Carrabba's Italian Grill — Restaurant in Westlake

When we go out to eat its a celebration event that spurs it, and we remembered loving the soup and tea from other Carraba's so we go to this location.

First, the cons.

If I were to rate the entrée I had alone, I'd give it a zero. The mushrooms on the pasta were obviously from a can with its feet juice brine bursting from every chew on those pathetic things, truly an inedible element. It's the sort of culinary mistake I expect from someone who doesn't know how to cook. It ruined the whole dish, which swam in a cream sauce that had no life in it, the waitress probably depending heavily on parmesan to make up for what it lacked. The protein was just there, no marrying of the disparate elements and no mediator in any of it to bring it together. There was even a chitinous inedible shrimp tail hidden among the pasta to crunch down on. It had no redeeming qualities except that the pasta was at least al dente. Almost demanded my money back as it was insulting after the waitress kept coming back repeatedly, interrupting just to upsale for a take home entrée deal. Almost gave her a 10% tip because of this, but I assumed her boss(es) tell her to be this ridiculous. I liked her enough until that insulting dinner was put in front of me. My hubby didn't like his entrée so much, either. And we both were very annoyed with the server coming by so much to upsale while we attempted to enjoy our meal, and had to request bread when she would've left us with just our soups. The whole meal was nearly a hundred dollars and we had to leave before we made a scene over it. Not that the table close by wasn't creating one by putting their phone on speaker and loudly carrying on with it like no one else was around.

Now the pros.

The appetizer combo was a hit. Really does set up expectations for the rest. The bread and herbs saucer for mixing with oil, the sausage lentil soup (although sausage was clumsily scrambled) was delicious. The blackberry tea didn't have the same kick as I remembered but was still good.

Had wondered why we didn't go to Carraba's more often but this visit reminded me and will stick with me long enough that I won't do it again for a very long time. I can make everything we had at home and until they can learn how to put some care into the ingredients I will before I go back for an overpriced meal of canned and reconstituted...

My family doesn't get a chance to visit Carrabba's often since we live on the east side, so I was really looking forward to getting my favorite meal which is the 2-chop dinner. We arrived Sunday evening and had to wait about 25 minutes to be seated. Once seated, it took a few minutes for the server to arrive, but she did take our drink orders and asked if we wanted appetizers. After a few minutes, we received our drinks but no bread. We placed our orders and then the bread finally arrived. After quite some time, our salads & soup finally arrived and were good. Then the wait for the meal was on. After about 45 minutes, our meals finally arrived. My wife's lasagna was warm, not hot, my porkchops that were supposed to be medium were burnt and dry, and they forgot the extra broccoli that was ordered. I did not complain while at the restaurant because I didn’t know if I would get replacement pork chops quickly, and at this point, I just wanted to eat and get on with my evening. We were going to order cannoli's to go, but did not because we were not sure if we would get them brought to the table in a timely manor. I'm not sure what is going on in the restaurant industry, but this is not a good way to keep customers coming back. Very disappointed and more than likely not visiting this Carrabba's...

I wondered why this restaurant was almost empty at 12:30 on a Saturday before I ate here, but didn't have to wonder after I left. Service was pedantic - I was treated like I'd never been to a restaurant before and that the menu was some complex legal document that I would need help navigating.

Food was not good enough for the price. It seems that most of their food is pre-made and all they have to do is heat is up and they struggled with even that (in an almost empty restaurant by the way). I had to send my side dish back and the waitress could not understand the concept of 'without pimentos'. My companion had to send his whole plate back and order something different because the main was burned and the mashed potatoes were cold.

This was met with 'oh you don't like the taste of it?' by the server, as if not wanting burned chicken and cold mashed potatoes is somehow a failing of his pallet and not a screw up by the back of the house.

Overall our experience was terrible, although they did manage to send out two decent ceasar salads. We spent the rest of our trip back to Ann Arbor pointing out the restaurants we should have gone to instead.

Unless you have never been to a restaurant and have extremely low expectations, I recommend you drive past this one, save your money and maybe play some ski-ball...