Last night my SO and I went to Bar Vespa in Liberty Village. We had never been before and wanted to try somewhere new. The service and food were incredibly disappointing...
My SO was deciding on a bottle of Peroni or the Birra Bruton di Bruton. At the recommendation of our server, he got the Birra Bruton di Bruton. We were unaware that he was ordering the only 750 ml bottle of beer on the menu that cost $25. Now, to be fair, it did say the size and price on the menu, but as it was imbedded amongst all the other 330 ml bottles of normal priced beer, it would have been nice if our server had mentioned it to make sure we knew what we were ordering. It also would have been nice if our server didn't read the specials off her notepad, without glancing up at us (but maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine...)
We started off with the Suppli, deep fried risotto balls stuffed with fontina cheese in an arrabbiata sauce. The risotto balls were tasty and cheesy, nicely fried and not greasy but the arrabbiata sauce wasn't very spicy. For our mains, I ordered the Linguini Pesto and my SO ordered the Spaghetti Carbonara. Unfortunately they tried to bring me the incorrect dish twice during our meal, the second time when they dropped off our mains, so my SO started eating before my correct dish arrived. His carbonara was not what I would expect of a traditional carbonara - a strong taste of raw garlic throughout the dish and not much else. The only thing that made it worse was his completely undercooked pasta. When the Linguini Pesto arrived, my pasta was slightly more cooked than his was but still not where it should be. The flavour was okay but we both noted a bitter undertone to it that was unpleasant.
Our server offered us dessert on the house to make up for bringing the wrong dish twice but neither of us were interested. When we got the bill, I was shocked to see that we had been charged $5 for Q-Water. Is this the new norm? I think it's really tacky to automatically give your guests filtered water/charge them without offering the alternative, Ontario's finest, which I would have been more than happy with.
Overall a disappointing experience. We both said the only thing we'd go back for is a drink at the bar.
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