Taste of Italy — Restaurant in City of Long Beach

This place is part of a "chain," and as you know, that can always be hit or miss when it comes to food--especially when it comes to informal "Italian" Bistro fare such as they serve at La Bottega in Long Beach. Stale bread, less than fresh ingredients (the salami on one of our sandwiches was curled and dry at the edges and very tough to chew), greasy water glasses, tomato slices that had obviously been previously frozen, and a restroom that stank--straight up stank--like a subway toilet from 1972 NYC. But the jewel in the crown of this awful "diner" pretending to be a restaurant was the waitstaff: unable to read the items on the menu, difficulty speaking--slurring words--and a vanishing act into the toilet for about twenty minutes during our meal; we had to refill our own water glasses and ask the dishwasher in the kitchen if he could get us our check. He couldn't and we had to wait. When the waiter returned he had clearly forgotten where he left our order slip--though he kept calling it the "food paper" and shouted at us to be patient. We will never go to...

unfortunately i had today morning the worse experience in this restaurant.. we didn't even get to try the food, the server was extremely rude and nasty and had a terrible attitude that we had to leave before we even got the food on the table, she stood in the middle of the restaurant yelling at me and my friend for leaving and not waiting for the food, she even wanted to charge us for the food that we didn't even see, i cant believe the scene that she made in front of everybody , and how she talked to us. i am a waitress myself , and this was extremely wrong of treating customers, i tried to give her the benefit of the doubts , maybe she had a bad day or something , but seriously that not how you treat customers, because we might ve came back, but after this we will never, and we wont recommend it...

Have taken out from here before, but never ate in the dining room. Really impressed with the food and server, Elmer. Started off with the pear salad. Really fresh and the gorgonzola really kicked that salad into a great starter. My wife had the clams with spaghetti, she really liked it, and I had the gnocchi with chicken cutlet, which really rocked it. So fresh, chicken was crisp and not greasy at all. Excellent dish, really fair pricing. Couldn't resist the tartufo with expresso, top shelf.

All in all, really excellent, well priced food. Will definitely be coming back. This place is not only a take out place, but for a very fair priced dinner, served by nice people, in a decent dining room....