Consistency?s a hard thing to come by in a restaurant but our lunch at strada 18 was consistently unpleasant. We knew something was wrong when some of the patrons were sitting in coats and hats. We thought we stood a chance of making it through lunch when in spite of the waitress' flat-out denial of the temperature problem, she agreed to turn on the heat. But when the manager came out 2 minutes later to turn it off, we knew our meal would be short. And it only got worse from here: waitress scolded us for sending back the main course until she realized we were trying to tell her she'd forgotten to bring over one of the appetizers; of course, the waitress not only failed to apologize for this but gave me a nice pat on the back as if to remind me that this was probably somehow my fault; butternut squash soup was oddly spiced: cheese course was scant, clearly cut by a children's butter knife, presented shabbily and made to look like yesterday's leftovers--the brown spots on the 6 accompanying, shriveled grapes were positively shameful; we had to ask twice for bread and water; ; the red tomato pizza with caramelized onions was nothing special; waitress kept flirting with guys at other tables, ignoring us throughout the meal. Bottom line - if the food had been good, perhaps we could have borne the discomfort but the food was inadequate and just plain ugly. Next time we head to one of the local diners?maybe a little more inconsistent but a huge step up from Strada 18.
Pros: In Sono, so you can recuperate afterward with a good hot chocolate at Caffeine
Cons: service, quality, presentation--the whole experience
more