Sunday, September 18, 2011

Vilifying Villa Francesca - Boston


The server at Villa Francesca thinks I’m fat. She thought that I was so fat that she refused to let me eat bread.

After 20 give-us-this-day-our-daily-bread minutes, another server came over with our entrees…which would have been helpful if we had received our appetizers first. I had to flag (flag = waving arms manically for 10 minutes) the server for an explanation. “I’m sorry, there was a mistake. They made your entrees first for some reason”. I would have saluted if I’d know that Captain Obvious was serving us today…

Then I had to actually ASK for bread. Again. Clearly, she thought I could skip the carbs.  

Fortunately, the food was markedly better than the service. Not that it could have possibly been worse…The mussels were fresh and the white wine sauce was a perfect companion. The mark of good seafood is that it doesn’t need sauce, and the mussels held up. The fried mozzarella appetizer was quite good – who can object to stringy fresh mozzarella covered in tangy marinera? If only it didn’t resemble a liver-shaped puddle of clotted arterial blood…



We got our entrees shortly after, and they tasted hot and fresh. I can only hope they weren’t the same ones that appeared before the appetizers, and I can only pray that they were fresh off the stove, not the microwave…



The palatably pestoed spaghetti with pesto had just the right amount of garlic and bold basil, and it’s not easy being perfectly green…

The Fettucine ai Carciofi was al deliciously dente. Wish the artichokes were fresh – these had that sour aftertaste that only accompanies the pickled. No real complaints though – the touch of chili added a kick, which made for a pretty unique sour-kick flavor. Love that they didn’t skimp on the artichoke – plenty of half hearts to make you feel whole, though I wish they’d chopped them up a bit more – the sheer size of these half-hearts became, like all things unmanageably large, uncomfortable…



The dessert is not pictured because it wasn’t worth picturing. The crème caramel was hardly noteworthy, though the cannoli had a cream worth breaking my much-needed diet for.

Sadly, the food was pretty much 4-star quality, just skip the crème caramel. I’ve never docked a full star before for service. In fact, I’ve never docked for service because it’s unrelated to the quality of the food, but I couldn’t let this atrocity go unnoticed. I suppose I should thank our server for making me wait for the bread. I probably ate less of it and therefore consumed less calories. Based on the service we got, Villa Francesca may be North End’s answer to Jenny Craig. So next time you’re looking to lost weight, go to North End, walk toward Villa Francesca…and go to the nearest gym. At least you won’t wait 30 minutes for a towel.

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