Saturday, April 3, 2010

Review: Faccia Luna, Arlington

The Service
The place was a disaster. Yesterday was my friend's birthday and he decided he wanted Italian. Since we had a group of 7 people, we called ahead of time to let them know we were planning on coming in around 7pm. They do not take reservations, but the guy on the phone told us to come at 6:45 to put our names on the list so we can get a table by 7pm. Fine.

So my roommate and I head over there to put our names on the list, and the place is completely crowded and it's a 45 minute wait! When I say, "why were we told it wouldn't fill up until 7:30?" I'm told "whoever answered the phone doesn't know what he's talking about".

Then we wait for not 45 minutes, but for well over an hour. In the meantime, there are other customers getting angry, too. At one point when I went to ask what was up, I heard the following conversation:
"How much longer?"
"Fifteen minutes"
"Did you just make that number up? You said 20 minutes half an hour ago"
"I didn't tell you that. Someone else did."
Excuse me? Blame games do not work when you represent the entire restaurant. You apologize and thank them for their patience.

Service continued to be ridiculous, and at one point I was told that a beer was a "white beer" ("like blue moon" - a wheat beer) and then they brought me an IPA instead. We also ordered a lemon drop martini, and got vodka with lemon in a martini glass. NOT the same thing.

The table was short a service, the waiter was slow and we were seated by the register and silverware/napkin area, so the restaurant employees were constantly pushing past our chairs. All in all, very disappointing.

The Food
 The quality of the food was good. We ordered a pizza with goat cheese, spinach and chicken, and a pizza with goat cheese, mushrooms, eggplant and pine nuts. The quality of all the ingredients was good, and the toppings and cheese were delicious. Some of the crust was burned on the side, but not too badly to ruin the whole dish.

The pizza dough, however, tasted like Domino's. It was not special in anyway, and really detracted from the quality of the toppings.

I ended up having to leave early (because it took so long to get seated!!) but from what I heard the Tiramisu was acceptable but not phenomenal.


Score: 4/10
The continued horrible service, combined with acceptable rather than amazing food, resulted in their low score. I've always complained about service in DC, but it has NEVER been this bad. I was very disappointed, particularly considering that this is Arlington, VA, where people in the service industry generally tend to be better than those within DC proper. I would NOT recommend anyone going there, ever.

http://www.faccialuna.com/
2909 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA
(703) 276-3099

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