Buca di Beppo

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

Last night my wife and I went here for a rare date. The wait wasn not too bad at about 30 minutes. If you’ve never been to Bucca it is a family-style Italian restaurant, all food is served in large portions meant for sharing. To start we ordered the Raspberry Lemon Drop which is a wonderful drink - The best "tini" variety yet according to my lovely bride. Food courses were: Appetizer: Bruschetta Salad: Warm Spinach Salad Pasta: Fettuccini Alfredo Main: Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast with Roasted Garlic Wine: House Chianti recommended by our server Although we requested the bruschetta first, the salad came out first. The snafu was fine with us since this is a must eat dish. Wonderfully warmed and sweetened with a light goat cheese and cinnamon crusted pecans. The balsamic vinaigrette was a little on the heavy side, but is so good you do not mind. The bruschetta followed next in a mini-pizza pan topped with fresh tomatoes basil and garlic. It was crusty but a little over kill with the garlic & butter, but over all a good appetizer. The food went down hill quickly upon the arrival of the alfredo. Not what we expected, it was bland and seemed to lack the creaminess that you would expect from an alfredo, even a traditional egg-based sauce. Also it needed cracked pepper and parmesan, which was not offered upon its arrival. Next, the main dish - we looked forward to the chicken and dreamed of creamy goodness oozing onto the plate from the stuffed chicken, but were sorely disappointed. First the presentation was garlic garlic and more garlic. I counted over 30 cloves of garlic on the serving plate. The taste of the sauce was on the salt & rosemary and an overly reduced tomato mixture. What should have been a sweet creamy cheese was an afterthought and completely overwhelmed by the salty overly seasoned mixture of sauce. We sent it back to the kitchen and ordered tiramisu in its place. The Chianti was good, but for $10 per glass we wanted “wow.” It paired “ok” with the chicken but given that the state of the chicken; this may not be a fair assessment of the wine. The tiramisu is a good desert although my wife thought it to be soggier than she liked. I felt the mascarpone was a little heavy and expect a good tiramisu to have some firmness from the cookies and a lighter texture. After experiencing the main dish, we welcomed the desert. Ambiance - the thing we like about Bucca is its ability to tuck you away and make you feel as if you are getting ready for a 2 hour meal. The thing we do not like is the constant barrage of images of saggy-breasted Italian women from the 40s and 50s. While the pictures could make one feel they are part of a big Italian gathering, it was distracting. Service – our server was sweet but a bit disheveled in appearance, she seemed to be generally “with it” and our only knock was that she was slow to fill the water glasses. If it wasn not for the salad my wife and I would give this establishment a lowly 2 stars.

A

A Private User

The first time we went here, I really enjoyed the food. When we think of an Italian restaurant that takes reservations in America, we think of an upscale romantic restaurant. As other users have stated, this is definitely a family restaurant. Even the small sized meals are portioned for several individuals, so only take your date here if you want to share the spaghetti like the doggies in the Lady and the Tramp. Anyway, the first time we visited this place, our friends had made reservations. Seating was fast but it was prom night. As you can imagine there were dozens of teenagers everywhere, and it was so loud I could not hear my own voice. The only comment I had was that their A/C unit was dripping water out of the vent onto my husbands glass. They were pretty nice about moving our group to a different location. We decided to give them another chance and visited again. We forgot to make reservations the second time, and boy was that a BIG MISTAKE. We were told the wait would be 30 minutes. There was only one family sitting in the waiting room, so we figured that the wait time would be less. The lobby got packed, and there was no room to walk. 50 minutes later, we decided to ask what was the hold up and we were immediately seated. (Im pretty certain they forgot about us.) Now what really irritates me is that we were taken to this part of the restaurant thats about half the size of a Chillis. There was only one family in there. Why were we packed like sardines in a full lobby when they had a whole banquet sized room with enough room to seat everybody and then some? I understand that they have to save spots for the reservations, but we were back there for over 40 minutes. During that time, they only seated one other group in there. As far as the table experience goes, I have never held a dirtier menu in my life (it was sticky, full of marinara, bread crumbs, and other things). By the time the food arrived, I was so disappointed with the evening that the picky side of me woke up. I found the Rosa sauce in the rigatoni and the Alfredo sauce in the fettuccine very bland. So my 2 stars is an average of both nights combined. I have to admit that I will most likely not return to Buccas. I guess Id take my family here if I want to go somewhere nicer than a Gattitown where I wouldnt have to pay too much for Italian for my entire family. However, if thats the case, Id rather just go buy spaghetti from the grocery store and share a quiet Italian dinner at home with my loved ones. If Im going to pay for someone to make/serve me food, I want at least some decent quality of food and service.

AN

Annette K Bright

I was craving a lasagna but couldnt make one, as I was recovering from surgery, so decided to order my familys dinner from BdP. That was a mistake I will never make again! The Lasagnas pasta was so overcooked that it literally was MUSH! The texture of the mush was so overwhelming that we just couldnt continue to eat. Between mushy pasta were stingy layers of meat and cheese so the poor lasagna never had a chance to taste good. Our dinner side of meatballs wasnt any better. It reminded me of my college roommate when she made meatballs from canned catfood to feed to her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend. The meatballs from BdP had an odd texture and tasted equally unremarkable. It was obvious that whomever made those dishes didnt care for anything more than to be present for a paycheck. Good luck, buddy, youre going to need it. I consider myself to be a decent home-cook so when I order from a restaurant, I expect that they would be able to produce foods better than me. Im not a trained chef so that expectation shouldnt be difficult. Im starting to see restaurants, like this one, put out foods that they either think the public wouldnt know any better or have no choice in eating. Either way, theyre trying to get away with sub-par foods that, in no way resembles what they originally produced when they first opened. Unless BdP does a turnaround, I dont expect them to last much longer. Not with a decent reputation, anyway. Dontont waste your money or time. Go somewhere else.