Mangia

No. Absolutely not.

Mangia, which is Italian for eat, is not something I would do here ever again.

There were four to our party and we arrived in time for their $8 lunch special.

We enter a desolate restaurant... literally no one sitting in the dining area, and the hostess tells us to wait a second for a table. This seemed particularly curious since, again... the place was empty.

Then she said, "Well would you guys want to sit by the window? Or you can wait a few minutes for us to clear a table..." She pointed to the separate room by the bar. We were hungry and settled for the window table.

We were seated and handed menus. Then the waitress walked away. We read the menu, and five minutes later the waitress pops her head in from another room and says "I'll bring you guys some water in a sec." Automatically, turned off. Why couldn't you have done that after you gave our menus? Or come to our table instead of yelling from the steps?

Then she brings our waters and asks everyone what they wanted to drink since fountain drinks or iced tea were part of the $8 deal. We order drinks, and then she comes back with them.

Then we order our food. Three paninos with fries and a pasta dish. After taking our orders, she left and returned with bread. The bread was ok, soft, caraway/rye tasting with a kalamata olives and garlic oil mash/pate. (I was quite confused of what it was really supposed to be.) The flavor was good but I wished the bread was fresher and warm.

So we wait... we wait... we wait....

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER... we still haven't gotten our food. The waitress came to fill out waters what seemed like 100 times and kept saying, "Your food will be out in a few minutes." There was one annoying incident where she roared in laughter, right in front of our table as she was pouring our waters... a laugh that echoed throughout the empty dining room and was quite frankly very piercing to our eardrums... then she decided she wanted to share the inside kitchen joke with us... None of us laughed, since we were beyond cranky and hungry.

Finally, our food arrived. Well, three of our dishes, the three sandwiches... The pasta dish,(which simply was penne with garlic and oil)  did not come. The waitress said, "I'll bring out the pasta and some ketchup and cheese." Seems like all of this back and fourth could have been alleviated if she'd brought it during the forty-five minutes.

The pasta arrives, and it looked peculiar to me... there was dark specs and as I asked my friend what those specs were... I took a harder look and saw that it was BURNT GARLIC. COME ON PEOPLE! Do you know what happens when you burn garlic? It becomes bitter. And it sucks. Just like their service.

I ordered the Mozzarella Panino with fries and the fries were over-fried... over-"well done," and over greased... it was fried to the point that these white potatoes were not golden brown, they were close to brown-black. The Mozzarella Panino was mediocre.

But again... what the hell took them so long? It's lunch, shouldn't all your ingredients be prepped? There was no reason that our orders should have taken that long to come out. And then to butcher something so simple like a garlic and oil pasta dish... it's all wrong.

As we all chomped down our meals since we were super hungry after the wait, we decided that we had to go and wanted to asked for the tiramisu (that was included in the $8 lunch) to go. But it turned out that we couldn't even do that!

We looked for our waitress. No, not just the bobbing your head around type of looking... actual searching on foot...like we might as well have brought our flashlights, maps and walkie-talkies. One of my friends got up and looked around for her, she was nowhere to be found in this desolate restaurant. She said all she heard were people in the back (the kitchen).

When my friend sat down, I couldn't deal with the atrocities we just experienced any longer... so I ended having to go to the back to get someone to tend to us.

I found another waitress upon the entrance of the kitchen and asked her for our checks and our 4 tiramisu-s to go. And the response I got was.... "I don't know where your waitress is, but I'll be with you in a minute..." with a full blown attitude. Now, I'm not sure if she was snippy because her co-worker was missing, or if I had just asked her to do something out of her area, but that was confirmation I needed to vow, "They will not be graced with my patronage again." And, kitchen staff looked like a bunch of teenagers.

Then our waitress came, we asked for the check and tiramisu-s and her phone goes off. She comes back with the checks and desserts and later says, "Sorry about my phone, that was my boss texting me." Yeah, ok lady... shouldn't that be put on vibrate or silent while you are working?

Sure, $8 lunch is a deal. But it's not worth the wait... and the food isn't even worth $8... and no, the tiramisu wasn't good... no coffee/espresso flavor.

Eat elsewhere!

Lunch and happy hour here are great.
Service is way slow.
Sometimes they have the fresh bread, sometimes they don't. When they do, it's fantastic when fresh.
Outdoor seating is nice with good weather.
It's been hit and miss lately as far as quality of meal and service.
We come here often, and would hate to see them go, but they do need to work on the slow service and timing/consistency of the kitchen.

We happened on this place passing through town and looking for lunch.  What a find!  What a deal, too!!  We went with the 8.00 lunch that included a soft drink, an entree and a dessert.  My friend raved about his lasagna - it was excellent - he should know, he is a chef.  My salad was fresh and tasty and I opted for some grilled shrimp that was not only generous in portion, but very tasty and cooked well.  

The grilled chicken sandwich was dry according to another friend, but he liked everything else.  The lemon sorbet was good and I heard good things about the tiramisu.

Will definitely return when in the area!