Destino's — Restaurant in Merced

We had dinner to celebrate my Grandaughters 18th birthday. For an Italian restaurant, I was expecting a difference ambiance, however... We were seated at a downstairs table. These are situated around the room with the bar taking center stage upon coming in the front door. And an upper floor we didn't visit. Kind of reminded me of a hofbra restaurant & bar. I was surprised at how simple my dish & several others I tasted were. The red sauce w/o meat served on most of the pasta meals we ordered ( Beef Raviolis/ spagetti, etc. ) was plain, I was hoping to get a really tasty meal! The raviolis tasted like the large refridgerated ones at the market. The garlic bread also was nothing special. We were not offered Parmesan , In a shaker or grated by our server. I also tried the Chicken Alfredo my daughter ordered, I had to taste it as it is her favorite dish. The flavor was mild, and lacked any memorable taste for me. We ordered a side order of cheese bread, and it was also bland. For the price, I was totally unhappy with the food we ordered. I live alone and eat frozen pre-made meals too often & my taste has gotten extremely sensitive this year, food doesn't have to be highly seasoned for me to find favor or have garlic or pepper seasons taste like I have bitten into chili in my mouth, and I can't eat after tasting. However these sauces lacked any savory flavor or seasoning. Super mild. The food was prepared properly,they steralize the glsses at the bar, the place was very clean, &...

Never been here before,so last night was our first family visit. I recently learned that it is a personal choice for the owners to not add gratuity on large family orders and for me,that says something,actually a lot about this place,and we haven't even gotten into how impressive their food is. We had the family spaghetti and ceasar salad,we did add a white sauce that made it even better and was only upcharged $1.(like seriously,was worth a lot more) We also ordered coconut shrimp which was to just die for,their pizzas were off the hook, infact we ordered 3 different ones and each one was really pretty tasty. My favorite drink was a very tasty Mango IPA,although my husband would argue that their Pineapple IPA was the best.Our waitress Tammie was pretty great, she gave us a little background on the owners and helpful tips with menu choices, in fact instead of offering the most expensive,she explained their $20 family special would feed 6 !! Kiddos to the new owners,they have a great thing going here. Passing through town or a local, definitely a must try for sure.I know we will be back. And no,I don't know the owners,never met them, I just feel that when owners in my residence work this hard and food is this good,then our community would want to know,I...

I’ve been there twice. First time because a business partner insisted on it for lunch. I had a forgettable sandwich and made a mental note of how slow and absent the service was. The radio station talks a lot of this place and the indoor balcony had caught my attention so I decided to bring my wife here for dinner on our first wedding anniversary at the end of a hard, busy week. The slow and absent service persisted. It was a Thursday and I wanted steak, but Destinos only serves steak on fridays and saturdays like some sort of community kitchen. I truly could not push myself to pull the trigger on any of the mundane, loosely Italian dishes with bland descriptions across their menus, and I just couldn’t stomach a pizza. I asked the server for more time and boy did she deliver. Didn’t see the stuck-up a-hole for another 10 minutes. Ordered an alcoholic cocktail and settled for some barely tolerable sounding chicken dish, hoping a little sweet drink might help- it was digesting. It was so bad. I took one swig and almost puked. At this point, I couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t find the waitress for the life of me to cancel the order, so after 5 minutes of waiting for her to come around I notified the bartender and we left. Found some bar food...