La Collina — Restaurant in Washington

Came on a Thursday evening at 7:45, the third time trying it out since the soft opening in the last year. Previous times were underwhelming, but we largely chalked it up to the restaurant working out some of the kinks/growing pains of being a new operation. There's only a handful of other occupied tables when we arrive, so we anticipate no service problems.

Once seated, we place an order for cocktails and telll the server we need a bit of time to look over menu before placing a food order. A few minutes later, the server returns and we put in an order for both appetizers and main courses.

Appetizers come quickly and are... alright. Fine, even. Pretty standard, 3-4 star stuff. We finish the appetizers and then just... sit and wait for a few minutes before our drinks finally show up. Weird cadence to the order of food delivery. I think it'd be less of an issue if the place wasn't brightly illuminated like an Apple store. The austere feel of the whole place really works against the experience of sitting there for extended periods of time with nothing but a glass of water.

Main courses come some time later and are very unremarkable (which is a charitable description). They're brought by a member of the bussing staff. Our server is totally MIA, so no opportunity to place another drink order (we even tried with the bus staff!). I've ordered a basic spaghetti and tomato sauce dish. The sauce has a weird sweetness to it, like a can of Ragu/Prego/generic store mass-market sauce. The noodles soggily clump together like sticky rice (??). I end up cutting the noodles with a fork and eating them in globule chunks. Unappealing. My girlfriend orders the cacio e pepe and likens it to Kraft easy-mac. Less cacio e pepe and more pedestrian "pasta in cheese sauce".

Our server is still MIA, so we've long finished our cocktails as we try to reassure each other that our mall-food-court-quality dishes aren't really that bad. Of course, we're trying to convince ourselves as much as we are each other. We finish eating, then sit and wait idly for 5-10 minutes. Eventually, a different server comes over and asks how everything was. We're worn out and lie, telling him that everything was good. By now, we just want to be done with this place.

This place isn't great, nor is it even "good". It's outright bad, in fact. It's been three visits now, over the course of a year. Each time, I'm vastly underwhelmed in similar-yet-novel ways. The pasta is bizarrely sweet and lacking any real sense of savoriness, the service is slow, and the ambiance is like "claustrophobic hospital atrium". Nostra Cucina and Caruso's Grocery are so close in physical proximity to La Collina. I cannot highly enough suggest going to either of those...

Inside new(ish) development in Capitol Hill's Eastern Market are three restaurants/bars owned by the same restaurant group- The Duck and The Peach, The Wells and La Collina. All three are worth a visit, but for good Italian book at La Collina (means "the Hill" in Italian). Open Wednesday through Sunday for dinner, my wife and I went on a Saturday date night. Here's our experience:

1. Food: The menu is written on a chalkboard with the prices by each item. Being a classic Italian place, they have all the usual suspects. My wife and I ended up ordering a number of dishes to split- olives, burrata, focaccia (comes with roasted garlic), meatballs, fried artichokes, bucatini "cacio e pepe" and olive oil cake for dessert. Each dish was flavorful and worth every penny. However, the standouts were the meatballs (comes with three large meatballs), bucatini "cacio e pepe" and the olive oil cake (that texture- wow!).

2. Drinks: They have Italian beer, cocktails and wine. They have six house wines that come in a six ounce glass, half a carafe or a full carafe. We ordered the white wine in a half carafe for $28. The server lets you taste the wine before ordering.

3. Price: For nicer Italian, the prices weren't as bad as you'd expect in an expensive city like D.C. The pastas ranged from $14 to $18 per dish. Again, for D.C., that's not terrible.

4. Service: It was perfect from the greeting to the timing to how attentive everyone was without being overbearing.

5. Space: La Collina somehow uses simple wooden design and lighting to strike the balance between classy and accessible. It's very welcoming!

6. Neighborhood: It's located just two blocks from the Eastern Market Metro and surrounded by many restaurants,...

Updating my review on account of the fact that I was ill-treated, by who I presume to be The Owner last evening. As I was not able to sit down and enjoy my meal, I wanted to have the full experience, including beverage, at home. Although DC law would allow me to do so, she was adamant about it not being possible and stated that she did not have carry out containers. Fortunately, I was able to spot someone dining at the time with a disposable cup. I inquired about this, then was told the container had to be sealed. Instead of going back and forth, I dropped the topic. She did offer to see about appropriate containers going forward, however, 1. There was no need to because she had the appropriate ones and 2. It did not change the fact that that evening's dining experience was shot. I was more disappointed over the fact that I left my place in the pouring rain to patronize her business, only to be greeted with that attitude. I knocked one star off of the food, as the shrimp were too salty for my taste and the one star for service is due to the sweet server. Also, the bag my food was in was on the verge of tearing on the commute back home, because of the rain's severity. The bottom of the food container itself was also wet. Perhaps, instead of concerning herself over the adult beverage containers, a closer look needs to be made at the others, to ensure they do not cause a mess, especially when travelling in inclement weather.

I'll update the review accordingly, if I decide to return, as my first visit was phenomenal. Would love to experience that again, along with the drink I wanted last evening, that I had been longing for from the first visit, which was...