"Too many things going wrong"

A review of Osteria Pulcinella by Nicole Davison written on Monday 22nd of March 2010

We booked a table here to celebrate a family member's 80th birthday - in other words, it was meant to be a special evening out.

The first thing to go wrong was that the restaurant had the number of people wrong for the booking, resulting in some awkward standing around as they tried to accommodate us.

Two of the party were vegetarian. When making the booking, I specifically asked if there were good options available. I was assured that there were. When we looked at the menu, however, there was not a single 'secondi piatti' that they could eat. Pasta choices was limited to one dish. When we pointed this out, the waitress said that vegetarians were not that common and they could have the gnocchi. In the end, the kitchen prepared a pasta Arrabiata, but not before we were told by one member of staff that this was possible, only for the person taking our order that this was not possible.

The steak ordered by my partner was medium-well, not medium-rare, as ordered. The waiter was adamant that the steak was as ordered. The chef actually agreed with us that it was overdone and they did take the cost of the food of the bill.

I had asked whether it was possible to have a small birthday cake to mark the occasion and was told that this would be fine. The cake never materialised and by this time we had lost the will to raise any more problems.

The food when it came was good, and the service was very friendly but too many things went wrong for this to be the smooth family occasion we had hoped it would be. We are not awkward diners but, it is not unreasonable to expect things to run more smoothly and the lack of vegetarian options, despite assurances to the contrary, had the potential to spoil the evening.

This was my second visit in the last few months - the first time I went we were given a free bottle of wine as the orders were wrong, so they do have previous for this!.

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