La Cucina — Restaurant in Sunset Beach

An overcooked lobster, sprinkled with dry herbs and served on watery fettuccine splashed with chardonnay. A culinary disgracement. Save your time and money and drive five miles away, to experience a true 'la cucina italiana'.

The most positive part was service - it was outstanding. The rest - menu, ambience, and above all - the quality of the food - is simply shameless.

Let's start with the Menu - the first impression you get when you see it, is a huge list of well defined Italian dishes. Typically in the old continent, small restaurants cannot serve 20-30 types of dishes. It is simply impossible to prepare within 20 minutes good meals of so many varieties, therefore small places specialize in 5-7 dishes that they can prepare consistently well. If you have time to spare... go online and compare their menu with one of the leading big chains of Italian restaurants ... coincidence?

Ambience - We were lucky to arrive at a beautiful early June evening, just about to enjoy the sunset. In spite of a number of tables outside the restaurant and modern patio set, the front of the place is lacking any arrangements. You are literally seating in the middle of a sidewalk, watching a traffic on the busy Sunset Beach road right behind. Just a simple screen or a pair of small evergreen shrubs would make it feel so much more comfortable. We could always sit inside, but an unpleasant aroma inside the place, made us request a table outside, an idea that was soon followed by next two couples that arrived shortly after.

We had two different soups as first course: the Italian Wedding soup was OK, but the Spinach Cantalini was a complete disaster - a tasteless mix of a content of a white bean can mixed with a bunch of spinach leaves. A half of a tablespoon later we were done with it.

Catch of the day - be careful: it is the catch of the day ;) The menu lists catch of the day sauteed in the usual white wine sauce. When asked for specific fish to be served, they offered either Mahi-Mahi or Salmon... Well, what works well for soft fish - Halibut, Mackerel, Trout, does not always work for fleshy and meaty types. When we politely questioned the right fit of the fish for the recipe, the waitress countered with a nice idea to have a lobster tail instead. This sounded much better, but...

Preparation - We got an overcooked lobster, sprinkled with dry mix of aromatic herbs. We could probably swallow the lobster, but the way it was a culinary disgracement. Served on a bed of a fettuccine floating in a puddle of a mix of water and chardonnay, it was both tasteless and disgusting. It was a disappointment that completed our dinner.

La cucina italiana e facile... ma richiede qualche sforzo...

Our family of eight called at about 3pm on a Monday to make a reservation for 6:30pm that evening, and we were glad that we did. We arrived about 15 minutes early, but the restaurant filled up quickly at about the same time. Be sure to call for a reservation any day of the week, especially with parties larger than four.

The dining room is fairly small, split down the middle, with a head waiter and his assistant assigned to either side. We were promptly served fresh, delicious bread sprinkled liberally with Parmesan cheese and pepper, and waters and our first round of drinks were delivered quickly. After that, though, things slowed down considerably as our waiter was quadruple-sat. This isn't a fault of the service in our estimation, but of the floor planning and staffing by the restaurant.

Our orders were taken in good order, and once appetizers were ordered it took about 15 minutes for them to arrive. The fried calamari was good and not chewy, which is better quality than what you can get in the Midwest, but probably average-to-good for coastal fare. The bruschetta was very high quality and we would definitely order again.

Entrées - Overall grade: A. We had a diverse order, and no one was disappointed. The chicken alfredo was well-cooked and the sauce was tasty, if a little more liquid and less creamy than I'm used to. Also ordered at our table: grilled tilapia with vodka sauce (commented as very good, and this from someone who generally dislikes seafood), eggplant Parmesan, scallops and champagne sauce (comment: phenomenal, completely devoured), lasagna (comment: good sized portion), and veal Parmesan (comment: the best the person had ever had). For our young diners, we went with spaghetti and cheese raviolis. I'm not sure I've ever seen a 7 year-old consume cheese raviolis that fast, never mind after a loaf of bread and a half a plate of calamari.

Total time in the restaurant: about an hour and forty-five minutes. It was certainly an enjoyable experience, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone. Just come ready to relax and enjoy a few glasses of wine in...

My wife and I had dinner there the other night. We did not have reservations, there was no where that I saw on their web-site that mentioned it. The host seated us immediately-we were there before 5p. We were served some warm bread that was pretty unappetizing, no flavor to it and it had a slight reddish grease on the plate? Usually, it's an olive oil dipping mixture of herbs and oil. Our server was Nathan- he was very respectful and polite. It appeared he was the only waiter in the whole section of the restaurant-maybe 10-15 tables. My wife ordered sweet tea I had water. The sweet tea was not sweet, she sent it back. It came out sweet this time. We ordered our salads- Caesar for her, garden for me-dressing was their balsamic vinaigrette-was pretty good! It took unusually long for the entrée to be served-maybe because he was the only waiter?? The man that seat us appeared to take no interest in helping until the place started to fill up, then I saw him serving water. My wife's stuffed shells looked horrible-they were swimming in sauce-and it was a sweet sauce. She didn't care for it. She ordered another sweet tea, and again, it was not sweet. She sent it back and it came out sweet. I ordered the Frutti De Mare with the Marinara sauce. It came out with hardly any sauce on it. It had Red Snapper, clams, mussels, shrimp and a couple of small scallops. It all had a funky taste to it and the Snapper was very dry. I asked for a small bowl of sauce(it was sweet too, I don't like a sweet sauce) to put on my pasta(angel hair), Nathan brought it out promptly, or as quick as he could, he was pretty busy. I had the cheesecake after dinner for dessert-it too just didn't taste quite right. We chalked it up to a less than desirable experience. As I was just now going over the bill-they charged me $2.95 for a small bowl of sauce for my angel hair pasta. We will...