Otto
On Friday night, I surprised the beau with a trip to Otto for dinner. He had gotten all four wisdom teeth out two weeks prior, and since he’s a meat/cheese/pizza man, I thought it would be a great surprise. Until we got there. A snooty hostess told us it would be at least an hour and fifteen minute wait (?!), and was surprised when I said, “that’s fine…we can order a bottle of wine at the bar.” Ten minutes later, Paul goes to grab something out of his coat (it’s in the coatcheck), and comes back to announce that they’re ready to seat us (we hadn’t even ordered wine yet). As we follow one hostess back, the other hostess follows us to tell us that they weren’t ready to seat us. Uhhh, what? We wait (awkwardly) for the next table, and finally sit down. A few observations:
- the two-seater tables are far too close. Not only could I hear what the women next to us were talking about, but I could hear them chew.
- I’m all for authentic cuisine, but the entire menu was in Italian. The extensive wine list had no descriptions, and even for Paul and I (who know a bit about wine), it was difficult to decide on which wine to choose because we couldn’t figure out what the hell our options were.
- when Paul asked the waiter if a certain red was light, and how dry it was, the waiter clearly had no fucking clue and tried (unsuccessfully) to bullshit his way through it.
- thanks for the super-stale sourdough, but it would have been better if you gave me some olive oil and balsamic or perhaps even peasant-like butter.
- Paul’s pepporoni was so burnt that it was charbroiled. The waiter seemed surprised when we returned it* and mentioned, “well, it’ll take 12 minutes for a new one.” Yeah, that’s fine since this one is inedible. (* I don’t think in the nearly 3 years we’ve dated that I’ve ever seen him send a plate back)
- My carbonara was so damn salted that it actually burnt my mouth. I know that carbonara is supposed to be heavily salted and peppered, but so salty that I can’t enjoy it? Nope.
- The food was actually so bad that we declined to order dessert (and anyone who knows me knows that this is rare). Instead, we went to the happiest place on earth and split a cupcake.
My advice: famously owned restaurants are chronically overrated. Mario, I thought we were palz.
Next time…for yummy Italian I recommend Apizz. We actually almost went to Otto but when I was looking for a great place to take my boyfriend for his birthday I found many great reviews on chowhound.com for Apizz. We went there and LOVED it!
