Restaurant: Ventano Italian Grill & Seafood
Location: Henderson, Nevada
What Possessed Us? Groupon. $20 for $40 worth of food.
What Happened:
Saturday night and the kid is dropped off to the sitter. Time to eat! I made 7pm reservations at Ventano on their website through Opentable.com. Matthew made fun of me because he said the restaurant is in the middle of nowhere. Whatever. We got there way too early, around 6:35pm and the parking lot was completely full. Two ladies asked for a table in front of us and were told an hour+ wait. Ha ha- who's the sucker now, huh Matthew?
We told them we had 7pm reservations but were very early. They were very friendly and told us it would be just a few minutes...a large wedding party was just ending and they were clearing the tables and the party was still lingering.
We noticed the chef/owner roaming around very busily, even helping to clear tables. We liked that.
Finally at 6:50pm, we were seated. We sat there and waited and waited and...then finally a busser came over to us and told us water and bread would be right out. OK....how about a waitress with some drinks? Then another busser came over and stood next to the first busser and asked if he could take our drink order? Ummm, ok. I ordered mine and M wanted to know what beers were on tap (he always asks and I don't know why because whatever they do have is never good enough for him...he's a beer on tap snob).
The bussers (both of them...they were sharing a brain at this point) had no idea what was on tap besides Bud and so he (they) went to get a beer menu. Oy...
5 minutes later, the beer menu came. Nothing good (shocker!). Finally, a girl that apparently was our waitress came over looking befuddled (not as much as us, sister). She didn't actually tell us she was our server or tell us her name, but we assumed she was our server nonetheless. She took our drink order (again) and apologized for the wait and said she would go get our drinks right now.
Well, in the 15 minutes it took her to get our drinks, she gained like 40 lbs because the gal who brought our drinks to us was a totally different person. New girl brought M his drink incorrectly and had to go back and make his again with lemon instead of a lime (I knew at this point that would be the fateful turn that would bring this entire meal to a horrific and gruesome conclusion. I'm pretty forgiving. M is ruthless.). This new girl took our order. My drink was now empty at this point and would remain empty for the remainder of the meal.
Arancine to start- rice balls with peas and beef ($9.50), a chicken parm ($19) main course for M and shrimp scampi ($20) for me. Meanwhile, the bread had come out and it was super yummy. It comes all greasy and awesome in a brown paper bag and you dip in a saucer of oil & balsamic.
M excused himself to wash his hands, came back and let me know there was absolutely no paper towels in the bathroom (then he made a joke about how no servers would be cleaning their hands tonight. Gross!)
The Arancine came out promptly and it was REALLY good. Halfway through the appetizer, though, and some other guy brings out our main courses. M and I both looked at each other with the knowing glance that this meal is totally F'd up. We told him that we did not want our food yet, since we were only half-way done with our appetizer. He didn't apologize but immediately turned and headed back to the kitchen. Great- now our meals would be sitting under a heat lamp for 20 minutes.
Well, 20 minutes rolls by and my drink is empty, our table has no food on it and our main dishes are sitting under a heat lamp. Skinny/befuddled waitress #1 comes over and as M asks for a manager, the food comes back. We just shook our heads and told him we didn't want it.
The owner came over to our table after we saw him briefly talk to each of our servers. He said, "Ok, I've gotten 2 different stories from 2 different people. Now I want the right story. Tell me what happened." Yay-finally someone who feels our plight! He offered to box up our food to go but we told him our hearts were just not in it anymore. Sigh... Of course he told us that we didn't have to pay for anything and was very upset that we didn't get the service he expects from his restaurant. He also said he was going to kill them (but I'm pretty sure he wasn't serious). I left the groupon on the table anyways and left. It was now 7:55pm.
Well, we hopped skipped & jumped on over to Green Valley Ranch Part Deux (that's what I call the shopping center across the street from GVR) and walked into Settebello pizza place instead. Now that place had good service. We were literally in and out of there in 40 minutes. I had a Sangria ($8, although described with fresh details in the menu was definitely out of a bottle and had no fruit in it) and a margherita pizza with mushrooms($11.50). M had a plain Margherita ($10)and just water. M asked for some garlic powder midway through and the waiter explained that they didn't have any, that he would bring us fresh garlic instead. Ok, no problem.
Well, Settebello couldn't skate by without one screw-up, come on! When the check came, lo and behold, $0.50 for garlic. Really? Come on! I told the kid (waiter who is much younger than me) that we had just walked out of a restaurant and we were fully prepared to give him the tip that we would have spent at the other place cause he was so darn good and then he had the balls to add that 50 cents. He was embarrassed and ended up taking it off when he ran our card. Good boy. Thank You. He got 25% : )
Anyway, so for those keeping Track:
Ventano: 0 Settebello: 1
Once again, Matthew ranted about how we always lose when we try new places and to give him at least a month until I make him go to another new restaurant. Fine. Fine. Fine.
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