D'italiane - IOI Mall Damansara — Restaurant in Petaling Jaya

Been thinking of checking this place out for a long time because it is usually packed at meal time. But honestly, not as good as I expected solely based on the number of diners who go there.

Firstly, the menu is very confusing for me. On the plus side, there are many dishes to choose from. But as luck would have it, the very first dish I wanted to get was 86-ed. In a restaurant of this caliber, perhaps waiters should have mentioned that before a diner slaves over such a huge menu? I literally looked over everything to decide on one thing that turned out to be an item 86. Then I had to find an alternative, which of course was overly salted. I seriously bit into a small chunk of salt.

Next was the cocktail with a fancy name, which sounded very interesting. But again, overly salted. And it came after I was almost half done with my salty food. Also, two separate waiters had to come confirm with me if I had ordered that drink as a cocktail (with alcohol) vs. a mocktail. Must have had wrong orders recently? Or was it because the menu was confusing? 🤔

The only redeeming item was the dessert I ordered. Not overly sweet. Huge portion. Creatively delicious.

Atmosphere in general was very welcoming. But note to the owner(s):- do not seat diner(s) next to where silverware are being polished. I was literally 2 chairs away from a waitress polishing silverware that had just been washed.

So... the membership bit was confusing too. The waiter who seated me had no clue how to walk me through the process. Seems like a training session is on the horizon? I hope I am getting my points from this meal. I also hope that the process to use my points in the future will not be confusing.

All in all, it was not a bad experience. I would give it a second chance for sure to see if my experience today was just unusual for...

Food: The food was great, tasty and generous portion. Every food that we ordered were simply amazing and we were fully satisfied.

Drinks: The price and the amount of drink you get is just not proportionate. They were served in tall glasses, but they were THIN glasses plus with the ice, not worth the money. Tried their mocktails and milkshakes, tasted good but seriously too little. Not worth the price at all.

Service: The waitress that took our order was fine. There wasn't anything much to say and she simply did her job.

Now, the two waiters that brought our food and the busboy/waiter that took away our food were just horrendous and SUPER RUDE.

The two food waiters didn't bother to place the food in front of the right person EVEN AFTER we gently told them. Pretty sure I heard one of them grunted when we told them to place it in front of the actual person ordering it. When asked about the status of our appetizer (which ironically arrived waaaaayyyy after our main courses), he rudely said "Just wait!!"

As for the busboy/waiter, he didn't even bother to say "Excuse me", he would just appear by our table, took away the table mats and empty plates and wiped the table so roughly that pieces of the food spilt onto us. No apologies or anything.

These 3 waiters must've really not like their job or something because they were atrocious and gave the worst service.

Luckily the food was tasty and we were full so that got us to chill a little.

Would I go there again? Maybe just for the food if I'm truly craving for it. Basically if you want good food but don't mind bad service, then go ahead.

You're a proper restaurant and we're paying the service charge, so please fix your service and train your staffs to at least have...

Everything was ok initially. pizzas, appetisers and one main course came out within a good timeframe - considering the Xmas eve crowd! However, the biggest letdown was having to wait over an hour for the birthday boy’s sea bass and scallop main. Even after checking a few times, it never came out until we wanted to cancel it. From just before 8pm the order was placed, the food only arrived after 9pm when our whole table had already eaten their mains. This put a major damper on the mood - especially with a toddler having to sit patiently and wait. The only excuse given was that the kitchen had to push out other orders that take faster to make. Evidently, they seemed to have forgotten our order as many other tables came later and had food before us - from steaks to whole roasted chicken etc. The sea bass was a very small portion which came with equally small 4 pieces of scallops. Definitely not worth the long wait. No compensation was offered either in a form of a complimentary dessert or a small discount for the inconvenience caused and time wasted. We wanted to walk around the mall but by the time we got the last dish done and bill requested, it was already after 9:30pm! Terribly disappointing for such a special occasion. Floor staff tried their best in spite of it all but they can’t handle the kitchen and the manager was too...