Carpaccio Ristorante — Restaurant in Middlesex

My wife and I decided to give Carpaccio a try last night, at around 4:45 pm. The exterior is nice, with neatly landscaped and flowered grounds. The interior of the restaurant is divided into two sides. There was a party going on over on the left side of the restaurant, so I expected to not have exceptional service. But I was quite wrong, because we were warmly greeted and brought over to the other side of the restaurant, where we were given a nice table for two in a nearly empty and quiet setting. The atmosphere is comfortable and nicely decorated, and they have an intersesting mix of new and old music playing in the background. Our server (Bella) was extremely pleasant and attentive, always available, and she came to our table several times to see if we needed refills or to see how we were doing. Our greeter also came over once during the course of the evening to ask how we were doing. We both started out with bowls of Pasta Fagioli soup, which was delicious. A basket of sliced Italian bread and a small bowl of butter balls were brought to our table, which was nice, but a small dish of olive oil and dipping herbs would have been a nicer option than the butter. For our dinners, my wife chose the Chicken Marsala with penne pasta. I chose something from the specials menu, the NY strip steak with shrimp and roasted potatoes. Sometime around 5:30 pm while having our soups, more people started rolling in. But regardless of this, we were not forgotten by Bella and were still given exceptional service. Our dinners came with salads, which were quite good, but were sadly lacking in tomatoes, as there was only one small wedge placed on each salad. The menu says that they have Ceasar salad, but today the only offered dressing options were house dressing or bleu cheese. My wife enjoyed her chicken dinner, which she let me try. I thought that it was good, but to me the brown sauce that they used on the chicken suspiciously tasted like a bottled brown gravy with some red wine mixed in with it. My steak dinner was good, but what they call a strip steak seemed more to me like a cut of pot roast, also with a brown sauce on top. Anyway, our dinners were not awful, but could have been better. Carpaccio has excellent beverage options, but we opted to just have water this time. We skipped coffee and desserts, as we rarely ever feel the need to eat further after our meals. There is a 3% extra charge if you pay with credit card, and when Bella saw that we were paying in cash, she immediately let us know that she was going to take off the 3% charge from the bill, and she brought a new bill reflecting the cash price. So, with not having any wine, beer, coffee or dessert, our bill came out to only $69.75 for two people, which we feel is more than reasonable. We will most likely be coming back again. Sorry that I have to leave a four star rating, but if the steak was of better quality, if the sauce didn't taste like it came from a bottle, and if the salads came with some more tomato (or maybe add some cucumber and celery too, which was nonexistent), I would have definitely...

Stay away!!! For the past two times I have gone to the restaurant the staff has been rude and uncooperative. The first time we went there in the Summer, we were waiting for a couple to come to our table who were a little late. We liked our seats where we were and we were already got our drinks when our waitress wanted us to move so they can fit more people where we were and take our seats while moving us next to a very loud air conditioning unit in the back of the restaurant. I told her we are not going to move and besides we are already eating and had our drinks and part of our party is late. The second time was tonight, Christmas Eve. We had reservations and we were coming late because we were leaving church. When we got there, our family was there sitting and I was shocked how they arranged this table for 8 people near the fireplace we are at. Two of the seats, one was mine, were blocking the isle for any server/bus boy to come through easily. There was another way they could have gone to avoid hitting the back of my chair by the window, but they didn't want to go the long way around. So bang, bang, bang! There was a little less than 1 foot of space to squeeze through and I didn't want hot food to accidentally be dropped on me or my 5 year old daughter. The table of 6 behind me was empty with most of the other tables and I said can't you guys move one of the tables behind me to over there to make that four table a six table. The waitress said, we are busy tonight and there are other reservations we can't. That spoiled the night for me because we had to move awkwardly and I could not sit next to my wife for Chistmas Eve and started a fight at the table. I mentioned it again to the staff 15 minutes later when we got our food and the tables behind us were all still empty. Meanwhile, the whole hour we were there, no one was filling that table behind me or the other table along the wall they could have moved that damn table too. WE WERE THERE FIRST AND WE HAD A RESERVATION BOTH TIMES. Some way to treat your guests when you treat them like cattle! I called and talked to the manager hours later of my experience and she wanted to send me a gift certificate, meanwhile she admits over the phone they do this time to time on how...

I attended a small baby shower at Carpaccio's today. The food was pretty standard, portions were on the small side, bread was hard, no cheese was offered for the pasta, but nothing necessarily wrong with the food. The restaurant itself is old and could do with updating but it was clean. Wait staff were polite. What really annoyed me and the reason do my 1 star review was the beverages. To start there were 2 pitchers of ice water on each table, and pitchers of sodas and sangria on a table to the side. We went through the water fairly quickly and over the course of 4 hours not one pitcher was refilled. The wait staff left us completely alone except when dropping and clearing our plates so there was no one to ask for refills, and honestly no one should have to ask for WATER. By the end we resorted to the pitcher of watered-down (because the ice had all melted) flat soda because we were so thirsty. Such a simple thing but it made a huge difference. Once the sangria pitchers emptied the staff refused to fill those too. Maybe there was a limit to the sangria, I don't know, but the water should have been refilled. This place clearly...