Valencia Eats: Double trouble at La Mattina
Often I'll put up with poor service when the food is fantastic, and other times brilliant service ameliorates lackluster food. At La Mattina, near Plaza España, both food and service fell short.
With a group of 7, we ordered the dinner set menu for about €17 per person. This included 3 starters, either pizza, lasagna, or linguini with pesto, beverage, and dessert.
The first to come was the charcuterie plate. It was basically a plate of cold cuts from Mercadona, the mainstream supermarket. I know because I buy cold cuts from Mercadona too, so it's not that I minded the quality, it's just not what I would expect from a restaurant. There was deli ham, chorizo, and other non-Italian selections.
We also got zucchini carpaccio, which was dry and tasteless. Topped with balsamic reduction and black sesame seeds.
You may notice in the picture above that we have yet to receive plates. Not a big deal, but then the third appetizer comes - a salad with mozzarella, tomatoes, and spinach. A bit hard to share among a table of 7.
After the three appetizers came (and plates, finally), we waited another 20-30 minutes, and then the waitress comes out and says they have only enough dough for 2 pizzas, when we had ordered 5. Hmmm, we were the last table of the evening, I'm not sure how they only realized an hour after we ordered that they don't have enough ingredients to serve us?
So then we consulted the menu again, and chose some other pastas. The pastas were all incredibly bland. There was a spaghetti with a thin tomato sauce, and the pesto pasta on the dinner set menu was served with spaghetti instead of the advertised linguini, and the sauce was so dry and tasteless. I realized at this time that actually they had run our of linguini long ago, because a table being served when we were ordering had asked why their pesto pasta was with spaghetti, and the server just curtly said that they ran out. Yet the server didn't inform us that there was no linguini when we ordered.
Oh, and the lasagna was burnt but cold, and had to be sent back to the kitchen to be reheated.
And the pizza which was apparently so popular they ran out of dough? So so. It didn't taste bad, but it was spongy and floppy. I much prefer the refrigerated pizza my roommate gets from Mercadona and heats up in the oven at home.
In the end, I thought for SURE we would be comped at least one meal, or be given something extra to compensate for the mishaps on so many levels. Yet there was nothing.
I feel sorry that we came to La Mattina for dinner.
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La Mattina
Carrer de Honorato Juan, 11
46007
Valencia
