Leslie C.
Yelp
I hate leaving negative reviews and you can tell from my history that I rarely do it.
I'll start with the positives.
The ambiance is lovely. It's old school fine dining. White linen table cloths, the wait staff are wearing upscale attire (suits, tuxedos).
I took my uncle here for lunch on his 70th birthday. He had always wanted to eat here. This place has been around since the 40's, and is considered Detroit's oldest Italien restaurant.
I let everyone at the restaurant know that it was my uncle's birthday because I wanted to make sure it was special.
My uncle requested hot tea to drink. He asked for a black tea and our waitress, Mary, said they don't have black tea, they just have "regular" tea so he agreed to that, but felt confused about what "regular" meant. It ended up being a dark tea that seemed like a black tea so he was happy with it, but we were already sensing that communication was off.
He loved his minestrone soup. He ordered a veal dish. There were no descriptions of the various veal dishes and he didn't know which one to order so he asked Mary for help. He said he was looking for a breaded veal cutlet. He pointed to a veal dish on the menu and asked if it was a breaded cutlet. She said she would request it to be a cutlet, which made me wonder what it normally was because it sounded like the dish was being altered. Perhaps I should have asked clarifying questions but my uncle looked happy to be getting the cutlet he asked for, so I left it alone.
We ordered meatballs as our appetizers. I thought they were pretty good. My uncle thought the sauce had way too much garlic. I love garlic so I didn't mind.
I ordered the lasagna. It was very dense. Lots of layers. The cheese didn't really melt in between the layers. It tasted lukewarm, not hot. It really wasn't enjoyable for me. My salad was slathered in a house dressing that tasted like it had a lot of mustard in it. It was okay. I wish I had been given a choice of dressing.
My uncle's veal was really tough. He ate a couple bites of it and then said it was way too chewy. Veal is supposed to be tender. My uncle politely asked Mary if it was supposed to be so tough and chewy. She kind of snapped at us, which caught us both off guard. She was quick on defense, saying "You said you didn't want it pounded. So it's not pounded. This is what happens when it's not pounded." And then she walked away and didn't come back for about 20 to 25 minutes. That whole time we were perplexed, wondering what pounded versus not pounded meant, and we were too afraid to mention it again. We were made to feel like this was our fault, that we ordered wrong. Does cutlet mean not pounded? And we never said anything about pounding.
Pounded or not, I'm surprised a chef allowed this piece of meat to be served to someone. It wasn't edible and he didn't eat more than a few bites that he had to choke/force down. I was surprised that Mary didn't offer to remedy the situation, especially since she knew it was his birthday. Seemed like we were stuck with it. I hate being a bother but I wish I had spoken up more and gotten them to redo the dish.
Other little details: Our water glasses were not refilled and my cappuccino was dripping over the sides and down the glass when given to me.
My uncle enjoyed his spumoni ice cream for dessert.
At the end of our meal, my uncle did bring up the veal issue again and Mary mentioned the pounding again. I spoke up and said that we never said we didn't want it pounded. We don't even know what that means and those words never came out of our mouths. My uncle just wanted a breaded cutlet and didn't know which veal dish to pick. Mary sincerely apologized and said she didn't know how she got confused and got the "not pounded" idea in her head. She did seem truly sorry, but then put it back on us again, saying, "next time just order it as is". We didn't actually change the order, she did. She made the decision to put in the order as a cutlet.
She didn't explain that the dish was normally served as medallions. We had never eaten there before and could have used some clarification. Maybe we should have asked more questions? Or it sounds like we just should have picked a dish and not asked any questions. It definitely was a miscommunication and a bummer.
I was wondering if maybe Mary was new but then we found out she has worked there for 26 years. I would expect better communication from a seasoned staff member. I certainly don't want to get Mary in trouble, but I do feel that the communication issues were on her end.
It was a lousy experience. I paid $100 for a lunch that was not good and nothing was suggested to fix it. Looking back, I wish I had spoken up more because we shouldn't have had to pay for the awful veal dish.
I tipped 20% on the service because I believe in tipping well, but it was undeserved.
My uncle ended up getting sick from the veal later. The whole experience left us both feeling really sad.