Abondante

[Gatto Nero]

I used to love this place but I won't be back anytime soon. I agree that the food is good, and I really enjoy the atmosphere, but after what I experienced other night it's not good enough to get me to go back until I hear of a major attitude adjustment.

Four of us went for dinner on Friday night. We got there around 8:00 or so. The all the tables were full so we ordered some drinks and waited for one to open up. A table opened up rather quickly and we were seated just a few minutes after we got our drinks. I'm going to guess that it was no later than 8:30 by the time the waitress came over and told us the specials. Since we already had our drinks we thought we'd share an antipasto while we looked over the menu and decided on our meals. But when I tried to order it the waitress told us we could not order an appetizer until we ordered our meals! She said that everything that we were ordering had to go into the kitchen at the same time. I wasn't sure if she was joking or she just misunderstood me so I politely confirmed our request. Again, I was shot down! Her explanation was that the kitchen was so small that they had to time everything perfectly, including the spacing of our meals with our appetizers. I explained that we had not even looked at the menu yet but we would like to have something to munch on while we did. If that somehow affected the timing of the meals that we hadn't even ordered yet, we would be willing accept the consequences. She insisted that this was management's policy and she would not get us the antipasto, which is basically a salad, even after I pressed her on it several more times. Wasn't going to happen, no way, no how. I was ticked. She knew I was ticked. She knew why I was ticked, and she still stuck to her guns. Others at the table thought that maybe she was just telling us this because we where her last table and she wanted to rush us through dinner so she could leave early, but I tend to doubt that.

This place does a great job of recreating the menu and atmosphere of an authentic Tuscan restaurant. I used to like to go there because it really does feel very much like what I have experienced in some small towns of Italy. How they could screw up that wonderful illusion so badly on something so simple is astounding to me. Italy is the birthplace of Slow Food for crying out loud! Of the 3 or 4 the times I've been there in the past couple of years it never came up before, but now that it has I am beside myself with the arrogance of this place. It may seem like a small thing to some, most perhaps, but it motivated to write this at almost midnight on a Sunday, so I guess it's important to me. So anyway, I won't be back anytime soon. If their management happens to read this I would love to get their response. Who knows, maybe the waitress was trying to get out early.

BTW, the food and service was good but we didn't bother with the antipasto.

[styl+]

Very nice, bistro style, dyn-o-mite food, attitudes they could lose!!

They used to have Jazz bands on Thursday nights,,,,are they still??

[Smitty1]

That is definately their policy. It threw me back the first time I heard it as well, but it has been that way for a couple of years I think.

If you know it going in it is not that big of a deal. I think they will bring you some bread so you have something to munch on before you order.

Smitty

[Gatto Nero]

They did bring some bread, and 4 olives for the 4 of us, but that really isn't the point. It's not that we needed to fill our faces immediately, it's just we felt we should be able to dictate the flow of the meal and were not given the opportunity. It's just not in keeping with type of place that they are trying to be.

[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.