Pompilios — Restaurant in Newport

Our server, given the density of the crowded restaurant, got to us in a reasonable amount of time to get our drink orders. Having been given no drink menu, we both opted for waters. She returned quickly to take our orders, which were simple enough. My wife ordered spaghetti Bolognese, and I ordered fettuccine alfredo with a side of meatballs; both of us ordered house salads with bleu cheese dressing. The salads were served with croutons that had obviously been put onto the salads sometime that morning during prep and left there in the refrigerator the entire say, making them less a crunchy, delightful crouton, and more a somewhat stale, moist briquet of bread. Having been a chef myself, I found this somewhat disappointing, and nowhere near the level of quality that Pompilios was always known for. The dressing, too, while it did have a nice flavor, had exactly zero pieces of bleu cheese in it, raising the question of what we had actually been served. Moments after the salads, the basket of bread arrived. The basket of bread at an Italian restaurant is nearly legendary – hot, fresh, and inviting. This was none of those things. Perhaps it was Italian bread, and perhaps it was baked in-house, but the sad, cold, stale slices served to us were reminiscent of Wonder Bread, as in I wonder what happened to the good bread. Finally, the entrees arrived, and this is where our experience, regrettably, takes a turn for the worse. First, my alfredo: how does one make an alfredo with no flavor? How can the magical combination of butter, Parmigiano Reggiano, salt, and pepper, thickened with cream and/or the starch of a good hearty fettucine be bland? I found myself “cooking” at my table, trying desperately to use that shaker of parm, the whipped butter, and s&p on the table in a desperate attempt to make something palatable. The meatballs were tolerable, but there was a sort of sponginess inside that was off-putting on the tongue. The sauce they were served in, however, was so cloyingly sweet that it could have been a dessert topping. Understand, though, that, relative to the Bolognese, these dishes were exemplary. Before I go on, I want to clarify that, while I spent many years as a professional chef, and the culinary arts are still a passion of mine, I do not have the pedigree of a descendant of Colonel Pomp, so my impressions of what these dishes are meant to be could be well and truly wrong. That said, whatever was served to my wife was not spaghetti Bolognese; it was, rather, a bowl of incredibly overcooked spaghetti in what appeared to be around a tablespoon of sauce and about a cup of pasta water, leaving a scant few pieces of tomato and hard chunks of meat on top of cold pasta sitting in a cloudy pink liquid. My wife, who has never been one to complain, was even appalled at what had been placed on the table in front of us, and asked me to try a bite to confirm how she was feeling about. When I tell you that a forkful of this culinary atrocity passing itself off as authentic Italian fare was a rage-inducing insult, understand that there is no other way to express precisely how bad every aspect of that bowl was. Both of us having lost our appetites, we pushed our mostly full bowls to the edge of the table, where they were quickly and dutifully retrieved by a busser. Our server came by to ask how everything was, and while we were in a hurry after our long wait and was not interested in taking the time to either have food remade or removed from the bill, I had to say something. When I relayed my concerns to our server, we were told in a very scolding tone that we should have told her so she could have them remade. Our already-delayed timetable for the evening of which our server was aware notwithstanding, I have never had a reasonably and politely lodged complaint at a restaurant met with a lecture. It was clear that the food was not an aberration, but rather a perfectly accurate summation of the quality of the establishment, from the service on down, reflected so sublimely in a 25-cent bowl of...

We arrived just after 5:30pm and were seated before 5:45pm. The waitress took our drink order - waters and sodas - and we placed an order for calamari. The appetizer arrived by 6pm and was the best part of the meal. Around 7pm, the manager approached our table asking about the meal. I believe he thought we were finished eating. Unfortunately, we had not even received our entrees. he said that he was sure the kitchen was working as fast as possible. Around 7:15pm the meals finally arrived. One of the four meals was ice cold. The waitress did remove that meal from the bill as I had no interest in eating something so cold after an hour and a half wait. The rest of the family finished their mediocre meals and we left. It was not a good experience. The manager seemed very disinterested in the poor service, and the whole experience was a bit of a disappointment. We have eaten here numerous times, but the experience seems to worsen each time. My 8 year old made the comment, “family meeting time: never go here again - Hofbrauhaus from now on.” I couldn’t agree more. The restaurant must have been having kitchen problems because it was clear that we were not the only table experiencing these issues. It was frustrating watching other parties get seated and finish their meals before ours even arrived. The restaurant is either under staffed, poorly managed, or both. Save your money and go to a restaurant where you will enjoy the experience and receive quality service. We were highly disappointed. When we got home, my daughter immediately got sick. While this event may not be related to the meal, the most obvious explanation is typically the correct explanation. With the clear kitchen issues and cold food that arrived, common sense would say something was up with the food. Update: all but one member of our party got ill throughout the night. The only item shared by everyone was the calamari. The two individuals who got the most sick had meals with shrimp. This doesn’t seem to be an issue of a cold or flu as the stomach issues seem to pass after a few hours of being on a toilet. As mentioned before, this could be coincidental, but having the meal arrive after such an excessive wait while being cold makes it clear that there were definitely problems in the kitchen. My guess is this played an integral part in my families stomach problems shortly...

This was by far the worst experience I've had at a restaurant! Our reservation was at 7:30. When we arrived we were informed it would be a little after our time that we will be seated. A little over was a major exaggeration! We didn't get seated until 8. Even with that, my party was still in good spirits. We quickly ordered our food because we had to be somewhere by 930, but unfortunately at 9:20 we still hadn't received our food. At this point we are concerned we wouldn't get to eat, so we inquire how much longer it would be before we get our food. The manager came over and another guest in my party told her that we were upset because our reservation was 2 hours ago and we still haven't ate yet. The manager, who I might add had the professionalism of a rude teenager, responded to her by saying, " let me check to see if that's how long you've actually been waiting." No apology at all but challenging her on if we had actually been waiting two hours was rude. At this point we asks for our checks and our food in to go boxes. About 10 minutes later our checks and our food come out. I'm glad I checked mine before I paid because I am a vegetarian and my eggplant parmigiana had sausage in it. I expressed this to the server who brought us our food who responded to me that eggplant parmigiana doesn't have meat in it and walked away. At this point I was upset. I waited over 2 hours to have a sit down meal that turned into a to go order and the cooks were so careless that obviously they were cross contaminating the food. The manager never offered us compensation, the owner never came to talk to us after we repeatedly ask for him and we were extremely offended by staff. I ended up leaving my meaty vegetarian meal there along with my bill. I told the manager it was wrong and she did apologize this time but I still had to leave the restaurant hungry and food less. I as well as the 14 other people in my party plan to never go back there and I will post this on every review site I can. If you decide to try it, I hope your experience will be...