ick! I really expected some 'real' Italian down home cooking and it was a greasy, doughy, tasteless mess of many things on their menu - been back three times now (duh!) and not sure if I'll continue to punish myself. I just don't get it when restaurants serve up slop with no taste - sorry but it's true in this case. Recommendation: Forget the GREASE and start using OLIVE OIL.
Let me start off by saying I have never had a bad restaurant experience ever. I love food and dining out is a source of great joy to me. That is until I set foot in Paesano.
The restaurant has a nice enough decor, lots of parking, and is in a cute suburb of Ottawa. My fiancee and I had a nice, efficient waiter and the bread tasted very good....but from there in it was positively awful.
We started with the crab cakes. They were far too hot to eat and we had to let them cool for 5 minutes before we could even attempt eating them...and I wish I hadn't. They tasted like pure pepper with a hint of curry. It was positively awful. I could only eat half of one and my fiancee finished 2 just so we didn't insult the restaurant (she's very polite).
Our entrees were then served and my disapointment increased. I had the linguine with prosciutto and portebello mushroom in a parmesean cream sauce. The cream sauce was bascially butter and I know from experience as I didn't like tomato sauce growing up so I would put margerine on spaghetti. It tasted just like that. If the prosciutto was real they sure fooled me because it had the exact taste and texture of bacon. I ate about half of it before the sheer boredom of it combined with the heavy oiliness of the "parmesean" sauce forced me to give up. My fiancee had it even worse. The veal scalopini was pathetic and by far the biggest disappointment of the night. We were expecting veal medallions but instead, sitting on my finacee's plate was veal schnitzel. That's right, veal pounded flat and breaded. It doesn't end there however, the veal was covered in a sauce that made the whole concoction taste like oily peanut butter cookies. I can not make this stuff up. My fiancee and I had to chew on antacid tablets to get the taste out of our mouths (as I tried it...I didn't believe it tasted like peanut butter cookies). The garlic mash, a joke. They were basically fried potatos on a bed of fried garlic. When my fiancee lifted the scoop of mash potatos (which looked a lot like an ice cream scoop) we saw several cloves of fried garlic. THAT's garlic mash to them I guess.
Luckily we had a $50 gift certificate, otherwise I would have demanded a free meal....however, my fiancee not wanting to make a fuss stopped me from complaining/asking why they thought this poor level of food was acceptable.
I'm sorry, but at 15-20 dollars a plate for pasta and 20-25 dollars a plate for entrees I expect good food. Even with the $50 gift certificate it still cost us $35 (I gave the waiter a good tip as he was quite good). $85 for food we choked down to look polite.
Thank you Paesano for giving me my first awful restaurant experience. DO NOT GO!
Have been to Paesano on two occasions, and both...
Have been to Paesano on two occasions, and both times have been pleased with the service, atmosphere and food quality. On this latest visit, the food was excellent, exceeding even our previous visit. We were pleased to see the same chef as the last time, who is obviously a favourite with the regulars. The server was good, a little inexperienced but capable. Overall very happy and will return soon!!
This was our first visit and last. High end prices for less than average food. On the anitpasto plate the 3 garlic shrimp were terrible, with way toooo much garlic, unedible. The parmesan cheese was too hard and bland, the plate was very over priced for the portions. The steak was ok, thankfully, though the fries were soggy, with a bucket of mayo and no veggies for $29.00. The veal was very odd, the sauce was ok, but I had to scrape off atleast a half cup of huge walnuts.
The server was young and looked like a deer in headlights when we mentioned the shrimp, so we left without mentioning our other concerns. We are new to the area, very adventurous with food and love to try new places, so this was a big disappointment for us.
Dog Food !
This is not Italian food. The servers...
Dog Food !
This is not Italian food. The servers are all kids and inexperienced, the food was disgusting.
We complained to the owner and he did nothing, Saturday night and it was 1/2 full..no wonder.
We will never go back
