My experience at Bella Vita Cucina was alright.
It started with the phone call. I saw on Google they closed at 9:30pm. I called them to confirm their hours as well as if they would have room for a party of 3, seated at 8pm.
They confirmed they in fact closed at 9pm and would have space for us yet they didnt take my name or number for a reservation. Odd, I thought. So I phoned back. The second phone call was very awkward. The communication between myself and the other person felt off; choppy. There was interrupting, no flow, no cohesion, not the best phone call experience for a dine in restaurant. Sometimes its just off the mark and you gotta go with it. So we did. We were hungry!
When we arrived we got seated almost immediately, which was great. The posters that were up, stating masks were required confused us and we felt kind of bad for not having any masks on hand. Yet saw others without theirs and it was a policy that was not enforced. So, a-okay with me.
Polite waitress came around after 5- 10 minutes once we were seated.
We asked about the soup of the day- Carrot and ginger. She wasn't sure if they had any available and needed to check with the kitchen. We ordered our starters and began the wait.
The waitress came back around and offered us the home made bread they make in house, with butter.
The bread arrived cold. This did not impress us. Isn't it customary to have bread be warm? When it arrives as a pre-appetizer? Especially at an "authentic" Italian restaurant?
10 to 15 or so minutes later, the salads arrived. Garden salad, beet and goat cheese salad and cesaer salad.
My salad, the beet and goat cheese was pretty dowsed with dressing. To sop up the rest of the dressing and cheese at the end I used a peice of their cold bread.
The guy who had originally seated us came back around to collect our plates. And made a comment to me, "you know we have a dishwasher for that" he said. He meant it as a joke. Yet to me, I thought it was a rather unnecessary comment. I did not appreciate it.
How rude! I thought. I felt embarrassed. Here I was sitting with 2 guys and a third guy had the audacity to comment on how I was eating! I promptly stopped, handed him my dish and sat in my mortification in silence. Closed mouth, chewing on the rest of the peice of bread. Baffled at such an occurence.
While customs are different everywhere. It's actually a compliment to the chef, to not wanna waste any part of the meal or have anything remaining on the plate. Not even a single drop of dressing.
Furthermore, how is he to know I do or do not have weight issues and saying a comment like that, to a womxn is just a plain fuckin' NO!
There wasn't a consistent waitress for us. It switched between the woman and the fella who originally seated us. Both of which may or may not be the owners. In addition to the busser staff they had on for the night.
The pizza came after another 10 to 15 minute wait, once they cleared our plates from the salads. Two calabrese pizzas and a margherita were ordered.
There was confusion between the calabrese and the canadese pizzas. One of my friends desired the canadese, the pizza with the salami, bacon, mushroom, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese and instead he got the calabrese; roasted red peppers, soprassata salami, black olives, tomato sauce and goat cheese.
The pizzas were tasty. And the ambiance was about a 2.5 outta 5 for me. They had these gorgeous fire cracker like lights, yet they were LEDs and kinda hurt my eyes. The music was lovely, I remember asking them the name of a couple of songs I liked and they were kind to accomodate acquiring that information for me.
At the end of the meal, the friend who got his pizzas mixed up that's when he mentioned something. And the waitress we had, it felt like she was trying to make him "wrong". Unfortunately the timing was off for my friend, as it's best to do that kind of thing after a couple bites. Instead of at the very end.
Regardless of the timing, its proper server to guest etiquette that customers need to leave feeling positive about their experience. Guests are always right, even when the staff beg to differ. We've all been there. Ultimately, it's about how staff handle the guests requests or inquiries. And this was not handled very well here, at all.
We took a look at the menu on the way out to see about the pizza order.
This place left a sour taste in my mouth. Their manners was not altogether. It's about mindfulness. Be aware of the impact your words can carry!
Needless to say I left them a more than generous tip, when the over all experience was less than favourable for me. I don't know what the fuxk I was thinking. Perhaps I wasn't or I was thinking I like supporting family run businesses. Although, I will strongly re-consider in the future.
My lesson: be assertive! Don't care who's watching, don't care who's judging. Don't like something? Say it! read more
