Gnocchi from Buca Di Beppo

I ate at the Buca Di Beppo in Maitland, FL. My last visit to their location in Daytona Beach left room for improvement, but this time I enjoyed the restaurant a lot better. Just like my last visit to Buca di Beppo, the meal started out with a Mixed Greens Salad. Unlike last time, the salad was served as it was described on the menu. It wasn't just iceberg lettuce and had a mix of different types of lettuces, hence the mixed greens.

Mozzarella Garlic Bread was also ordered. I won't complain about garlic bread covered with melted cheese.

For the main course, I shared the Gnocchi al Telefono. I don't speak Italian, but does that name translate to Gnocchi of the Telephone? The gnocchi were topped with a tomato cream sauce with pieces of fresh mozzarella and basil. I had no complaints about the dish. The person I shared the dish with was unfamilar with gnocchi and didn't seem to believe me when I said gnocchi are kind of like potato dumplings. When the waitress was asked, she also denied that the gnocchi contained potatoes. That wasn't good enough for me, so I emailed Buca di Beppo's cooporate email address to find out from the source when I got home. It turns out their gnocchi do indeed contain potato.


One thing I thought was interesting about the whole eating experience was how many times we were told that Buca di Beppo was bought by Planet Hollywood. During the course of the meal, the staff mentioned this at least a half dozen times. It was printed all over the menu, and I thought this was a bit strange. Plenty of other restaurant chains are connected, but none that I can think of go out of their way to point out the parent company's other stores. When you go into Carrabba's, they don't point out throughout the meal that they are owned by Outback Steakhouse.

Daytona Beach Buca Di Beppo

I ate at the Buca Di Beppo in Daytona Beach, FL. It was probably a sign that the meal wasn't going to be perfect when there were about twenty employees smoking on the restaurant's patio and at the most ten cars in the parking lot. We were seated and there was some beverage confusion when after about a half hour, the drinks were finally served, then served a second time by someone else minutes later. Bread was brought out, but at a table of five people, only three butter packets were given. When the bread was refilled, there was no butter. A mixed green salad was brought out next. I don't know what mixed greens they were talking about, because the entire salad consisted of iceberg lettuce with a few olives and pepperchinis on top.

When nobody was looking, the waitress swooped by and cleaned up some of the bread plates off of the table, and took the quarter plate of yet to be eaten salad along with them. My main dish of Penne Campofiore was served soon after. It consisted of whole wheat penne pasta topped with zucchini, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, spinach, garlic, and romano cheese, topped in a broth. It was okay, but wasn't anything all that great. The sauce actually tasted kind of bland and needed salt. One thing I did like was the amount of spinach given. Many restaurants will skimp in spinach in pasta dishes, but Buca Di Beppo provided plenty...

The service was kind of strange at this Buca Di Beppo, but the food wasn't all that bad. I wouldn't be making a special trip back to the restaurant any time soon though. In closing, here is a picture of a Christmas light covered statue in front of the restaurant...