I ate at the newly opened Cafe Murano in Altamonte Springs, FL. This Italian restaurant was formerly Gina's Lakefront and has a nice view of Cranes Roost Park. After waiting about ten minutes, we were seated. We ordered our food and then waited. The food took a very long time to be served, about an hour. During that wait, I took notice of my surroundings. The restaurant had way too many TVs in the room, all playing something different. In the environment that the restaurant seemed to be trying to create, the TVs really didn't fit in. There was a very loud and drunk birthday party on the other side of the room, and then a DJ took over the TVs and started playing music videos.
Finally, the food was served. I ordered the Rigatoni Broccoli Rabe, which consisted of large rigatoni noodles topped with Italian sausage, garlic, and broccoli rabe. It was good, but reminded me too much of something I would make myself at home. It was a really simple dish, and truthfully, I ordered it for the broccoli rabe because I don't see that on menus very often. I'd get it again!
Finally, the food was served. I ordered the Rigatoni Broccoli Rabe, which consisted of large rigatoni noodles topped with Italian sausage, garlic, and broccoli rabe. It was good, but reminded me too much of something I would make myself at home. It was a really simple dish, and truthfully, I ordered it for the broccoli rabe because I don't see that on menus very often. I'd get it again!
Someone else at the table ordered a brick oven pizza topped with meatballs. They couldn't finish the whole pie on their own, so I tried a slice. I wasn't expecting much since the restaurant didn't seem to specialize in pizza, but I was pleasantly surprised. It had a nice thin, crispy crust. There was a perfect amount of cheese and sauce on the pie, and I liked the meatballs too. Sometimes the meatballs on pizza taste like plain ground beef, but these had plenty of flavor. The edge of the crust was a little burnt in spots, but besides from that, I had no issues. If I return to Cafe Murano, I think I'll definitely be getting the pizza too!
5 comments:
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Do Not! I repeat DO NOT TRY TO ORGANIZE AN EVENT WITH CAFE MURANO! I looked into using Cafe Murano for my diner rehearse and received no follow through with this company. On 7-19-2009 me my fiance and family went into Cafe Murano to consider using them for the rehearsal to take place in November. We were welcomed my Luke(one of the two managers) who made us feel like anything was possible. Well it wasn't. We were told that we could have the main dining room to ourselves, that we could easily do the menu options that we wanted to fit our budget of $22 per person. All we would have to do is email them the particulars and that they would work out final pricing and the details because since newly opened that they had not hosted many events. I did not know that this meant that they did not know how to handle hosting an event. We email them on the following day and received no response back until we played phone tag and reached them 4 weeks later! By then Trent told us that we could not have the dining room privately and that our assured budget of $22 per person had gone to $33 per person. My mother asked to see this explained in email form and was not responded to at all. I contacted Luke the following week and he explained that we could only have 90% of the dining room and I excepted this and was told that we could not have the diner options that we were assured that we could have at that price point. I inquired to what options that we could have at this original $22 per person and was told that it would have to be some chicken dishes and spaghetti. I needed to get this taken as quickly as possible and asked for them to still proceed with working up the new menu and sending me the detail via email that was 3 weeks ago and still have not received a response. We have a tremendous amount of details on our plate and now it is the 9th of September and we are starting over with another venue with even less time because of the lack of follow through with Cafe Murano. If you don't mind holding Trent and Luke's hand through the process of planning an event I'm sure you would have a great time, but if you need some professionalism and follow through you may want to look else where. I repeat Do Not Plan an Event With Cafe Murano.
LOL... ever consider maybe they didn't want you there!
Brad.... sounds like your marriage is off to a good start! Maybe you should throw in the towel ! I'm sure any restaurant in Altamonte would love to rent their whole fricking restaurant for 22 bucks a plate... NOT, why don't you try Burger King... i hear they have a good deal on Two for Ones!
The budget of $22 is a figure the manager threw at us when we met. The main dinning room is only about 60% of their actual restaurant. These we're all things that when we went over in person that they we're okay with. If they didn't want us there I can accept that too. It's the fact that they took 4 weeks to figure this out the first time and still haven't responded since the last time I spoke to them 5 weeks ago. So a total of 9 weeks, it's the lack of professionalism not the details about the budget or the seating those are both things we we're trying to work out with them.
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