Carrabba's Italian Grill — Restaurant in Lafayette

In the words of Indigo Montoya "Let me explain...no, ther is too much. Let me sum up" It took 30 minutes after we were seated at a high top in the bar to see our server for the first time (spoiler alert: we were there 2 1/2 hours and saw him 3 times including dropping off the bill). There were four of us total so it's not like we were overwhelming the staff. In fact, there were just as many staff as there were patrons. Well, on to the (I use this term loosely) food. The mussels were dirty and tasted like fishy anise and the white wine sauce was under seasoned but way too much garlic. The bread was ok but the lack of oil and spice diminishes that. I ordered the veal marsala what was delivered was that in theory only. It was a slab of cold, fatty, flour coated gray matter dredged in a loose interpretation of a sauce. It was not cooked in a hot skillet but rather poached in the bag-o-sauce. I literally had to spit out the one and only bite I had. It was DISGUSTING. I really cant believe an animal died so they could do this to it. After sitting and staring at this plate and the oblivious staff shuffling around, I got up and asked the bartender to get a manager. This poor in-over-his-head kids walks up and after talking to both his and my shoes offers to re-fire the meal but since I had already wasted 2 hours of my life there, I declined. How in the world this place is still open in a mystery to me. Take my advice, use your money for something else...anything else...buy a DNA kit, get a ColoGuard test, pay for braces for your kid...anything but buying here. Let it die with what little dignity...

5 stars for the service, but 3 for the food.

I arrived for dinner at 5:30. The restaurant was empty other than the waitstaff and kitchen crew. After being seated, I was greeted by my waiter. Overall, the waiter was incredibly attentive and polite.

The food, though, was a different story. I ordered the salmon, side of pasta, and a Cesar salad. The salad was brought out promptly. It was reasonably good, but it had about 1/2 cup of cheese on top. Some folks may like that, but I removed it.

My entree and side arrived a bit later. The presentation on the salmon dish appeared very appetizing. It was cooked to medium. Most chains I’ve been to will cook salmon to medium-well to well-done if not indicated otherwise - so this was outside of the norm considering I was not asked ahead of time. Furthermore, the cook on the fish was inconsistent- almost well done on the top sear and medium on the bottom sear. Regardless, the salmon tasted fresh, so not a huge issue. The biggest problem with the salmon was that the seared portion was so incredibly salty. The sauce and broccoli were good. My first taste of the pasta indicated that it could have been a bit warmer, but overall, the flavor was ok - and I was very hungry, so I didn’t make an issue of it.

I would give this restaurant another shot and make a few changes on how I put my order into...

Most people will only focus on the food. I am rating the whole experience.

Let me start off by saying that this place can easily become a 4 star restaurant if they added better Wi-Fi. You will get ZERO reception here and the Wi-Fi is just as bad. I’d love to come here more often but I cannot service my clients while being here. Also, it’s 2023, I’d like to scroll thru my phone while waiting on my food.

Customer service always tends to be great, I’ve never had a bad experience with a waiter here.

For my appetizer I had a breadstick tower and the breadsticks were excellent but the tomato sauce tasted like fish, which is NOT a good taste. I suggest substituting the tomato sauce to a fettuccini sauce .

I also had a lentil soup and it was great. Dipping the breadsticks from the appetizer is a must! (Ended up finishing it before taking a picture, that’s how good it was!)

For my main course, I had the Italian classic trio and the portions were better than my last visit. The fettuccini and Chicken Parmesan was great but the lasagna portion did seem smaller than the rest and tasted differently than most days. It was good to a certain extent but I kept getting a weird plastic flavor. Maybe it was the tomato sauce as well.

3 out of 5...