Toscana 52 — Restaurant in Bensalem Township

I had dinner reservations this evening for my birthday celebrations. I picked this because the menu made me curious. I’m pretty new to the area Bensalem. I am used to city living in Philly where all the restaurants that I am more familiar. These are the food we ordered.

ARANCINI - Sicilian Rice Balls Crafted from Veal & Pork Ragu, Peas, Mozzarella & Tomato Sauce- I really love this one, very tasty. Wished they stuffed more ragu inside. No peas for me. Tomato sauce I am Impress I love it.

GRILLED OCTOPUS - Grilled Herb Marinated Mediterranean Octopus Served with Organic Field Greens and a Fresh Citrus Dressing- I find the Octopus it is very very tender however I just wished it is more charred and it did not tasted anything herb marinated at all. I did not enjoy this at all.

HOMEMADE GNOCCHI - Hand Cut Potato Gnocchi Sautéed with Butter-Sage Parmigiano - this one I really enjoyed. Such soft, pillowy gnocchi. I am expecting a brown butter sage and sprinkled with Parmigiano. I did not expect a cream based sauce because of the cheese. I would have enjoyed more if it’s just as simple as brown butter sage.

CHAMPAGNE PEAR SACCHETTI® - Homemade Pear & Ricotta Stuffed Pasta Sacks, Tossed in a Delicate Walnut-Champagne Cream Sauce. (An Executive Chef Specialty!)- This one I’m very hyped up but I am not so impress at all. I did not enjoy it. I am disappointed. The pear with the ricotta I find it too sweet for my liking. Also the pear is gritty so I am not sure if they also included the skin of the pears. The walnut i feel over powered the champagne cream sauce. Overall I did not enjoyed at all.

PAPPARDELLE CINGHIALE - Homemade Wide Ribbon Pasta in a Tuscan Wild Boar Meat Sauce Featuring Accents of Onion, Wild Mushrooms & Aromatic Herbs- this is the one that I most enjoyed. The wild boar meat sauce is very flavorful. I could tell that the tomato sauce that they use is homegrown. I grow my own heirloom tomatoes. The wide ribbon pasta is very light and reminds me of the homemade pasta that we cook at our own household.

Our server knows the menu from cover to cover. He made sure he told us the specials this evening. The interior of the restaurant is very spacious. It has another room that looks like a sunroom. Thursday night not much people. Well we were the 5:15pm so I’m sure after we left more people dined.

Yes I might come back for the desserts but not anytime soon. I would come back for the gnocchi...

My sister in law and I love octupus and this is how we ended up at this establishment. We discovered their menu offers it and so we headed here to try it out. The restaurant offers a lot of parking area but also we went on a Tuesday at 3 pm so it was pretty empty. We were greeted and seated rather quickly and were excited for the dining experience. The hostess was walking ahead of us, leading us to our seats (a booth) behind another 2 person party, dropping off the menus on our table and kept walking, while saying our server would be right with us. A few minutes later, a young gentleman came by and brought us some waters. After that, no one else came for 15-20 minutes. The location was pretty empty from what we could see. I decided to go to the hostess at the front and asked if we could order our drinks from the bar since no one has come to take our orders. She said, “oh, no one has come…” and disappeared to the back somewhere and then another a young lady came out running, apologizing profusely, introduced herself as our server and said that she was not notified and she was on her lunch. My sister in law and I felt so bad for her because she really saved this experience. She was incredibly on point, friendly, and made the rest of our visit super pleasant. Now for the food, it came out incredibly fast: grilled octupus (we had that each) shared appetizers of stuffed mushrooms and bruschetta. She got a banana colada and it was AMAZING and I had the white peach sangria, also very AMAZING! We shared a flan at the end, but they have a nice variety of desserts to choose from and which the server took her time to explain each dessert and make suggestions from a visual presentation of all the desserts, which I think was very cool. The flan was super creamy, not incredibly sweet, just the right amount. We are looking foward to coming back again with the rest of our family. The only thing that made me take off a star for service was the lack of communication from the FOH to the server and waiting almost 20 minutes, but aside from that, a beautiful establishment, food/drinks were incredible and our...

Very disappointed. Went here twice and the 1st time was great. The 2nd time was on a Saturday. Prior to coming I asked if they take Apple Pay, and they confirmed they did. As I went to pay, I asked to include the tip prior just to help the server get his amount sooner. I tapped my phone and the serve said “ I’ll bring you your receipt to sign”

This gave me a red flag because it shouldn’t take 10 minutes to bring the receipt. I came back up and asked if there is a problem. The manager “ Simon” said “ yes there is a problem, you owe me 16.62$” and I told him that is how much is for the tip. He didn’t apologize for the inconvenience, was very defensive and lacked manners. It was embarrassing because he tried to make it seem like my card declined when it was an error with their new system. Which the waiter admitted they just put in a week ago. Instead of coming off apologetic or compassionate, he was very impatient and rude. The manager lacked customer service skills and the waiter lacked confidence to tell me upfront there was an issue with the system when it declined. This could have been avoided and now I do not wish to come back. Anyone that is a minority does not seem welcomed here based on the manager’s assumptions and attitude just from that 5 minute conversation. When I complained to the front desk staff / hostess about what happened.. they looked like deer in headlights. What happened to basic customer service and apologizing or accommodating to guest needs and concerns. The manager definitely made this place look horrible and ruined my taste for coming back. I suggest that he just stay in the back and avoid customers, this will save his business. He is definitely not a people person and very aggressive. Should not be working with customers.

Now I have to try to dispute this double charge with my bank due to their system / card reader....