Bocca Pure Italian — Restaurant in South Carolina

Meh. TL;DR Anyone with a Sysco charge account can manage this quality, but the music and decor create a comforting 1970s flashback to Italian-American restaurants.

We were early for supper, my sweetheart starts work at 6AM, so we are hungry by 6PM. We dined on a Tuesday and were first to arrive, two other tables were seated while we ate. Lots of space in a charming floral-curtained dining area, but if it is full I am sure it gets crowded, not a lot of space between tables and no booths to buffer sounds. The music! A soft jazz instrumental station actually interrupted by ABC news on the hour made me feel I was transported to 1975.

When the waiter took our order, I asked which pastas were made in house. "None of them are - that would be very time consuming." Well. The kitchen probably needs to allocate time better anyway and do some scraych preparations. The (grocery store!) bread rolls were served room temperature with an indescribably bland oil. We ordered an appetizer, Mussels Fra Daviola, it had a great spicy peppery sauce, but the mussels were rubbery and overcooked. The salad was competent, fresh lettuce, with the worst slice of tomato I have seen in years, maybe ripened under duress in cold storage. With (grocery store!) balsamic vinagrette. I do suspect the Daviola sauce was created in house, and it was good. One additional fresh pop of flavor could have saved my impressions at this point.

My sweetheart enjoyed his Chicken Florentine, blchicken breast pounded flat with spinach and mushrooms and cheeses, and big (grocery store!) cheese ravioli.

I wanted salty food and ordered a pasta with puttanesca and meatballs. The meatballs were very good, finely ground, veal and beef maybe, parsley, a good flavor and texture. If the waiter enjoyed talking about food more I might have asked what was in them and if they were made in-house. I like knowing which aspects are unique to the restaurant.

The puttanesca sauce was good, and may well be made in-house, lots of olives, capers, and just enough anchovies. Olive oil, black pepper and parmesan could make it sing.

The (grocery store!) penne pasta? Big mistake. Overcooked, sadly way past al dente, and unceremoniously served on top of the sauce and meatballs without being graced by sauce or oil. At home I dress the pasta in the sauce with a bit of pasta water to make it all meld and stick, not serve it naked on top of sauce. I felt bad for it!

Three stars because my sweetie loved his dish, and it is a competent Italian-American restaurant with a sweet 1970s vibe. I didn't perceive any great love of food and fresh...

I'm honestly super shocked as this place came so highly recommended.

I can walk here from my house, so I'm sad they were so bad.

I said I was a vegetarian and asked if I could order a dish with vegetables instead of chicken. The server said yes, she could throw some spinach on there. My boyfriend then said, "thank you, she's a vegetarian."

They served the dish with chicken and spinach.

I asked about it to the second server that came out and he said they would take care of it. The first server said "They didn't say anything about chicken."

They brought it back out, and I could see my fork lines on the side from where I had the plate before. "Did you make a new dish, or did you just pull out the chicken?" my boyfriend asked. "It is an entirely new dish, I promise," the second server said. I moved the noodles around a little bit and found a few pieces of chicken they had neglected to takeout.

Everyone had disappeared at that point... so I went towards the back until I found our first server and said," you all said this was a new plate... but this is clearly still chicken. I cannot eat chicken, this is the same plate." She took it away from me and went back in the kitchen.

The owner brought the dish to me and said, maybe we got it right this time.

The second server came back out and asked if everything was okay. Then he said," yeah, that happens a lot. And usually it's fine if we just fish the chicken out. But you never know why someone asked for no meat. Maybe it's diet or moral. But it's usually fine when we pull it out."

My boyfriend said, "People should get what they order. It doesn't matter why."

They lied to us. They absolutely lied to our faces that it was a new dish. And if you can't even be truthful to your customers, it's not worth going back.

I really wouldn't have minded if they messed up the order....

We had such high hopes. This cute little Italian restaurant in the Poinsett corridor was beckoning to us to try it. The wait service was friendly and no wait at 6:30 on a weeknight to be seated. The bread was flaky and warm. But it stops there. All pasta is flown in from Italy, which might sound appealing, but guys, in house would be fresher, better. My Frey White Zinfandel wine had an aftertaste of old shoe. The side salad with each entree was chopped romaine and spinach blend that had a fair tasting creamy balsamic but left a lot to be desired. My tomatoe wedge still had a core in it. In the peak of summer, my tomato did not taste fresh. :( the bread was served with what I hope was EVOO mixed with sundried tomatoes, but was tasteless. A high quality EVOO with pepper wouldve been simpler and better. And the main course? Scallops and lobster ravioli in a lemon sauce? Well, my 4-5 medium sized ravioli swam, literally swam in about 1.5 of broth that was almost overflowing my plate I thought I had mistakenly ordered the soup. My 3 scallops were just steamed in, not sautéed or browned, and it was just a soupy, lemony bland mess. My husband's chicken cutlet was covered in a cup of melty cheese and spinach was in a bland tomato sauce that lacked proper execution of seasoning and herbs. Very sad indeed. Just save your $20-25 per plate and go instead to Olive Garden. If you're looking for Italian with fresh, light; flavorful sauces that let the ingredients speak for themselves, then look...