Tonight, we had one of those dining experiences I try so hard to avoid. With the abundant restaurants in this city, I try to do my research in looking at reviews and menus as to not be let down, but with the abundance of restaurants in this city, I’m bound to be disappointed every now and then.
Yesterday, we decided we’d go to dinner and a show since our weekend plans had fallen through. I went to TKTS for tickets and consulted my iPhone apps to try to find a specific thing Deanna wanted for dinner: Italian flatbread dishes or tapas-style something. I also had the task of finding this restaurant in the Theater District or nearby so we could have an easy time getting to our theatre. What I found was Nizza which I had been meaning to try because it came up in previous searches, and the menu was priced lower than a lot of places I’ve come across lately. And while I wasn’t that impressed with their menu, it suited Deanna’s tastes, so a reservation was made.
When we arrived, the place was packed, and I’m glad we had a reservation. It was a half block away from Marseille, a favorite French restaurant of ours, so Deanna hoped that their foody goodness might drift down 9th Avenue. And while there was nothing particularly wrong with the service or the restaurant, the food really lacked.
We decided to split the Gran Cru pizza and also the Farfalle pasta. Both were sub par. The pizza tasted like it had been prebaked, then the toppings thrown on and baked a little longer. To make matters worse, they had pre-cut the pizza before putting the toppings on, so we had to cut it again ourselves with a lousy dinner knife, and the toppings promptly fell off as soon as we picked up our slices. That’s like pizza suicide. And, there was too much raw flour underneath the pizza which leaves a chalky-floury taste in my mouth. Next, the pasta wasn’t as bad, but it wasn’t really good either. It tasted like each ingredient (peas, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and prosciutto) was cooked separately then tossed into the pasta water before being strained with the pasta. It just really fell short, and I feel I could’ve made it 10 times better.
We were so disappointed that we really didn’t even consider dessert; we just wanted to leave. And because the food came out incredibly quickly, we were walking out the door at 6:25, just 25 minutes after our reservation. We decided to go to a nearby bar for drinks before the show since we still had an hour and a half to kill.
In the reviews I’d read before going to Nizza, Yelpers raved about the gluten-free menu as well as other dishes, and I was really looking forward to this place. I wish we had tried other things, but with the abundance of restaurants in this city, I’m not going to waste another meal there.
