Fire My Pasta — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Oof. First and last time, unfortunately. I placed an order earlier in the day for pickup on my way home. I had been meaning to try this place for some time. Despite placing the order well in advance, and despite the fact that the restaurant was nearly empty at 7 pm on a Friday night, my order was not ready when I arrived at the time to pick it up, and I waited over 10 minutes for it in my sweaty gym clothes. The server seemed to be unable to find my order initially, and I somewhat suspected that they hadn't even started cooking it before I arrived. They were also playing quite loud pop music (I recall Rihanna), which seemed totally counter to the vibe of the menu, which seemed more traditional Italian. The loud music combined with the relative aloofness of the bartender and the fact that I had to remind her to check for the food when I was sitting right in front of her were quite off-putting. If the food was stellar, I could overlook these things, but that wasn't the case.

I ordered a pepperoni pizza and added mushrooms, the braised short rib linguini, and fettuccine Alfredo with added chicken.

There is only one size of pizza to choose from, and it was tiny. I'd almost say personal size. So small there were only 6 slices. The crust was fine but the pizza was overall very bland. It was $20, plus $3 for the mushrooms.

The fettuccine Alfredo for $24 plus $6 for the chicken was fine. It seems hard to mess that dish up. The chicken was cut in small pieces and it's hard to say how much was included but I'm guessing about 4 oz.

The shortrib pasta tasted good but had less meat than I'd expect, also cut up pretty small probably to camouflage that fact, and it was $32. Basically just meat and pasta. I've had much better dishes like this at other places. Pretty ho-hum.

Overall I spent about $115 all in, including tax and tip. I'm disappointed to write a poor review, especially because I know the place is relatively new, having replaced the previous dim sum place that unfortunately couldn't survive the pandemic. I don't even write reviews that much, but this was so disappointing I had to...

Came for $15 pasta night with 5 others and were surprised to see they'd charged a $30 service fee (BEFORE the tax, so we got taxed on that service charge too). At first I thought they charged us for 2 pastas we didn't order. That was really weird. There were 6 of us so if they'd put in an automatic tip I wouldn't have minded but we didn't see any notice of that. We asked about it and the server claimed it was an 18% service charge that they add to everything, but when I did the math later, it was more than 18%. So it was more like they saw 6 people, saw we each ordered the $15 pasta without too many extras (just one appetizer and one cocktail) and then decided to tack on a $30 "service charge" to boost the total. We opted not to tip on top of that because the $30 service charge was actually higher than 20% of our bill. So know, basically, know that $15 pasta night is actually $20 pasta night.

To the restaurant: If you're gonna do that, at least warn people...

Call it a scam or incompetence, but when I received my large pizza, I immediately knew it was not 15 inches diameter as advertised. The waiter swore it was and for some reason brought up it must be large because it was cut up into 8 slices (?). He told me he’d show me the pizza tray that he used to clear it up but he did not come back and do so. I took half home and measured it (see pic) and indeed it was 13 inches diameter. I am a repeat customer but i will not be coming back. Everyone messes up but they could have made it right and entertained the idea that they might have been mistaken. The waiter and the cook staff he spoke to all stuck to the story that it was the right size. Mind you the pizza was $31 before tax and tip.

Addendum: For those keeping track at home, it being 13 inches diameter means I got nearly 25% less pizza than I...