I'm not even sure what we just experienced. Was anything bad? Kinda, but not really. Was anything…read moreincredible? Yes - one thing. The antipasto. Simply incredible! Would 12/10 order again & again. Specifically with the Italian vinaigrette dressing. An absolutely stellar salad/starter.
From there, can't say much else good. I guess I'll start with the greeting when we walked in for the first (and only) time tonight. There were a couple guys that were behind the counter that I think I detected a foreign accent, but they couldn't have been nicer & welcoming - inviting us to sit wherever. However, a snooty little high school girl stuck her nose in when they were trying to be friendly (the restaurant was empty except for ONE other table) and the girl, rather rudely, stopped talking to the customer she was helping, & interrupted us to tell us we could only sit at one of two tables b/c that's where SHE wanted us to sit. Ok, whatever. We sat.
We were offered to make our own drinks at the fountain. That's cool, no problem, just remember, when I go to sit down at a restaurant and order from the table, I tip commensurate with how much I have to get up and do. I don't mind doing it at all, but don't expect stellar gratuity when I have to do some of the work. Again - no issue here.
We ordered an antipasto salad as our starter to share, even got the small, & it was an incredible portion. Coming from a guy that can eat salad, but isn't a huge salad fan, their antipasto was absolutely incredible. One of the best salads I've had just about anywhere. Amazing flavors, great accoutrements, & the Italian vinaigrette was the cherry on top. Wonderful starter. We had already forgotten about our introduction to table service by the rude girl after a few bites.
Unfortunately, that's where the good ends. We opted to try a couple slices of their premade pies sitting in the box by the front door just to sample their pizza, as we came in to share a pasta dish this evening, but had never tried their pizza, so we were curious, but didn't want to invest in an entire pizza. Pizza-by-the-slice should be more of a thing, btw, but it is what it is. We got a slice of their white ricotta pie & a slice of their meat lovers. Initially, I thought - this isn't bad. Nice crust, crisp, yet still a slight chew. Decent. That's where decent ends. The flavor in any of their sauces, cheeses, or toppings were nonexistent. How you make a meat lover's with no flavor, I'll never know, but here we are.
Then out came the finale - the chicken parmigiana pasta entree, which also came with 2 garlic knots. (Don't get me started on those - more to come about that.) As for the chicken parm, we got a decent amount of food - which we absolutely should for $25, but the chicken itself was dry as could be, hard to even cut through & - to keep on topic - had ZERO flavor. The pasta itself, just the same - dry, no flavor, & you could tell it was boiled in water with NO salt. Just dry, limp, tasteless noodles. The sauce is harder to deconstruct, as we DIDN'T get any! I am being slightly facetious, as you can tell by the picture posted with this review that there is in fact a modicum of sauce on the plate, but sparingly too little for the amount of food. We badly needed sauce to help the entire dish from not being so dang dry that it was hard to swallow, but alas - not much by way of tomato puree on our plate.
Back to those garlic knots I mentioned earlier: dry, bland, & didn't taste like garlic at all. Just a big lump of dry dough, slightly covered in some type of oil that didn't taste like butter, a tiny sprinkle of parm on top, and - while these 2 came with our pasta entree - THIS is what they want to charge their patrons $12.50 for?!?!?!?! Every other pizzeria establishment in Mt Juliet carries garlic knots. The prices at ANY other italian/pizzeria spot? About $6 - usually for even more knots than the 4 you get here. So WHAT ON EARTH justifies the exorbitant price here? I have no idea, because they weren't good when they were free with the entree, much less if we'd spent $14 for an appetizer order of them after tax. Holy crap. Pass. ALL of their prices are OUT OF CONTROL.
At that point we were just ready to leave, to which we got one final parting shot from the aforementioned rude teenager, which really settled the matter on whether or not we'd be coming back (spoiler alert: we will not). When we had finally had enough of the dry, bland, seasonless food, saw that our rude girl was helping other tables, we opted to get up, walk to the front cashier spot. Not impatiently, we weren't in a hurry. One of the nice guys we barely got a chance to speak with earlier saw us waiting, came over, & started attempting to check us out as best he could. Rude girl ran over, borderline shoved him out of the way, & said to us extremely rudely, "FOR FUTURE REFERENCE, we'll bring your check to the table..." That was the last straw. Sorry Salvo's: $60 wasted (except for the antipasto).