Strada Mia 313 — Restaurant in City of Syracuse

I have never left a bad review for a restaurant before but this felt very warranted. We went to Strada Mia for dinner on a Monday night, and the service was poor from the beginning, as our waiter acted extremely rushed and curt (they seemed very understaffed). Our drinks were refilled so little that one person from our party filled her own water glass with a pitcher we found behind us. We had to use our tiny bread dishes for our appetizer as we were given no plates for it. After a long 45 minutes, our entrees arrived. My dish was the Seafood Tortellini, which is "cheese filled tortellini served with garlic cream sauce, scallops, shrimp & crab". The pasta on my dish was not even tortellini, but ravioli. There were no scallops or crab. The garlic "cream" sauce was thin and watery. And worst of all, when I bit into my ravioli, it was cold in the middle. I have no idea how the kitchen thought I wouldn't notice that not only was the dish completely different than what the menu described, but was also cold. After notifying our waiter, he sent over the general manager who kindly agreed to take the dish off our bill and give us desserts on the house, joking that the dessert was already cold and it would be out in a few moments. When our waiter returned, he seemed annoyed and told us that only I would receive dessert on the house, since it was my dish that was taken off the bill. I ordered a slice of cake, which did not come out "in a few moments" as the manager promised. After ten minutes of waiting for a slice of cake, and running late for plans I had, we gave up and went to find the manager so we could just pay our bill and leave. We ended up finding her chatting at the bar, instead of helping our clearly frazzled waiter who was running all around the restaurant. She seemed shocked that we never received our dessert. We were then told by our waiter that our bill was "all set", albeit very rudely, but we were happy we didn't have to pay for what felt like an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The other meals our party received were warm but completely under seasoned, flavorless, and painfully average given the price. My worst ever...

I have mixed opinions about this restaurant. We went on Valentine's Day, and they were so full we had to make a reservation for 4:30. No issue there, we'll have an early dinner. The dining room was clean, mostly quiet (soft pop music playing, a few kids,) dimly lit, and the bathroom was spotless and smelled fresh. Right after being seated we were met by our server, Chealsi. She was fantastic, everything I'd ask for in a waitress, kind, attentive, knowledgeable of the menu, and very polite to me and my lady.

One issue I took was the first item I ordered, a caprese salad, was unavailable. This was unfortunate, as it was the only salad I really cared for on the menu, and going so early in the day I'd expect them to be fully stocked especially on such a big night. I substituted, and we ordered salads and a fried calamari appetizer, both were fantastic.

When ordering our main course, I asked if they could make a dish of carbonara, and our server replied that she would usually be fine with special requests, but as the head chef had a big night ahead of him, she'd rather not bother him with any. That again, was unfortunate, and again for such a big night I'd expect them to be willing to honor such requests as Valentine's Day is one of the biggest nights to make repeat customers. Regardless, my main course was a delicious shrimp and scallop pomodoro with a side of risotto. My lady ordered a linguine clam sauce pasta bowl, and we were both impressed.

After our main course we ordered two virgin cocktails (both me and my lady are sober) and they were delicious. Dessert was cannoli and espresso, again delicious. Leftovers were boxed for us (LOVE this) and tied in a paper bag (extra points for not using plastic.) They had a box of chocolates and a rose for my lady, and the server thanked us for coming and wished us a happy...

A few nights ago my friends and I visited strada Mia for the first time. After reading the 4 star reviews we were excited to try this Italian restaurant. When we sat down to dinner and our waitress came by, one of the first things she started with was. “Sorry I would give you guys bread but we ran out”, not a big deal, but it may have been more professional to just not even mention it. We ordered a bottle of wine and fried calamari to start with, no complaints. We ordered three entrees...the chicken riggies were underwhelming, not very flavorful and not spicy at all (most riggies I’ve tried usually had some kick to them). The chicken Marsala entree had a couple small pieces of chicken and enough pasta to feed a family of four. Lastly, salmon and rice pilaf (my entree). The salmon was good, however, the rice pilaf HAD to be boxed rice, and pretty bad boxed rice at that. I asked the waitress if i could possibly get a different side, she offered me a few different options but I went with the risotto. The waitress herself spoke highly of it. When I tried the risotto I couldn’t even believe that the restaurant would serve such a dish. I don’t even think it was made from arborio rice but maybe plain white rice, had some sort of cheese (no flavor) and no seasoning or salt for that matter. It was beyond awful! I asked the waitress if I could speak to the manager. When I told the manager, Keith, how disappointing and terrible the food was, he abruptly pulled my plate away from under me (even though I was still eating the salmon). He did not attempt to make up or apologize for the bad experience but instead made some passive aggressive remarks! Worst...