Patrick A.
Yelp
Food 3/5
Portion Size 2/5
Ambiance 3/5
Service 3/5
Value for your Money 3/5
I had no issues making reservations for Jasper's, we were even sat at a table as soon as we checked in which was great! As far as the feel of the restaurant, it was quite busy but did not feel hectic at all. We were sat in their patio area which allowed for a calmer dinner than I would have expected for the time of year.
As far as the food goes, I ordered the veal parmigiana which came with a house salad. I will give bonus points for the option of having bleu cheese in the salad, which I enjoyed a great deal but they did not mention that this was an additional charge. As someone who cannot eat pork, having a single pepperoni in the salad was odd and a bit off-putting. The veal was great, nothing too fancy aside from being veal but it was pleasant and leftovers were not an option. My wife ordered the Linguini Fra'Diavolo. She seemed to enjoy it, but found it very lacking in spice; she also mentioned that the shrimp were overcooked and very tough and rubbery. My brother-in-law ordered a Caesar salad as his main and asked for shrimp to be included. He seemed to have had a better experience with the shrimp but this did cause for the $8 salad to now be $23 which we all felt was overboard. Reviewing the menu now, I see that there is an $8 charge to add shrimp to a pasta dish, but $15 for a salad just seems like sneaking in charges to get more money.
As far as drinks go, I definitely would just go elsewhere. Of the various drinks that were ordered, only one was enjoyable; my wife's limoncello martini. My brother-in-law's blood orange old fashioned smelled like floor cleaner and was very bland; my pera siciliana had spice to it, but the drink did not feel balanced at all, too much base, too acidic, not enough sweet. The other aspect of this that I did not enjoy was that our waiter never once bothered to ask if any of us wanted another drink. He was consistent in refilling our water while our cocktail glasses sat empty.
On the topic of our server, we hardly saw him despite seeing him walk around to other tables near us. I do not feel a party of 8, as we were, should demand attention but anything more would have been decent at best. After waiting a while to get our salads, waiting to have it cleared off, waiting felt like the theme of the night. It felt like we had long intermissions between everything. Getting our plates cleaned off from the salad was long, getting our main dishes took a while after that, having those plates cleaned off took even longer. We were not wanting dessert because we already had a good idea as to how much longer it would be before we got those. The waiter did not bother to ask if we even wanted dessert, he just began setting the table for everyone with new forks and spoons. After he did this, he finally asked if anyone wanted more to drink, but not what we had already ordered, limoncello. We all quickly declined. He did not mention whether it would be for free or for a fee, but we all figured it would not be worth our time if it took another 30 minutes to get that back to our table. He then did the dessert showcase, which he had already done 2-3 to neighboring tables. Only two things were ordered from the cart but they were nothing much worth noting upon.
If I could offer points for improvement, I would definitely say the service needs to be much more attentive and move with purpose and urgency to start. The portion sizes were just a step up from Plate, which are very minimal to speak of. As an Italian restaurant, I would expect larger portion sizes, even Olive Garden has bigger portions than here. The drinks need to be redone, not even saying what is for offer, more so just the taste of them needs much improvement. When it comes to pricing, any restaurant should be more transparent with additional fees such as adding shrimp (way overboard) or adding bleu cheese.