Bocca — Restaurant in Fairhaven

Nope. Just NO. Should’ve chosen Riccardis. The real star of Italian food in Fairhaven. I’ve ordered food here twice now. Both times I felt sick to my stomach after eating their food. Literally sick as if I’d eaten something bad or expired. My first order was on Valentines Day. The man who answered the phone was extremely rude, and not helpful whatsoever. The menu was limited and I wasn’t aware so he let me waste my time trying to order and kept telling me what I wanted wasn’t being served instead of telling me the menu was limited and where to go to look at it, he let me keep choosing things off the regular menu. When I asked where to find the special menu he simply said “our website” as if I was stupid. I was on the website while speaking to him and I couldn’t get even the slightest instruction in how to locate the Valentines Day menu from him. He told me to call back when I found the menu. I ordered dinner for my husband and I, he had seafood and I got steak. From the extremely limited menu I chose a steak because mostly everything else was seafood based and I don’t eat fish. The steak was quite literally the only thing on the menu I could see myself eating, and I’m not a picky eater. As someone who enjoys pop tarts and easy Mac I thought a steak was sure to impress. Especially a $30 filet mignon. Bad move. It was dry, tough, overcooked and tasteless. I’ve had better cuts of steaks from Price Rite. (Yes, that’s an insult because everyone knows the meat at Price Rite is low quality) On top of that I asked for a minor substitution of broccoli instead of having asparagus to which I was given a blatant no. I was told they weren’t making any substitutions “because it was Valentine’s Day” Well I’m sorry but especially on a holiday where you’re trying to celebrate as a couple a small veggie substitution should be possible. There was broccoli on many of the other dishes on the limited menu so it’s not as if they didn’t have it. What’s the difference? It all comes out of a baggie and goes into the microwave anyways. You’re telling me reaching for one baggie instead of another is too difficult? But that’s the minor issue. I paid $30+ for a filet mingon and I hated it. We felt robbed. Our dinner was over $100 and neither of us enjoyed our meals. My husband who I compare to a garbage disposal because he’ll eat literally anything barely touched the food and threw away the leftover.

I really wanted to like this place, so I gave it another try. Again they let me down at every turn. I ordered a quart of soup and fettuccine Alfredo. The soup was about a quart of broth with a half inch of oil floating on top, and a cup and a half of the meat/veggie ingredients. (Yes, I separated and measured it after seeing how little of the meat and veggies was at the bottom of the soup). A complete waste. The broth tasted fine, there just wasn’t anything in it, you could hardly call that a soup. The fettuccine Alfredo was even worse. The Alfredo was 90% oil and 10% cream. There wasn’t enough sauce to coat the pasta. The pasta was oily and disgusting. It was hard in places like it had sat under a warmer for HOURS. They used penne instead of fettuccine. Not sure why it’s called “fettuccine Alfredo” if they’re serving it with penne but the shape of the pasta is small potatoes compared to how gross the sauce was. Like someone melted an entire stick of butter onto dried out noodles in attempt to keep them soft and spooned in a bit of cream with no seasoning. Every bite I tried felt like I was swallowing an oily slug. It was the worst Alfredo I’ve ever had. It would’ve honestly been better with a store purchased jar of Alfredo. Another meal from Bocca goes into the trash. Lesson learned. I gave a fair rating of 3 stars to service because the girl who took the order this time was much nicer and I wanted to be fair but frankly, the service was mediocre at best. Just not as bad as the first time. I guess when a whopping tip isn’t on the line there isn’t a need to provide good customer service. I gave the food a well deserved 1 star....

Curse card? Would that be the antonym of gift card? I was given a Pasta House gift card by a friend and was truly looking forward to a nice meal with another friend. We rode motorcycles from Boston (an hour-plus ride), and arrived just before 5:30. Once inside, we were told by a tall solemn man (he turned out to be the manager) that there would be a 35 minute wait, and handed us an alert device that remained placid and silent for over an hour. I went back inside (we had been sitting at a section of unused tables with umbrellas the entire time), and asked the man who booked our arrival if it would be much longer. He then asked my name (again), proceeding to search for it on the hostess tablet unsuccessfully. He curtly mumbled an apology while leading us to another section of outdoor seating where four of the six tables were unoccupied, unceremoniously depositing us at one of them without a word. The next half-hour was spent watching three waitresses pass us by without so much as a glance at least a dozen times. I went back in and asked the same man why not one of the waitresses would acknowledge us—we hadn’t even been given a menu! A waitress came over 15 minutes later. Some minutes passed before another waitress came over with bread, asking if we’d like something to drink. Another 20 minutes and a Coke and a water were delivered, and we were able to buttonhole the departing waitress into taking our entire order. Over an hour and a half later—still no entrees! I went back in and asked the hostess if I could speak with the manager; the tall solemn man with whom I’d spoken from the start appeared and said he’d look into it. Another half-hour passed before the manager himself brought our food, along with a muffled “I’m sorry” that I could barely hear. The time was 8:45. Yes, 3 hours and 45 minutes after we arrived, and 2 1/2 hours after our order was placed. The manager offered nothing in the form of a discount, and forced me to ask him if the meal would be comped. His reply: “I’ll see what I can do.” The bill arrived promptly with a mere 25% discount. The food was cold. The pasta was overcooked, mushy. If you have any friends that have done you wrong, a Pasta House gift card is a dish...

This is actually one of my favorite restaurants in this area. Most recently I had a reservation on Monday, December 6. When I arrived, the parking lot was full. There is a nice bar that serves all of the same items from the menu. I had a reservation for a table.

My wait was ten minutes or less, which was good because I was a bit hungry. The waitress came quickly. She was very pleasant and friendly. On Mondays, the restaurant has a special that includes a bottle of wine and two entrees for about $50. I was quite surprised at the number of entree options (12) and the number of wine options (14).

We chose not to have an appetizer. I chose to have the Apple Glazed Salmon and my dinner partner chose to have the Zesty Shrimp Scampi with gluten-free pasta. I chose URBAN Reisling for the bottle of wine.

A salad and bread came with the dinner. As usual, the bread was warm with spiced olive oil for dipping. The salad was a good portion with iceberg lettuce, sliced red onion, black olives, tomato and a house dressing.

When the entrees arrived, we had both assumed that the gluten-free pasta would be linguine because that is what the menu said was in the shrimp scampi dish. In fact the pasta was gluten-free rotini. Now many people think that pasta is pasta but the shapes do have a different mouth feel and texture. My dinner partner was a little disappointed not having linguine but that was the only gluten-free pasta. My Apple Glazed Salmon had actual slices of apple on top in a slightly sweet glaze. The salmon was atop very good mashed potatoes with grilled asparagus on the side.

My dinner partner enjoyed her meal. I enjoyed my meal and would eat the same again. The reisling went well with the salmon. I chose to have a piece of flourless chocolate cake to go for my dessert. It was quite tasty but the serving size was a bit on the small side.

Overall, I thought the special was a good value with two entrees, salad, bread and a bottle of wine. The food was very, very good. The service was quite good though it was very busy. I definitely would recommend The Pasta House. They also serve lunch, which I have done several times in the...