers.  REALLY good.  We were intrigued by the name "Pizza Muffins" and ordered those as well.  I don't want to give away any surprises but order the dozen and plan to take some home for tomorrow or for the kids.
  For the main course, we ordered the Amalfi Platter.  This was a sampler of several menu items including veal parmagiana (there was a choice of chicken too),  eggplant parm (one of the best I've ever had!), ravioli, meatballs (FANTASTIC), pasta and sausage.  This was easily enough food for 4.
  A previous reviewer mentioned that the carpet was dirty.  It was dark and most likely had food stains on it, but as long as the wait staff wasn't serving my food from it, I could live with it.  The atmosphere was OK, not any less than you would expect from a start-up restaurant.  Our server Michelle did a fine job - attentive without being in your face.
  Do yourself a favor - try Christina's.  I hope you will like the food as much as we did!

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  Posted on 06.19.12 Deb M.

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