The owner was nice enough to give Russett residents 20% off their meal on Thursday, April 9. I had…read moremy reservations about this restaurant for a number of reasons, which a lot of things were dispelled as it had been mostly a good experience. They were doing a great job on service, cordial, answered questions, & food was solid. It was when the bill came. I was going to tip 20% for his good service, but I was pissed when there was an automatic 18% gratuity added to the bill for just two of us. That was so obnoxious. That's the crap they'd do in DC with their Initiative 82 nonsense. Or it is common practice for a large enough party to do forced 18% or whatever gratuity, which still is annoying. 90% of the time I'm tipping at least 18%, but what about the other 10% where the service sucks, slow, &/or surly?! They are subsidizing lousy servers with that guaranteed 18%.
This place opened maybe last summer or so, and it was kind of a nice addition to Corridor Marketplace. I wasn't terribly interested in spicy Caribbean food, granted not all spicy. It's a Caribbean-Italian fusion. I checked the menu online not long after they opened and before deciding to finally give this local place in my neighborhood a try when they were nice enough to give 20% off. I determined the food is strange although they had some stuff that might be appealing but seemed overprice. $36 for lasagna seems steep to me, but it's oxtail lasagna so some fancy beef I suppose.
Initially, I tried calling to make my reservation on Monday, but no one answered and then realized Monday is the day they are closed. I called 3 times on Tuesday afternoon, but no one answered, which was a bit of a negative. However, while on my 3rd call to them, I was on a walk, and I decided I'd try walking in since I wasn't all that far from Catherine's on my walk. The restaurant was dead as it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and the server was nice getting my reservation in for an early dinner on Thursday as I had a meeting at 7 PM and also something enough I was ideally trying to do before that.
My friend & fellow Russett resident arrived on time. We discussed the red ropes and carpeting outside, which I've always thought was too much. It blocks almost the entire sidewalk over there, which was one thing that turned me off to the restaurant originally. My older friend who walks with a cane made an interesting comment I didn't think of but agreed that it could be hazardous to someone with a cane, elderly, or handicap. Although I don't think the red rope/carpeting is necessary at all, perhaps they could consider pulling it back some.
We were seated at a white table cloth seats. They have booth/table combinations, individual tables of varying sizes, and the bar area. Server promptly came over. The place is nicely decorated with good lighting, but was quite warm as the big windows brought in the hot sun even though it was only maybe 60 F outside, but I'm sure in the summer & when it's legitimately warm outside they have the AC cranking.
I just water as I wanted to be clearheaded for the 7 PM meeting, but I heard from another neighbor there that the sangria drink was good & strong. My friend ordered a drink, but it never came for her, which she didn't care, but that was an error on their part.
I asked the server several questions about his recommendations & various other aspects of the menu. I settled on what I had originally had leaned to when I had looked at the menu online and the Yelp reviews I saw. I got the rasta pasta with chicken. My friend got the oxtail lasagna. Although I'm not big on spicy foods in general, and the rasta pasta was pretty spicy, it still wasn't so ridiculously spicy that it detracted on the good taste.
The portion size was bigger than I realized, which was a plus too. I could've pigged out and eaten the whole sucker, but I decided to not overeat and save half as a leftover. Based on some reviews/pics, I was thinking the rasta pasta wasn't going to be that big, and that it'd be one sitting. In 2024, my girlfriend & I had gone to an Italian restaurant, where the portion size was not much where I didn't have leftovers, which was annoying for the price there, and I had no 20% off or any sort of discount.
I asked to try a bite of my friend's oxtail lasagna as I was curious to see what oxtail was all about. It was very good, but it's still not worth $36 although debatable with the 20% off about $29, I would've been satisfied with it. Further, it looked bigger than I was thinking.
Water refill came in a timely enough manner, which always important. It had been overall a pleasant experience, and I was ready to give 4-stars, but as I said before the forced 18% gratuity was a big turnoff, which lowered it to 3-stars. Forced gratuity is a major turnoff. I might've considered coming back with the high full prices, but I won't come back with that forced gratuity nonsense.