Officine Buona Forchetta — Restaurant in San Diego

Dear Buona Forchetta,

I am copying and pasting this from an email I sent to you a week ago and never heard back. I thought I’d give you a chance to respond privately without me making this complaint public, but at this point I don’t know what else to do.

I would just like to comment on our dining experience this evening for my wife’s birthday. This was our second visit to your restaurant, at the location at Liberty Station. We went there with our daughter and a friend a year ago and loved it! We loved it so much, that we chose it for my wife’s birthday dinner this evening, Saturday, April 26th.

Unfortunately, tonight‘s experience did not compare whatsoever to our past meal. We made a reservation, but unfortunately it was for the wrong location, but that didn’t really matter. The hostess was really nice and still got us a table pretty much right away since it was only 4:30 in the afternoon. We ordered the focaccia as an appetizer, and it came in a timely fashion. It was really good with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. My wife also got the house red wine, which was decently priced and had a nice pour. She really appreciated that. We didn’t mention at any point that it was her birthday because it never really presented itself due to the facts that I will now describe.

My wife ordered the Buona Forchetta Pappardelle pasta with sausage, my twin daughters ordered a margarita pizza and I got the eggplant parmigiana.

The pasta was really good, although about a half an hour after eating, my wife got horrible stomach cramps for about an hour. This only happens when there is a meal that is extremely high in fat so I can imagine that they just put a ton of heavy cream in there. She never experiences this any other time. I’m not blaming bad food on you, just perhaps commenting that they could lay off the cream a bit in the future.

My daughters’ pizza was super undercooked. We saw pizzas coming out to other tables where the crust was quite burned around the edges, very black indeed. There was not like that, unfortunately. Unfortunately, the portion of the pizza under the cheese and sauce was completely raw. That was a real downer.

My eggplant parmigiana came out barely even warm.

Unfortunately, took a very long time to get the waitress’s attention. My wife had finished her pasta, after splitting it with our twin daughters and me eating the rest because it took so long to get the her attention. By that point, we were very frustrated and just said that mine was cold, theirs was undercooked, and that we wanted to go. We didn’t mention that it was her birthday or really give her a chance to fix that portion. She did send us home with our leftovers and did not charge us for them, which we appreciated. However, I would’ve appreciated even more just being able to eat and enjoy our meal for her birthday dinner in the first place.

I’m wondering if there’s anything you would be willing to do to try to rectify this experience and perhaps allow us to have a more enjoyable dining experience. We don’t go out that often since we are a family of six, including four children.

Thank you very much for...

Another good find. Before we arrived I was taking a little slumber at our hotel. I asked my wife pick a place for dinner.

Thirty minutes or so later she gently woke me up. Unfortunately I was in a deep sleep, that means I woke up with an attitude.

I put on my pants while my wife directed our sons to put some pants on as well.

After a short drive we pulled into a sweeeet parking spot, a little tight for our gas guzzling transport. As I step out the suv I noticed the building was unique. My wife told me it was an old navy training base. Pretty cool, right.

Now to the nitty gritty.

We had a reservation. We checked in at the hostess stand. The wait surprisingly wasn’t to bad. Our table was in the front area in the enclosed patio. It was a bit cold, so we asked if they could turn on the space heater. You probably guessed, it didn’t happen. We sat at our table for about 25 minutes until our waitress came over. The one good thing was that they at least brought water to the table. With the time waiting we had more than enough time to spend on the menu. Finally our waitress came over, no apologies for the wait. She started at her ordering device for a couple of minutes. Them she asked if we wanted drinks. We knew what we wanted already from drinks, appetizers, to main course. Now keep in mind I do not remember the dish names, I will describe them as close as possible for you to know what we ordered.

Here’s what we ordered.

Appetizers: a fried pizza dough it was 3 small fried pizza bread with different toppings. Yummmy! So good. Next was the focaccia, that was a super good, garlicky and great texture.

Wine: Chianti Classico, this was funny because our waitress opened the bottle and served me a taste. I proceeded to taste the bottle and motioned it was good. She then rolled her eyes giving the impression like, “duh I know.”

Now for the pasta, keep in mind their pasta is house made.

Spicy Pasta w/ Chicken: I asked our waitress I wanted something spicy, she directed me to a sauce that would please my palette. I had the parpadale pasta. She was right! I liked it a lot.

Carbonara: also really good, chose the tagliolini pasta.

Pesto penne: yummy the pesto was delicious.

Calzoni: a little different then a calzone as you can see in the pictures. Crust and fillings were delicious.

This place was really busy and we understood that sometimes it’s hard to get to every table. Still I would recommend as a waitress or waiter to check in with your guests and let them know you will be right with them.

I would definitely return, next time I might walk the market. Unfortunately by the time we finished our dinner the market...

If by handicap accessible, they mean that there is no entrance or ramp at the entrance for anyone in a wheelchair! I went to the Liberty Station location, on Friday 14th of December 2018 at approximately 6:30 p.m. . I was dropped off there by MTS Access, for a business /social engagement. I am a person in a wheelchair. At first, I went to the front of the restaurant, but there were steps and no ramps. Then, I went to the ramps that led to either side of the establishment, but they just led to plastic walls that I could see people inside through, but no door. Then, I went around to the back of the restaurant, and it was not accessible for me to come in through the back of the building; which I would not have done, anyways. I went back around to the front of the building, and there was a very nice stranger, who asked me if I needed anything. I told her that I wasn't able to get inside of the restaurant because of the stairs. She went to get help for me & contacted a young individual and let him know that I needed help. He came down the steps, and directed me to go around to the side of the restaurant, and, then, he would let me in. He told me to "go over to your right and I'll meet you there." After waiting almost 10 minutes, no one ever came. I went back to the front of the restaurant and called on the phone for help. A person came out and escorted me around to the funky side of the business. She asked me to wait, while she went back through the front of the restaurant, came over to where the customers were seated near the plastic wall, she raised up the plastic, made people who were there enjoying their meal, get up and move so that I would be able to enter their place of business. It was so embarrassing! I could not believe it! How does that happen? Why is there no normal access to enter the business without having to be escorted around to a makeshift entrance and making other customers there move out of the way, so that the person in the wheelchair has access to their place of business. Not acceptable! I am and will continue to be so angry about that situation! There was a really nice gentleman who tried to make it better. Not better! Customers in wheelchairs should not have to sit out front and hope somebody sees them or wait for somebody to see them and hope that they let them into their place of...