Critic's Review
I heard about this place in Margate; It's the kind of pizza restaurant that excelled back on Long Island. Their web site is broken so I couldn't see a menu, so I proceeded here on faith along. I knew the prices were reasonable, at least.
At 2pm there were 2 tables occupied. There's a front counter with a big blackboard that they don't use for anything that's going to help the business; just some drawings. Cans of tomatoes on the shelves.
In the dining room there's a bunch of booths and some tables. I opted for a booth.
A server came right over and I ordered a beverage. Soups were Minestrone and Pasta Fagioli and one other I didn't understand. I ordered a lunch special; the Three Musketeers, with a salad and garlic rolls. You can get the rolls with or without garlic. Soup or salad. A pretty good deal for $9.99.
No problems with the lemons here.
Music isn't exactly Italian, with Kelly Clarkson, Sade and Bryan Adams filling the airwaves. The salad came out quickly.
Ugh. Another salad served on a flat plate. Don't restaurant owners every eat out themselves? Carrots, 1 unpeeled cucumber slice, grape tomatoes and black olives (not gaeta olives). This was no Italian salad. I had to struggle to cut the salad and keep everything on the plate.
Rolls were, well, rolls. I don't really get the garlic roll thing, but it was the only choice. Are rolls really cheaper than garlic bread? Garlic rolls suck.
They had 3 TVs, all on the NFL network. Nothing like variety. How about NFL network, CNBC and ESPN? People don't think.
I was picking around the carrots when the entree came out. Ok, I was done with this.
*shaking my head*. Serving this dish on this plate is just stupid. The "3 Musketeers" was eggplant, chicken and veal parmesan over spaghetti. How was I supposed to eat this on this plate?
I cut along the edge, tasting a bit of each. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Unsalted pasta. Chicken and veal prepped yesterday morning.
The sauce wasn't terrible; the eggplant was the only thing edible on the place. The chicken and veal were dry and everything was over-breaded with not so good breadcrumbs.
When everything looks the same you have a problem. The "veal" was particularly bad; in fact I have my doubts that it was actually veal. While I was eating it I was thinking of the restaurants that got caught serving pork cutlet as veal. I left half of it on the plate.
I was thinking of taking half of it home; but I could whip up something better than this for $2 in 10 minutes. Why torture myself?
$13.03 was the total.
Conclusion
Frankly, I can't understand this place. With just a handful of customers, why can't I get fresh food? Why do restaurants serve grape tomatoes, so there's something red on the plate? They're not really tomatoes.
Question of the day: Is it really a good value if they serve you bad food that you don't want to eat? I have to think about that one.