Restaurant Review World

I learned a very valuable lesson the other day: when a restaurant sends out a mass mailing of coupons, avoid that restaurant like the plague. Unless it’s some sort of chain restaurant, like Baja Fresh, where you order at a counter, coupons mean bad news. For one, they mean that the restaurant isn’t getting business on its own. For another, they mean that you will have to present your coupon to your waiter, who will then try to up sell and trick you so that he doesn’t get stiffed on his tip.

This public service message was brought to you by my most recent (and last) visit to San Gennaro Cafe.

After receiving the above-mentioned coupon, which offered two entrees at the price of one, my husband and I were very excited to have a date night that was bit less expensive. We carefully looked over the coupon for expiration dates, etcetera, and sadly missed the very fine print reading that no more than $12.00 would be credited. $12.00 for an entree? In Los Angeles?

Once we were seated at our table for alfresco dining, we showed our coupon to our fast-talking waiter right away - we wanted to do the right thing, instead of surprising him at the end of the night. Well, I guess he took this as an invitation to convince us to get the specials, which were not within the $12.00 category. I do consider this our fault - we let him convince us - but the next thing he did was very tricky. He asked us what kind of salad we would like with our dinner. We both said Caesar. Well, guess what. Those salads didn’t come with the entree. So, instead of asking if we wanted salad, he asked which salad, therefore implying the salad came with the meal.

I could have over looked all of this if the food had been stellar. Those specials he convinced us to get - not so special. My husband ordered a seafood ravioli in a pink sauce. Unfortunately, the sauce was much too salty, and the seafood much too fishy. My dinner, salmon pasta in the same pink sauce, was a little bit better, but not worth the $19.00 price. The house chianti that I ordered was a bit harsh, as well. Finally, the gelato on top of our chocolate suffle was more like ice milk rather than ice cream.

I don’t want to go too crazy here - it’s not as if this was the worst meal that I ever had or anything. It’s just that it wasn’t at all worth the price. Once we received the check, we felt as if we had made a terrible mistake, and that’s never a way you want to leave a restaurant. We don’t mind spending money going out to eat, but we do live on a budget. A high-priced meal needs to match up with high-quality food and service. Instead, we walked away feeling tricked. For those reasons, we will not be going back.

San Gennaro is located at Barrington Place and Sunset at 140 S Barrington Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Phone: (310) 476-9696

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