Carrabba's Italian Grill — Restaurant in Surprise

My first time coming here tonight, Tuesday, July 1st. I arrived about 8:10pm. No one greeted me; no host or manager at the host station. It was not busy. The bar was completely open, and no tv’s were on. No bartender; only a few servers. Jay finally greeted me. I asked if I could sit at the bar as it was only myself. He took my drink order of water and Sprite; easy ice. While I perused the menu some bread was brought with a small plate with some herbs. Jay poured out a lot of olive oil. More than I would have. He then brought over some balsamic vinegar. So much oil the vinegar sank to the bottom of the dish. There was another server whom at first I didn’t catch their name. She brought water. With what I asked for from Jay I had two waters and a Sprite. I kept my order simple with their Signature Salad and Rigatoni Martino. The salad came. A plate of finely chopped romaine lettuce with some seasonings, pepperoncinis finely chopped, and two small kalamata olives covered with an adequate amount of creamy parmigiana. My entree arrived just as I was finishing the salad. A generous portion of rigatoni cooked al dente. The flavors were good. There wasn’t enough sauce, and that was made evident by Jay bringing more without my asking. If there were two things that could have made my dinner a bit more enjoyable: leave out the pepperoncinis stem that was in my salad; and slice the sun dried tomatoes more thinly. Large chunks of sun dried tomatoes was chewy, and a different texture from the other components in the dish. During my meal I ordered a glass of their Chianti 🍷. It was okay. I’ve had better Chiantis and Montepulcianos with better bodies and flavors. Not worth the price for 9 oz. $14.49. I left about 9:15pm. Ciara was the other server. She and Jay were fine. But no one bid me a good evening as I was leaving. I find the restaurant provided adequate space, clean, and warm; but not very inviting. Parking is shared with other restaurants and shops. The restrooms were not visited; so I cannot comment on their appearances. The prices seem a bit high. For what they price a steak at 13 oz I’d pay more and visit a reputable steakhouse. In my travels to find good Italian food I’ve experienced one place that I’d recommend with confidence, and that’s Avanti’s. As for Carraba’s I’d say that you would have to experience them, and decide for yourself if you’d return. I’m not so inclined based on the prices, and lack of attentiveness. Case in point: instead of refilling my Sprite my glass was refilled with water. Three glasses of water. I don’t understand...

Tales from the vineyard a four-course meal with accompanied wine. The first course was a crab salad with a fig vinaigrette the crab meat was in a mixture with herbs and bread crumbs. It laid a top of a bed of romaine and spinach with roasted carrots, grape tomatoes, red onion, tossed lightly in a fig vinaigrette sprinkled with toasted pistachios. The rosé that accompanied the salad didn't need to be sweet because the fig vinaigrette was. The flavor combination of this went very well together. Course 2 was a lemon ricotta rigatoni with chicken. The lemon rigatoni was tossed lightly in a thin Alfredo sauce that had sun-dried tomatoes peas and asparagus. Everything was topped with a fresh whipped ricotta that was sprinkled with wood grilled chicken chunks. The smokiness from the chicken was very appetizing and the Alfredo had a very strong asparagus taste to it. Course 3 was a wood grilled sirloin cooked medium topped with a gorgonzola herb crown. The sirloin melted in your mouth, it was cooked perfectly. The Gorgonzola cheese sauce that accompanied this dish was very light and went well with the sirloin. You could kind of taste a little bit of dry mustard, grated Parmesan in with the Gorgonzola cheese. The wine that accompanied this course was my favorite it had a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, that went very well with the sirloin. It had such a rich bold flavor to it just what you're looking for with the perfect sirloin. Course four, chocolate budino with pistachio. I really like how this dessert was not overly sweet. Didn't use a dark chocolate for the base, it was more like an unsweetened milk chocolate. The cocoa powder that was used was a very high quality. Not sure if it didn't have time to set up but the ones we had at our table were still the consistency of milk. It was very flavorful and the ingredients did mix very well. Our information said it was supposed to be topped with a pistachio brittle but it was just crushed pistachios, which was very tasty. The Merlot at acompanied this dessert matched very well. The reason I gave them a four-star on the food instead of five were the Rosemary carrots were not edible, had too much of the rosemary herb on it, as I looked around everybody else's plate look like the same thing with the carrots a full serving left on the plate. My sirloin I could only eat half of it the first half texture was spot on but the other half had too much gristle in it to eat it. It was season well it was cooked well and not really Carrabba's fault about...

My 1st visit a few years ago for a celebration was nice and the food was delicious. I placed a "call ahead"(reservation) over a week in advance to schedule it. I also called an hour ahead to make sure things were still a go and they could handle our group celebrating my kid's graduation. They do give the expectation that there still may be a short wait. 1st of the group arrive by 6:24pm and I recive my text, "Thank you for choosing Carrabba's Suprise, we'll text you when the table is ready." I recive another text saying the same at 6:46pm. Never received the ready text, which I needed as I was keeping the young lady of honor our party came to surprise busy till everyone was seated. We didn't get seated well after 7pm.

We didn't get bread and oil for over an hour. Took a nice amount of time to get our mixed drinks so that one wonders, "Hey, wait where is my drink?". We didn't get our food for another hour and it was delivered cold, dry and lacking flavor. If that wasn't bad enough, guess who didn't get their food till yet another hour...you guessed it the little lady of honor. (You're killling me smalls!)

Sad thing is this was most of my parties' 1st time there and they were excited to try it and now I don't see them returning and I had to apologize and thank them for still being such good sports. Our waitress, and our groups good humor, saved the evening. We didn't get out of there till after 10pm. We thought it was a step up from Olive Garden. They proved us wrong unfortunately.

We did get everything comped, as more than half of us didn't eat our food at all, it was that bad! On top of the ridiculous wait! Other tables came and left but we were left in the wind 😵 The Manager claimed cooks quit before their shift. But other folks were served sooooo👀. As well my call ahead gave them the opportunity to apologize and advise they actually could NOT accommodate our party efficiently. The Manger should have apologized to my whole group and offered vouchers if anyone cared to return after they wasted our time and evening! Instead he gave desert. Thank you but we came for dinner sir. Left full on water and few pieces of bread. Bread was delicious though🤪 I hate to think there was this great of an issue due to our party being beautiful Black and Hispanic awomse people. However others not of our nationalities came and left, even ones that...