The Lidia’s Wednesday Night Adventure Over the years I’ve heard nothing but bad things about Lidia’s in the Strip. Terrible place to work, the food is nothing to bother with considering the parking, etc… With the bad reputation (or lack of any reputation at all mostly) in mind, it exceeded expectations… but not by much. About five years ago I tried Lidia’s. Besides remembering that I had and hated chicken livers with polenta I don’t remember a thing about the place. So, when we walked into a practically empty restaurant on a Wednesday evening and the first thing I saw on the menu was chicken livers and polenta (still!) I silently thanked Andrea’s mom, who gave her a gift card because she knew she would never bother going. If there was a chance it would suck, at least it would be (close to) free. What are with the huge orange panels high on the walls? The warehouse size space is ridiculous and the minimalistic Cheesecake Factory rip-off décor was confusing. My only thought… how does Lidia pay the rent for this place? It’s huge! I guess those cooking shows and Italian cook books bring in enough to supplement the lack of diners in the place. Appetizer: We thought we were ordering something Italian (can’t remember the name) because the name was in Italian. All I could tell was it had vegetables, squid and shrimp. What we got was tempura, just like the stuff you can get in any sub-par Japanese restaurant. Literally, it was tempura battered veggies, squid and shrimp, but don’t forget the side of spaghetti sauce to go with it. How Italian! It was okay for tempura, but why?! Salad: The good news about the salad was that it was split between the two of us as part of the three pasta special we ordered. (You can order it with the salad and dessert or without for less and the waitress suggested we go with the extras for one of us and she’d split it. Points for her! Aside: But on the other hand, did we really look like we couldn’t afford both or was it just that women tend to split their food? hmmm) The Caesar salad was just some lettuce with mayo. We got the anchovies on the side, but since they looked like floppy dead bait neither of us pretended to noticed them until we were done. Main Course: Three different pastas carried by three different waiters roaming around with sauté pans and spoons. One was good… basic linguini with a little bit of red sauce and a lot of greasiness. Another was a chard and ricotta filled ravioli… very good, but I couldn’t imagine a whole plate of the strong tasting cheese. The third choice was braided pasta with a thicker marinara and chunks of eggplant. They served us all three at once in small portions and then another guy came over offering grated parmesan. Either the empty restaurant left the staff lacking for something to do or its actually customary at Lidia’s to create a full on siege immediately upon serving the main course. Always the best part… Dessert… something chocolate. Who cares what it is, it was chocolate! Left Overs: I think we both felt okay the next day. The pasta didn’t give me heart burn, a plus. We ate nothing exotic nor interesting, but I think the whole thing went smoothly and it was certainly underwhelming. All and all, if we had another gift card we would go, but otherwise I’d rather go to a real Italian restaurant in Bloomfield or just make it at home.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 16:34:18 +0000
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