Too much of a good thing can be too much. When we walked into Via Carducci La Sorella the front windows were open to the street, letting in the last of what had been an unseasonably warm spring day, music was playing, and although it was busy, we were seated right away. The trouble started the minute we got to our table. It was wedged in under the stairs with the surrounding tables pushed up so tight my wife nearly knocked our neighbor’s chardonnay into her lap as she tried to sidle through. Clearly this was a place that wanted to accommodate as many diners as possible.
This embarrassing inconvenience was nevertheless forgotten when our waiter appeared promptly, eager to serve – a very good sign. We ordered drinks and relaxed. The live musician, a keyboard player, launched into his next song. My wife said something and I couldn’t hear her. I leaned forward with my elbows on the table to get a little closer and the table teetered, rocking the water precariously in our glasses. Let’s face it, tables teeter sometimes. No big. The only problem here was that our table was wedged in so tight the waiter couldn’t have rectified the problem without evacuating a whole row of diners.
With impressive speed, they brought the wine. It was good, but the bottle had been open too long, a not uncommon problem in restaurants. We didn’t want to make an issue of it. But now it began to get a little chilly in the room. The open windows, which had been a good idea earlier, were now forcing many diners to reach for their jackets. My wife spoke again, and again I didn’t hear her. The live musician not only played keyboards, he sang. Loudly.
As it turned out, I was seated a lot closer to the young woman next to me than I was to my wife. Consequently, I got treated to parts of her conversation. For example, she was telling her friend, “When you’re with him physically you should be savoring him.” While this was interesting, there was no way of knowing whether my wife wasn’t saying something equally compelling, at least not without making the water slosh around in our glasses.
With pleasing alacrity our appetizer arrived, a grilled calamari that was pretty good, subtly seasoned and grilled correctly. In fact we were still enjoying it when the busboy swept down and snatched it away, never even asking if we were finished. Before we could protest, our entrees arrived. This promptness was a little disconcerting. We had been hoping to relax and enjoy our meal; we had even imagined the experience would be romantic. Boy, were we wrong!
In spite of that, the food was okay. The Bucatini alla Matriciana was a zesty combination of onions, smoked pancetta, crushed red peppers, white wine and tomato sauce. And the Scallopine al Limone, tender veal served in lemon-white wine sauce with capers, rivaled a dish we had enjoyed on the Amalfi Coast, which is saying something. In fact, I was trying to say something regarding that to my wife but she couldn’t hear me because the singer was belting out a Whiter Shade of Pale in Italian with a Polish accent.
No sooner had we put the last forkfuls in our mouths than the waiter came back again, wanting to know if we wanted dessert. Uh, no. Generally we like to linger and enjoy the ambiance of a place but that wasn’t going to happen here.
Subsequent visits to Via Carducci La Sorella have revealed surprisingly uneven experiences. Sometimes the service is overzealous, other times indifferent. Sometimes the food is quite good, other times… yawn. Occasionally odd things happen, like the time they ran out of Italian bread and substituted toast. Another time nearly everyone working in the restaurant seemed to be from Eastern Europe, as if the restaurant had morphed into a Russian version of an Italian restaurant, with all that that implies. There have been reports of amusing mishaps as wide ranging as unwitting bus boys dumping ice into a customers’ bicycle helmet or a randy cougar at the bar hitting on a nearby diner as if his date wasn’t sitting across from him with her mouth agape.
Could happen anywhere, right? Maybe. But this kind of thing seems to happen with comic frequency at Via Carducci la Sorella. Other times everything seems calm, cool and collected.
What remains consistent is the cramped, noisy atmosphere and the allure of the sidewalk dining which has been enhanced by a row of tables in the narrow, charming alley alongside.
What also seems consistent is a certain vague goofiness in the air, as if the restaurant is a model for a sitcom about an Italian restaurant that tries hard but never quite gets it right. At Via Carducci la Sorella you may be amused by their mishaps but you would never give them an unqualified recommendation.
Via Carducci La Sorella
1928 W. Division
773-252-2244 / Reservations Accepted
Hours: M-Th 11am-11pm; F-Sa 11am-12am; Su 11am-11pm
Features: Outdoor Dining, Carryout, Live Music
Avg Price for Two Including Drinks and Tax: $75
Website: www.viacarducci-lasorella.com
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