The Italian Place — Restaurant in Alexandria

I have dined at the Italian Place once before and today I decided to enjoy a lasagna past dish. The lasagna was previously prepared and frozen. An automated order terminal is made available to the customer and I requested dining in. This I hoped would result in a warmed up piping hot lasagna portion on perhaps a terra cotta plate. The owner after providing a wonderful lavazza cappuccino hand delivered the lasagna still frozen in a grocery bag. I reminded her that I wanted it to dine in and she graciously offered to heat it up and suggested that it might take 10 minutes. She then delivered the lasagna in its original aluminum storage container, no terra cotta serving dish. The lasagna was still frozen, I hand delivered the under heated portion back for a reheat. She said hopefully it will not be over heated. I retrieved this a second time and sure enough it was defrosted and mildly warm. The exposed lasagna pasta layer was now dry and hard. Freezing is an effective way to preserve food but freezing also results in drying loss of water. There are subtle and effective techniques to gently and effectively defrost and warm up frozen pasta. Unfortunately these were not employed as it would have taken more prep time than was considered appropriate. At this point I didn’t complain directly as this should have been evident to the owner. A couple who sat next to me and ate the eggplant parmesan sandwich also complained of a less than effective reheat from frozen. In the future I would order a cappuccino and other food stuffs like sauces and dried pasta but I would steer away from the reheated pasta dishes until the management elects to improve their food...

Update: The owners immediately responded to my review below and provided a solution to rectify the situation. I appreciate their rapid response. I have changed my rating from 2 to 5 stars to reflect their customer service and much tastier sub. New pics posted!

Old review: After coming here for years I'm afraid to say wait until the pandemic is over to enjoy a sub here again :-(

I ordered my usual Giorgio and was shocked and appalled to taste what seemed to be stale bread or a change in bread manufacturer. The bread was dry, powdery, and lacked the authenticity of loaf bread with a crusty top and a spongy chewy middle. It was nothing like what I usually get.

I immediately call the store to find out why this didn't taste like my usual. I asked if the bread manufacturer had been changed and was told since the pandemic they now had two types of bread. When I asked if they had the other type of bread in store so that I could easily just swap out my sandwich I was told that that was not in stock that day either.

I waited for a solution either in the form of a refund or via store credit but that never happened either. In a pandemic I'm not going to go back and ask for $12 refund as I understand we are all hiring economically, but the customer service seemed to be lacking and I'm afraid to say I can't come back here and pay $12 for a sandwich on stale, white, powdery bread that I can get at any local bakery. It's hard to see what I'm talking about in photos but for those who frequent this place you know that this is...

Updated: The management at The Italian Place responded 5 months later to our review on another site and offered us a voucher for a free pizza. We took them up on it and when we went to pick up two pizzas, they graciously gave us both for free. This time they were both very good....well covered with sauce & cheese and toppings with no giant bubbles. Here's hoping their quality control stays this way so we can support small local businesses.

*Original Review from 6/2020 - Tried it with the Living Social deal and got 2 cheese pizzas. That this would have cost over $30 without it is astounding. It's better than Dominos, so that's why it's not 1 star, but one pizza had two HUGE bubbles in the crust that had pushed the sauce and cheese aside and the other had sections with 3 inches of crust (see photo)......VERY poor quality control. I worked at Pizza Hut in college and I wouldn't send a pizza out from that dump with those issues.....I expected quality at least at the Pizza Hut level from this place, but was disappointed. There are better places that are worth a premium for accurate NY/NJ style pizza in Alexandria, but this place is not...