Dominic's Ristorante Italiano — Restaurant in Cypress

I had heard rave reviews about this place so went a couple of years ago and really wasn't impressed enough to go back. One night my daughter went and brought home her Tri-Color eggplant leftovers. They were DELICIOUS so I decided to give it another try. It's in the same shopping center as our Weight Watchers meeting so we went, after getting weighed in! Ha! We saved points all day for this meal. It was very busy because of a large party but we got seated right away. I ordered the Organic Walnut Salad but I was told that they didn't have the dried cranberries for it, so, I chose to substitute fresh blueberries. Not the same because it was missing the tartness that the cranberries would have added. It was good but not delicious. We were wondering why they hadn't sent someone to the store for them BEFORE they ran out. It's not like they're hard to find. I should have ordered the Caesar Salad instead. My daughter ordered the Tri-Colored Eggplant and Minestrone soup. OK, so, I'm no expert on minestrone soup but anytime that I've had it, pasta and beans have been two of the ingredients. I just looked up some recipes and they all listed these in the recipes. The soup was basically vegetable soup and it was VERY BORING. We spotted 2 beans in it and NO pasta. Weight Watchers has a recipe for "No Points Vegetable Soup" and it seemed almost identical to it. I also didn't like the fact that the vegetables were huge! I took a few bites and I had to use a knife to cut up the green beans so they would fit on the giant spoon! It felt like bad prep work! I don't want to have to do the chopping that the kitchen should have done for me. I "get" the "rustic", "homemade" vibe but soup should NEVER have 4 inch long green beans in it! Wikipedia says that it's a THICK, vegetable soup OFTEN with the addition of pasta or rice and that there is no set recipe. So, it certainly CAN be just vegetables but this wasn't even good vegetable soup. If rich, thick, flavorful minestrone soup is what you're craving, this ISN'T the place. Wanna stick to your Weight Watchers diet? They've got your soup for you but don't forget to count the 2 or 3 beans in there (sarcasm)! We should have gotten the lentil. The bread was DELICIOUS but we finished it all with the soup. We hadn't eaten all day, so that we could splurge, and we were starving. Someone took the basket away and we thought that more was on its way but nothing. It's for the best but, still, we were hoping! Ha! I didn't have any bread to eat with my salad. The poor waiter was so busy that we couldn't get his attention, no one ever offered it and we eventually just gave up. I'll take partial blame for this, for not being more aggressive but it seems like they would have offered when the meals were delivered. The eggplant was, again, DELICIOUS! The side pasta sauce was pretty boring. When I eat out, I like to have items that I don't or can't make myself. Bland tomato sauce is not what I'm seeking out. At least the eggplant had other sauces to mix with it. I guess with any restaurant, you're not going to like everything on the menu. We will probably go back just to have the FANTASTIC eggplant and garlic bread and, now, I know NEVER to order that pitiful, giant pieces of vegetables, soup again. The waiter was pleasant and nice but we sat and waited a lot. I don't believe that it's because he was a bad waiter. I think that they might have been understaffed, with a large party, so not his fault. He was running and working hard and we still...

Well I brought my 11 year old daughter there for her birthday yesterday. I'm am going to be very specific with my thoughts, so you take it how you want! First off we got there at 8:30 pm, and 80% of the seating was available. I still had to wait over 15 minutes to be seated. My daughter wanted to sit outside they would not accommodate. First impressions were that the seats were so beat up and old there were cracks everywhere. Additionally, It seemed right away that everyone was in a hurry to split, or get out of there. They clearly were cringing at the thought of having to serve us! They use a plastic cover over the table cloth so that they do not have to change them very uncomfortable feeling. (I felt like a baby) Food: WOW, I ordered the Veal Parm. It was terrible I mean bad! It was tough meat like jerky. They did not pound it flat first and to be quite honest it seemed like they opened a package of frozen dinner and micro-waved it and served it to me! My daughter ordered some angel hair with butter in it. There must have been a shortage of butter there last night so bring your own! The meat balls she ordered on the side tasted ok but dry. I ordered a coffee and when they came by to re-fill they only saw the water glass and not once did they ask if they could re-fill my coffee. I eventually asked them to re-fill it, and that took what seemed like forever! I told them about her birthday now this is the clincher... They brought the ice cream over in the middle of her dinner she was not done yet. Nor did they bother to sing happy-B-day to her. So as the daddy I whispered happy birthday to her and she blew out the candle. The best thing there was the spumoni Where did they get it? Now the check $60 bucks? Really? If you want great Italian food in this area hit up Franco's right down the street there chef is from Italy and it is amazing. I only went to Dominic's to try something new...

If I could I would give 0 starts. The service was non existent even though they had a full legion of staff members constantly walking around but ignoring the customers! They were too busy talking to each other or fixing their make lip gloss that one poor boy was running the whole floor even if it wasn’t his area. And before anyone ask, I have been coming here for years and tonight was 0 all across the board. 1 strike : from sitting down to ordering drink was pretty average wait. But what really got to me is my kids were able to watch a FULL MOVIE before any of us got food. Bread was their life line and even then I had to ask a waiter from another section because ours seems to trying out for the invisible woman casting since she was nowhere to be found till it was time to collect the check.

2nd : something must have changed because even the food was inedible. It was waaay too greasy. Me and my husband both couldn’t eat the food and instead of asking to fix it or even taking it back all I was told is “aw” and she just walked away to go sit down to talk! I was appalled.

3rd hidden fees: it wasn’t until after I left that we actually checked the bill since my husband just wanted to leave and get something else to eat. We got charge an “Arosta fee” which the only thing I can find it a table charge?

At the end we still paid our full check and left never wanting to coming back to what used to be our go to date night place. Oh and the icing on the cake was both my girls just came home throwing up after just the short ride home. Shame on...