[TomC]

My family and I decided to try this restaurant, as it looked like it might be an interesting place to dine. We went to Meredith by boat last thursday and basically had out pick of any restaurant we wanted this weekday evening. To answer a question raised earlier - i did not see any Jazz musicians...

We (myself, wife, children 9 and 11 years old) were seated immediately and given the choice to sit inside or on the patio. We chose the patio as it was a nice evening. I was slightly disappointed with the patio location as there was too much "back operation" activity taking place which required workers traversing the dining area to access a lower kitchen/storage area. A girl carrying 5 gallon buckets of ice must have made 3-4 trips during the meal, there was a delivery of some kind and a couple of other trips back and forth for one reason or another. Also, in spite of the "no cell calls" notice, the bozo at the table behind us talked incessantly on his phone via his Cyborg earpiece while his date fumed in the next chair.. all this hub-bub was somewhat distracting, but it wasn't too big a deal.

The server was nice and attentive (Kim) and we got no sense of the snootiness mentioned in earlier messages in this thread. She brought us as much bread and olives as we wanted and the water glasses were kept full.

Unfortunately they were out of several dishes, so my wife and son were down to second/third choices which is always a disappointment. My son combined two appetizers, mussels and a salad, as a meal. He made a good choice and his food was very good. My wife ordered a tomato and mozzarella salad to start and this was poor. Despite the ability to buy spectacular tomatoes at retail at almost any farmstand (for instance Moulton Farms which has awesome tomatoes and is only a couple of miles away) she received her salad made with "january" tomatoes - white, hard, mealy. For $9 this is ridiculous, especially at a high-end restaurant. She ordered a seafood lasagna for the main course and this was very good and the portion was ample. My daughter had a pasta dish which they prepared in a half/children's portion which was welcome as her appetite is small. It was very good, made with a plum tomato sauce. She ordered a caesar salad, as did I, and these were good, but I thought a little on the skimpy side for $8. For my main course, I ordered a steak-tip dish served on a portobella mushroom, which while well-prepared and flavorful, was over-priced at $23. There were four pieces of meat - maybe totaling 3 ounces, 6 microscopic baby carrots (i'm talking about 1" long), and a small ice cream scoop of garlic mashed potatoes on the plate...

Altogether, the total was $145, with gratuity, which included a glass of wine and an Italian beer. I would say the experience overall rates about a "7", which falls short of what I was hoping for when we set out to dine at Abondante.

We most likely will not go back in the near future, but I am glad we tried it.