Prima Pasta & Cafe — Restaurant in New York

Prima Pasta & Cafe of Howard Beach, New York is the worst place to eat or work. First I’ll start with the employment part of it. This restaurant claims to be authentic Italian cuisine, but nothing is authentic about it. The whole chef staff is Mexican men who have been promoted to chefs because this is the only job that they can get, due to the fact that they are all illegal aliens. They’ve had no training to be chefs and they have no certification as a food handler. They don’t know how Italian food should be made because they have no recipes to follow; this is why the food tastes terrible and is always bland, not cooked enough, etc... Antoinette Modica and Anthony “Tony” Modica pay these so called chefs and the rest of their employees under the table cash; this is because they pay them scraps ( way under the minimum wage amount) for working for them. They don’t take any taxes out on their employees even the few American ones that work there. The people that work for them always are illegal Mexican aliens or people stealing from the tax payers because they claim they are disabled and they are on either social security disability or social security income. Now for the scary part. If you eat here you are taking a great chance to get salmonella, food poisoning from cross contamination. The kitchen is so dirty you can see built up grease from years of having this place open that has never been cleaned. Instead of replacing and cleaning the ceiling panels in the kitchen, like the health department instructed them to do, they used white spray paint to cover up the dirt and grime. The roof leaks everywhere, including into the food when it rains. There are mice in the kitchen, as well as large nests of roaches that live in the walls and crawl over the stoves. I witnessed a roach crawling across the stove filters and fell into a large pot of marinara sauce and I told the, so called chef, about it. He didn’t throw out the sauce instead he looked for the roach, found it, dipped it out, and then served this sauce to the customers. The staff is constantly dropping food on the floor then picking it up and serving it to their customers, when the floors are extremely dirty. The staff don’t pay attention to the food preparation, due to the fact they are all using either marijuana or cocaine. In the preparation food room it is combined with the dish room where many germs are from other customers. They cross contaminate the meats by using the same cutting boards not washed or sanitized after cutting up chicken, veal, calamari, shrimp, etc... If you wish to catch salmonella, food poisoning, or any other disease or sickness please keep going to Prima Pasta & Cafe Of Howard Beach, Ny. If you don’t want to get sick please try Gino’s Italian Pizzeria, Bruno’s Italian Restaurant, La Villa Italian Restaurant or somewhere else. Than you and God bless you on whatever...

I gave three stars as there is potential here. With so many other Italian restaurants to choose from, Prima Pasta needs to step their game up.

Pro's: The pizza like breadsticks in the bread basket were good cold antipasti was good (note: I did not eat any of the cold cuts on there) Fried Calamari was also good Water pitchers, soda pitchers, wine carafes were kept full The wait staff was very friendly, patient and attentive

Con's: The other bread in the bread basket was just about stale and dry. No butter (or dipping oil) served with bread basket Penne vodka sauce - the sauce was good and tasty but the pasta was under cooked (more than al dente) Caesar salad dressing was plain and watered down. We had to season out salads with grated cheese and black pepper so it had some taste. Dinner portions were small. I had the eggplant parm; the sauce had a tangy taste to it like it was about to spoil. The eggplant is not breaded and friend but just dipped in egg and fried. My husband and son had the chicken parm and there sauce tasted fine. Entrees were served with sautéed string beans and carrots and a plain boiled potato. A PLAIN BOILED POTATO...that is exactly what you got on your dish next to the veggies and your entrée. I could not believe this and still can not get over it. no sauce, salt, butter, oil, seasonings, nothing, just a plain boiled potato.

Con's continued for facilities: The ladies restroom was DISGUSTING. The garbage was overflowing, the floor and countertop were wet and dirty. It was so disgusting that even though I had to urinate, I held it in until we got home in Jersey. I am one of those people that is cold all of the time. I was sweating in this place. I asked the hostess (an older, straight faced, not so warm or friendly woman) if they could turn the temperature down a bit. That is when she informed me that she had put the heat on for a customer that was very cold and that she shut off the heat earlier and I said okay but will you but the AC on? She said no, that she needs to keep everyone happy. I guess she realized I was with a large party, so she went and turned the AC because within 20 minutes the mugginess went away and the temperature must have dropped 10 degrees. Once the AC was on, the temperature was comfortable. New ceiling tiles and a wipe down of the vents would go along way to clean brighten up the dining...

The good memories of this place and food is all that remains. It's been several years since i came here but i use to love the food at this place so me and a friend decided to go there for dinner. The restaurant looks like its stuck in the 90's and desperately needs a refreshing. We got there for 6 o'clock for dinner and the place was only 1/3 full, it took a few minutes for the waiter to get to us but we finely placed our orders and waited for the appetizer. It took more then 20 minutes for them to bring us the fried calamari and by the time it came out it was burned and tasted like a pile of rubber bands. The main meal took another 30 minutes after that to come out and the chicken francese that i ordered was so thin that you could see threw it making it tough and rubbery. The side dish of linguini carbonara ( that they charged me an extra $3 ) was a mixture of linguine and spaghetti that looked like they scrapped it off someones left over plate and had absolutely no heavy cream and the most grey looking pieces of bacon you could ever find. when i questioned the waiter as to why there was spaghetti mixed in with the linguini he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Between the extremely slow service, the horrible food and the dirty outdated atmosphere i will never come here again. The next time our in the mood for Italian cuisine and are thinking of coming to this place do yourself a favor and open up a can of Chef Boyardee and you'll have a much...