Mangiare - Italian Family Dining - Junction — Restaurant in Toronto

Nodo was closed for a private function that night. We walked down the street and saw this place. I should have known from the name that this place would not be authentic Italian. As soon as we entered the restaurant, our laughter stopped as we were not greeted by the woman working there. Instead, she angrily asked us if we had a reservation. I hesitated, quite shocked that the greeting was not warm and then slowly said no, to which she did not reply. She looked over at her iPad for a few moments, looked back up at us, motioned to a table next to her with her hand without saying a word. We took our seats, also wordless, and I buried my head in my phone looking for another restaurant right away. We stayed because we were hungry, had driven from Mississauga and were already seated. Looking at the menu we were looking for pizza. What kind of Italian restaurant doesn’t have pizza? One other couple, other than that the restaurant was empty. It was Friday evening at 5:25pm. Were they really expecting a rush within the hour? Then we ordered the pasta carbonara. I was quite shocked to realize that it was none other than Barilla pasta that was being served. Pasta out of a box. At an Italian restaurant that doesn’t serve pizza. They don’t even hand make their own pasta. The carbonara was drowning in the sauce (who knows what they put in it probably lots of cream) and so unbelievably salty that we asked for bread to be brought to our table. We had to wait 15 minutes for the bread. Did they have to bake it? Evidently, yes. When it got to our table the bread was cold on the inside and had burnt grill marks on the bottom. It wasn’t even on the menu so I guess they don’t serve it regularly as it was obviously frozen. Not a typical Italian restaurant, that’s for sure. We sat down at 5:25 but did not receive our mains until 6:45. Only then did the next couple walk in. Almost an hour and a half after the server made it seem like she wouldn’t have any space for us at all that night. The server then gave the newly entered couple a sincere warm welcome as she had obviously met them before. She said I will be right with you, turned around and then that couple walked right to the table behind us and sat down. We over heard them say “this is our usual spot right?” It’s funny how in an empty restaurant we, people without a reservation, had to wait to be seated while treated rudely, while others, also without a reservation, could just walk in right after us and take their seats while the server smiled! Very strange and seemingly deliberate discrimination. The server grabbed my empty glass without a word. Didn’t ask me if I wanted a refill, I had to wait to be looked at to ask for another and when she brought the new one, she spilled it on me. I think she may have slipped or tripped?? To which she said “Whoop!” She put the glass on the table and I started wiping my leg from all spilled pop saying “oh I didn’t know what you said whoop to but now I do.” Not even an apology. No words. Just whoop! So now my leg is wet and my husband is the one wiping the table with his own napkins because the server didn’t think it necessary after she spilled the drink. But something that bothered me the most about this place is that I used to be a server and it was drilled into me that within 30 seconds of the plate touching the table or within 2 bites, you ask the table how everything is. Fine, they couldn’t get to us within two bites because there were two servers and three tables, overwhelming, but they NEVER came to ask. Even after waiting for the frozen bread, neither one of them asked us how our food was. If they had we would have said it was salty. I bet you anything that they had already heard us say it was salty and they did not want to do anything about it. They didn’t want to offer something new or help us out, no. Do you not think that people will review you poorly? We thought that the cappuccinos would make up for the meal as it seemed they had an Italian machine with Italian grinds however the final product was basically...

We went here for the Thursday night AYCE spaghetti even though we didn't partake in it. I found the menu on Thursday quite limited versus the one on the web-site. I guess they change the menu on Thursdays. As far as I can remember, there was only 4 pasta dishes: spaghetti pomodoro, rigatoni rosa, dad's bolognese and ghocci. There were also some sandwiches available.

I was in a group of 4. 3 had Dad's bolognese: 2 had it with spaghetti and 1 had it with rigatoni. The 4th person had the spaghetti pomodoro. 3 out of 4 dishes arrived fairly quickly. On the other hand, the 4th dish of bolognese took a very long time to show up. It felt like it arrived 10 minutes after everyone else got their dishes. I found this odd because 3 of us had the same sauce and 2 of us had the same dish. We arrived around 630 pm and the restaurant was not busy. The server apologized for the lateness.

Once I got my dish, I found the bolognese sauce thinner, less meaty and flavorful compared to the many other times I've had it. I've also made bolognese sauce at home many times. I don't know what is an "authentic" bolognese sauce, but I prefer the slighly thicker style. I'm not saying the dish was bad, it was just not what I was used to. Perhaps the time delay resulted in my dish being more watery than normal?

The person that had the spaghetti pomodoro said the sauce was thicker to what she was used to. I traded my bolognese with her and also found it quite thick. I found the pomodoro to be more flavorful than the bolognese for some reason. I found it odd that the pomodoro sauce was thicker than the bolognese sauce.

The fresh pasta in all dishes were cooked well though.

Not sure if I would come back as I do have many other Italian restaurants that are closer to...

I came here this evening with my partner in fact we are still sitting waiting for someone to come to us so we can pay the arrived at around 9:00 p.m. and it took probably over 10 to 15 minutes to get water and another little bit for them to give us the menu acknowledge us or even take our order followed by probably close to 40 minutes to get us our food the whole time we were pretty much ignored nobody came by to check in on us at all meanwhile they have enough servers and they went to all the other tables around us on the patio but ignored us you're not even checking to see if we needed a water in the 40 minutes while we were waiting for food. We're in the process of trying to flag down a server who is not cognizant of the fact that we are done eating overall this has been a very disappointing experience. We regret coming to this place and wasting our Saturday evening we would have been better off getting pizza pizza knowing that food would have been delivered reliably and within a set time frame. We had to go inside to physically find them to...