North Italia — Restaurant in Cerritos

As a reference, I ordered the food off of door dash and ate this at my friend's house, who recommended this place.

They said this place was practically the same experience they've had in Italy.

We ordered their family meal for $65. It includes pasta, Caesar salad, garlic bread, and tiramisu. This was a great value. I can't stress that enough, actually. Really really good value. We picked the bucatini as my friends said they were served this in a majority of the places they went to in Italy. The pasta was delicious, as well as the sauce accompanying it. The Caesar salad had the best dressing I've had in a while, possibly ever. The garlic bread was okay, could probably have used a bit more garlic, but maybe they wanted to be careful and not offend more plain palettes. The tiramisu was a mixed bag. Nice crunchy chocolate balls, but the lady fingers were "soggy". They had a tough chew to them that made the chewing process unpleasant. I also found with my mouth a piece of plastic (see attached picture). My girlfriend said it was probably from what they wrapped the lady fingers with.

We also ordered the hot honey prosciutto pizza. It was a fairly middling choice. It had a nice kick, and the quality of the toppings themselves tasted fine, but the whole arrangement didn't create a better experience. The crust was well baked, nice char, and I could tell this was fresh out of the oven nice and crunchy. But it wasn't something I'd want to go out of my way for.

Closest thing I can compare this place to is Doppio 0 in NorCal. This place wins on pasta, but Doppio 0 wins...

Ok so get ready for my long review because this place was definitely something… I’ll start with the pros, the venue itself was nice they had cute flower center pieces and the bread with olive oil me and my boyfriend ordered was also pretty decent but you can’t really mess up bread and oil… when it came to the menus it wasn’t your typical Italian dishes it was Italian food but with there own twists to it. When I asked our server what dish he recommended he recommended the bolognese so I went ahead and ordered it and it was literally just a deconstructed lasagna nothing special or memorable about it and it was cold, my boyfriend ordered the lamuche pasta and it had these weird cut pieces of broccolini in it which I wished weren’t cut up but in full pieces instead it would’ve looked better and tasted better, his pasta was Also cold. I ordered a piña no lada and let me tell you there was not a lada piña that was literally such a disgusting drink I kept tasting it because I thought it get better and nope it did not, it tasted like pure lemon spritz when I preferably enjoy my virgin piña coladas more on the pineapple/ coconut side. Our waiter also barely checked up on us during that entire time. Food was gross drinks were gross, and it was super expensive. Don’t...

TLDR: get table service or just choose somewhere else.

Food and drink were good, service was disappointing as I really wanted to like this place. Sat at the bar inside for quicker service. Ended up watching people come in after me and leave before me. Bartender “assumed” I ordered something I did not because there were two similar items on the menu, despite me saying exactly what I ordered. No worries, this happens but you should probably confirm what someone is ordering. Took me 45 min without food to follow up about missing order. Ends up they got it wrong. Bartender asks me if I still want food; yes… I came here for dinner. They re-submit order and another 30 min goes by without anything. Manager comes over, they offer extra appetizers, I say sure that’d be great and then nothing was given. Bartender offers a shot and I say no I need to drive home.

Serves me right. I never come to the mall or go out for Italian. Should’ve...