LouCas — Restaurant in Edison

My family and I have been coming to LouCas for many many years. We’ve celebrated countless birthdays and anniversaries here (pre-covid) with no complaint at all. However, tonight we experienced some of the worst service ever. To begin, our party of 8 (6 adults and 2 children, one of which was a toddler) had reservations for 5:30pm. We were on time and seated immediately. Scanning the restaurant upon arrival, it wasn’t busy, but the dinner rush would soon be arriving . Our waiter Joe introduced himself and took our drink order. After briefly looking over the menu, we asked our waiter to put an appetizer order in while we decided on our main dish. He immediately said ,“No, during the weekend rush the kitchen likes to take appetizer and main entree orders at the same time “ I’ve never experienced that before, but ok we understood and then asked for a few minutes to completely decide. Joe didn’t return to take our table order until about 25-30 minutes later which by this time was almost 6:00pm. All this time and we’ve just been sipping on our drinks . We tried to get his attention, but he kept servicing the tables around us and not even glancing in our direction. Finally our order was in, I will say our appetizers came out in good time and tasted great as my children were starting to get hungry. I asked if my 3 year old could have his pasta with butter along with the appetizers and thank god I did else he would have been waiting 1hour and 15 min like the rest of us. After about an hour of waiting for our food, and no sign that Joe was interested in giving our table the best customer service we asked to speak to a manager . To start, Dina who I was told was the manager couldn’t even find our table! She had to ask another server where our table number was. I mean if you’re going to manage a restaurant, I’d think you’d atleast know where all the tables are located. After walking in circles, Dina finally found our table and with the most smug attitude ever blurted out “your food is coming” she never apologize for our long wait and dissatisfaction, something that a stand up manager should do. Instead, she blamed our table for not being ready to order our food when we first arrived. (Again we initially waited 30 minutes for our server to notice us and take our order.) Finally at 7:15pm , our food came. We were STARVING to say the least. The food in general was good and no complaints there , as there never is a complaint on their food. By this time we just wanted to finish dinner and get the check. Still with the personality of a wet noodle, Joe continued to show lack of care for our table. It’s amazing how the check comes out faster than the actual food though, we got that in less than 10 minutes . Dina decided to send out a tray of desserts to our table to make up for the service, which was a nice gesture, but it was way past that. We watched tables around us being served in a timely manner and also with the best customer service while everyone at our table looked like a bunch of lost puppies. I like coming to LouCas a lot, however some of the staff definitely need some more training on how to...

Last night (10/13/18) my husband and I decided to have dinner at LouCas to continue the celebration of our 2nd wedding anniversary. We like to eat early, so our reservation was for 5pm. We got to the parking lot at just around 5, and it was jam packed. As soon as we walked in, we immediately saw why - all of their main floor banquet rooms were full up! Despite the crowd, the noise level was really not bad. We were immediately seated in the main dining room. Our server came over straight away and we had our water and wine poured, and bread and butter in less than 10 min. Ordering and serving of our next courses was equally fast - very impressive especially on such a busy night. For starters, I selected the fresh mozzarella, roasted pepper, fresh basil and tomato and my husband chose the chilled oysters on the half shell. I know that "burrata" is the current trend at Italian restaurants for fresh mozzarella, but for me, it's too drippy and bland. I would have much preferred firm slices of mozzarella cheese or several mini cheese balls - either smoked or just slightly aged. The balsamic reduction was good, but the fresh basil was tasteless and the tomato slice and roasted pepper was boring. I'm still trying to recall if there was any red onion on the plate as it was listed on the menu. Very disappointing since ensalata caprese is my favorite. My husband really enjoyed the oysters complete with both sauces - the minuet sauce was a surprise compliment to the typical cocktail sauce. For main entree, I selected the Veal Parmagiana which came with a side of linguini. It was a generous portion and the mozzarella was plentiful. The pasta was cooked to perfection and topped with delicious marinara. I wanted to save room for dessert so I only ate 1/3 of the veal and took the rest home. My husband ordered the halibut special. Presentation and quantity was very good, and he did enjoy it. His only suggestion is to avoid serving the grilled veggies on top of the fish because it made it soggy. He would have preferred a crisp finish on the fish. The dessert menu has grown since our last visit (approx 2 yrs ago), and my husband was not going to indulge, so I went for the simple yet very tasty Gelato Trio. Our server was very nice and dressed up the plate with Happy Anniversary in chocolate sauce and topped it with a candle. We appreciated the gesture very much! Next time we will be sure that we select a better wine to bring along - Joel Gott 2016 Sauvignon Blanc was absolutely dreadful. Overall, we enjoyed the evening and definitely recommend LouCas for everyday as well as special occasion dining. Be aware that there is also a huge dining room below the main level, however you need to be able to walk the stairs because there is...

Went here for dinner tonight for the first time and it was such a mistake. They had a 4 course NYE menu that was probably priced about ~$80/person. My boyfriend and I were promptly seated and had our orders taken. I ordered the lobster ravioli, house salad, filet mignon and ice cream pie. My boyfriend had the mozzarella appetizer, Caesar salad, rack of lamb and a cheesecake. The first course we had was a great start and no complaints there. However, every thing went downhill from there. The 2nd course salads were just that..just salad..nothing fancy. I ordered my filet mignon medium and it came out with a weird funky smell similar to rotten eggs which really turned me off. I cut it open and didn't notice anything odd but then smelled the meat and it smelled FOUL. It was disgusting. I tried a bite and it was absolutely the most off tasting, gross unseasoned gamey piece of steak I've ever had. Nothing remotely close to what a filet mignon should taste like. I gave my boyfriend a piece to try thinking I might be losing it. But alas, I definitely wasn't. We were turned off immediately and lost our appetite. My boyfriend couldn't even finish his lamb after having a piece of my steak. We decided the best thing to do was eat some veggies off our plates as we came hungry and expected a good meal. The waiter came around to ask how everything was and my boyfriend told him about my steak and he insisted that he had seen the chef "personally" cut the meat and it was fresh. Then he continued to say that the steak was in a bernaise sauce. But I've had that sauce before..it never tasted like that before. Then the waiter said oh that the guy next to us had a mound of parmesan on his plate and that was the smell. Sir, absolutely it was not!! I hate excuses and he should have listened to our concerns and apologize. He offered me to make a new dish and I said no, as I was already beyond disgusted. We ordered dessert and it was just eh. Overall, no discount was provided or nothing was taken off our check despite me not even eating 90% of the meal. I stopped to use the restroom afterwards and it had the same sewage/rotten egg smell!!!. My stomach churned and I pray that i dont get food poisioning from that steak! Safe to say, I will never ever come back...