Palermo has been around for forever in my hometown. I never think about it when it comes to Italian food, even though I have been there 3 times prior. It is a family-owned restaurant that clams to make Italian food from scratch. Let’s get to the review!
Blogger Note: on this trip we were in a party of 5 and were seated at 7 pm in a mostly empty restaurant.
Ambiance: It is a small, quaint restaurant, definitely an Italian vibe. Décor was pretty cool. The owner was the host, he sat us. He kissed each lady (2) on the hand and shook hands with the men (3). I thought that was a little odd, my mother is a sucker for things like that, she loved the attention. We were seated away from the other two occupied tables witch I liked; it could be more intimate. The weird thing was the Spanish-like techno music being played from the speaker system above…odd. 4.5/5
Service: Yikes. We were seated and after about 9 minutes our server came by to announce the bread was in the oven baking fresh for us and walked away. After about 7 more minutes, she returned to announce yet again the bread was baking fresh for us, and turned and left. No chance to order drinks. 15 minutes in, and they have made $0 on a table of 5. The bread finally came out and our server took our order, drinks and food. While piping hot, the bread was definitely not made in house; it’s premade for certain. It is the same exact bread served at most locations, you know the Dutch crunch looking bread. Maybe he meant freshly delivered off the Sysco truck? 2.1/5
Food: The menu is your typical Italian faire, pasta, salads, assorted proteins (chicken parm, veal, lamb etc.) Also, your classic appetizers and desserts. It is your basic Italian place. The only surprising thing, no bruschetta on the menu. I have been warned by other Italian places that if bruschetta is not on the menu beware, it’s likely a “frozen food” place. I decided on Penne Siracusa, it’s a penne pasta with sausage and vegetables. My folks got the lasagna, the portion is big enough to serve 3-4, you cannot order a smaller amount. Our company ordered their two dishes. It took about 30 minutes (I am not going to mark down for this, as the vibe the place gave off was “do not be in a hurry, nothing is from a can”). Our company’s dishes came out first. Then…. Nothing for a solid 7 minutes. Our dishes finally came out. This is a big deal to me, tells me your kitchen forgot about the other dishes, likely mine, and threw mine in the blast oven. After the food arrived, we were offered cheese. The owner’s wife had a bowl of parmesan and if you said, “yes,” she fired a spoonful onto your dish and asked “more?”. This seemed odd, but oh well. My dish? Sad looking. Big time sad looking. It was barely warm. The pasta was so overcooked I could not stab it with my fork; I needed to essentially scoop it into my mouth. The dish tasted like nothing, I mean it was flavor less. The sausage amount was about ¼ of a dinner sausage sliced up, barely anything. Make no mistake, this dish was not “scratch” made, it was sauce out of a can, and ingredients pre portioned out and bagged to be boiled later. Tasteless and barely warm, if we didn’t have company I would have sent it back and said “no thanks” to a remake. It was that bad. Oh, the lasagna? It’s cheap thrills. Sure, it is huge, its 9 layers, it would look great on social media. But again, it tasted like nothing. I had a small carving off one side and it is bland. I would describe it as hospital food; it really has no taste. Again, cheap thrills impress my folks, and yeah, this lasagna is Instagram worthy, but again zero taste. One of the others in our party tried the lasagna and agreed with me, no taste. 0/5 yeah it was that bad.
Overall: I hate to hate on a family owned joint, I really do. The restaurant is nice inside, I think the family does try to do its best. I just think they are stuck in a different era, and the Italian food business has past them by. The service missed badly, they had a chance at a second round of four drinks but passed. The bread was not worth waiting for, order drinks and let’s get going! Kill that Spanish techno music, I have no clue what that is about. Bring the food out all at once, get your timing down! The lasagna is obviously premade, my dish was obviously out of a bag, the other dishes as well. You made 3 people watch 2 people eat and then made 2 people watch 3 people eat. Ouch. 1.5/5 Skip this place.
Johnnie Does
Oh, I never thought I would say this. In my hometown, if you asked me for Italian rankings, I would go like this; (bottom to top) Old Spaghetti Factory, Olive Garden, Brickhouse. I would slot this place below Old Spaghetti Factory, it really is that bad. If you want to pay 5-star prices for 2-star food, be my guest.
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