Lady Chaos - My Very Chaotic Nook

Okay, a while back I went to Romanza restaurant on Burwood Highway. I went with my boyfriend, in the evening, for dinner. We got there, it looked like a nice and classy place for a family Italian restaurant, maybe not with the warm and friendly atmosphere of La Porchetta, but a bit more posh. So, we sit down, they bring us menus, and we look at them and decide what to order.

Very good, we decide on some food. But trying to get the attention of any of the waiting staff so we could order our food was like trying to get that wild rat under my house to walk out in broad daylight and start dancing the macarena before sticking its head happily into a baitless mouse trap! Not that there was an absence of staff, just that they were ignoring us! Usually at restaurants, you so much as glance up to stretch your neck from studying the menu and half the waiters are standing around wanting to take your order… but not here, oh no. Once we finally got the attention of a waitress (by asking her to take our order as she went past), we waited for the food.

The food arrived, and it was only when I went to eat it that I realised I had no fork. After waiting a few minutes, politely resisting digging into the food with my hands, trying to get the attention of a waitress, I gave up and got up out of my seat to grab a fork off a deserted table. Obviously it’s not a big deal, but it was a little more embarassment than one wants when they’re out for dinner.

And I won’t be cruel here, we didn’t have to wait long for our dinner, the food was very good and the prices were fairly reasonable for such a seemingly posh restaurant (hence the one star). But when we’d finished our meal, and wanted the dessert menu (or even to know if they work on a dessert menu system of if it’s “go up to the counter to order”), the waiting staff, once again, ignored the hell out of us. Grrrr!!! And so we had to get up, go over to the counter, order our dessert, and take it back to our seat.

And you can pretty much guess what happened with the bill… you really would think that in a place like that they’d bring your bill to your table automatically, but no, we had to collar a waitress as she walked past, and ask her to bring it to us.

The restaurant wasn’t busy, there were many empty tables and we weren’t tucked away in a corner either. And so, there’s nothing I can put our experience with Romanza down to other than terrible, terrible service, and offer this piece of advice to all who are tempted by the lure of Italian food along Burwood highway… Go To Romanza: Prepare To Be Ignored.