Sunday, September 23, 2012

Alice Fazooli's losing her Fazooli's

Earlier this week my wife received an e-mail for a "Buy $50 or more and receive $25.00 off" coupon from Alice Fazooli's (155 York Boulevard, Richmond Hill).  

We arrived at 12:40 P.M. for some lunch to a hostess waiting to seat us.  Like last time, the restaurant was not very busy with perhaps six tables in one section occupied while the rest of the restaurant sat empty.  Not bad for a Sunday afternoon lunch.  

We reviewed the menus for our choices and waited for the waitress to arrive. 

The waitress came by and took our drink order.  We also took this time to inquire about our online coupon.  She said she would double check with her manager as, understandably, she was new and online corporate newsletters/coupons were new to her.   

She returned with our drinks and said the coupon could easily be used.  We placed our order and she dashed off. 

The Order:  1 Large Caesar Classico (Caesar Salad) as an appetizer. 1 Sirloin Steak with Herb Butter (vegetables and potatoes on the side) with a glass of Coke and 1 Fettuccini Di Mare (shrimp, scallops, mussels, roasted red peppers, spinach, scallions & tomato sauce) with a glass of water.

The Caesar Salad came within five minutes of ordering on two separate plates as requested.  The first noticeable thing was the croutons.  We each received two large croutons each that were the size of four regular croutons you would find in the salad.  The rest of the salad was romaine with a hint of Caesar dressing and the odd small bacon bit mixed in.  Overall for a Caesar Salad, it was pretty sad for $9.99

About 25 minutes after we ordered a set of food showed up.  "Set of food?"  Yes, my Sirloin Steak showed up but a Ravioli dish showed up instead of a "Fettuccinni Di Mare".  We returned the Ravioli and kept the Steak.  We were promised the Fettuccinni would be out in three minutes.   3 minutes for Fettuccinni? Really, don't you have to boil it and make it from scratch?

As promised the Fettuccinni was out in about five minutes complete with the required seafood.   My wife seemed to enjoy it. 

The Sirloin Steak?

Steak Sirloin with Herb Butter
 
The steak was perfectly grilled to a succulent medium rare.  The potatoes were interestingly cut and tasted half like baked potatoes and half like french fries.  My tongue was pleasantly confused what type of potato product it was having.

We finished are meals with the waitress stopping by soon after we finished.  We politely declined the desert menu and requested the bill. 

The waitress dissappeared and returned quickley with the bill.  We reviewed the bill and the ravioli dish was still on it.  The wrong dish had been brought to us as it was typed in incorrectly after we had ordered.  But at least the Ravioli was still the same price as the Fettuccinni, so we paid for it and left.

Overall Alice Fazooli's has some work cut out for her.  If it wasn't for the coupon we would not have set foot in the place.  The dishes are overpriced and some of the dishes (i.e. Caesar Salad) look like a public school Grade 8 home economics class had put it together.  The attention to detail seems somewhat lacking, but we will let the wrong dish being brought out slide on this occasion.  Also, on the last visit, there was complimentary fresh bread and butter brought to the table and this time this was not done at our table or other tables we observed.   It will be good to see if Alice and her Fazooli's are around in the next five years as things are starting to slide and not in a good way.

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