La Promenade dei Templi

Generally we were disappointed by our lunch here. Ultimately the food was just a disgrace. It starts off with an over-priced Cola Zero with a glass, cold and that's it. No ice. No lemon. No lime. Nothing. There are place in Agrigento (see my review of Bar Athenea) which charge less, have more atmosphere and serve a can of cola in the correct way. Then we had ordered a plate of chicken breast (purchased for about €0,35 and battered to make it look bigger than it really was) which was slathered then drowned in a faintly disgusting looking pistachio sauce (was it creamy? Who knows?) and served to us for €15 or €16. I don't want to think about what we paid for this utter disgrace of a plate. The chef should hang his head in shame. We had some pretty weird cannoli wrapped in bacon which were OK at best. Accompanying that we also picked an octopus & potato salad. I KNOW that this octopus wasn't fresh. I am 99% sure that the octopus is from frozen and defrosted on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and then chucked into this rather ugly series of potato cubes. Simply said nothing was made with love, it all tasted pretty disgusting and it was VERY VERY bad value for money. We wished we'd have just had a panini and been done with it.

That said we chose it because of the location and at least we managed to secure a table on the nice terrazza. It certainly majors on its proximity to the Valley of the Temple. The waiter was friendly enough but at the end of the day a restaurant is there to serve yummy delicious food that you wouldn't be able to cook anywhere at home in the same way. The Italians are, reputationally, the masters at this. This was about as un-Italian an experience as can possibly be imagined. I've had way better Italian meals in America, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, UK and The Netherlands. What a disappointment! Really they should start again.