Critic's Review
Casa Calabria is open for lunch now, so I thought I'd give it a try. They've made a nice presentation on their web page, but I know better. I know this hotel. Leopards can't change their spots easily.
They only have Valet parking here, and it's a bumper cars operation. I wouldn't let these guys park my car if it was free. It's also not clear if you can park in their private lot across the street; most of the lots on this road say "Guests and Employees only". If I'm having lunch am I a guest? I parked at McDonald's to be safe. They have tow-away signs there too, but nobody is going to tow your car from a public lot for parking there for an hour.
Approaching the hotel, I noticed that there's no promotion on the front of the building. Where the Tokyo Blue logo was is now covered by shrubberies.
This place keeps getting face lifts and keeps looking like an $89/night hotel to me. I walked into the restaurant and waited by the hostess stand. I recognized the "royal" tables from the web site. They got a very good photographer to do the site; the place is much drearier in person. These tables are right in front of the entrance, so I wouldn't want to sit here.
Waiting and waiting. I could hear people in the back room; the bar area was clearly closed. But there was no-one in the front. A guy came out and got something out of the display; looked at me and said "Hello". Then went back into the kitchen. Very odd. Then he came back out. 'Can I help you". "I'm here for lunch". "Oh, sit anywhere you want". Ok, like I knew to just walk into a hotel restaurant and take a seat.
There were just 2 tables occupied; one was a large group who seemed to be friends with the operators. The other was 2 girls having a sandwich. So probably 2 hotel guests in the place.
The only server in the place came over and told me I'd have to move because the table wasn't set up. "You can't bring me a rollup?". She tried to explain that it didn't have the white tablecloth over the beige tablecloth.
"I can't sit by the window because you haven't set up any of the tables?" I convinced her that the table was fine. She gave me a menu and I ordered an iced tea with extra lemon.
This is what she brought.
No Straw. A little chunk of lemon. She just dropped it and sped away, so I didn't get a chance to remind her.
The lunch menu is garbage; sandwiches and cheese boards. Luckily they serve the full menu. I was going to get an appetizer, but then noticed that they have Orecchiette with rapini and sausage. I also noticed that they've already raised the prices across the board $1 to $3.. Who raises the prices in the summer, particularly when your prices are already ridiculously high?
Salumi is a big thing now (the success of Bossi's inspired), but it will be a few inspections before I eat anything cured in this place. The hotel has a long history of getting fined for food preparation violations. A much bigger deal when they were serving raw fish than pasta. They're probably not curing the meat themselves, but I'm not taking any chances.
Crooner music filled the air. Sinatra and Bubl. Perry Danos. It fit in perfectly with the view of the pool.
As I was sitting there watching people eat their sandwiches I wondered why there was no bread; a high end Italian restaurant with no bread? No working wireless in the restaurant (hotel wireless was too weak). I figured I'd take this opportunity to go to the bathroom.
The bathrooms are in the bar area, which has been redecorated from the Tokyo blue days. The VIP booths are gone and they've put in some tables. Hotels get liquor licenses without having to reach any seat quotas, so they don't have to open the whole restaurant to serve alcohol.
When I returned the server girl was at the next table, so I asked her for a straw. She brought the straw and sped away.
A few minutes later a guy came out and dropped off some bread. This is a full 15 minutes after she took my order.
One of the problems with a Calabria themed restaurant is that Calabrian specialties are a bit bizarre; tripe and beef stomach aren't big in America, and 'Nduja is something nobody knows about. I didn't want a sandwich so I'd have to pass on 'Nduja; plus I've never had it before so I don't know how it's supposed to taste.
I was hoping that the red paste was 'Nduja, a hot sausage, but it wasn't spicy at all and tasted of olives; some sort of tapenade. There was zero chance my server was going to know what it was, so I didn't ask.
The sauce was just a smooth tomato sauce. Not bad; a bit pungent but good with the bread. I think they used a bit too much yeast in the bread but maybe they wanted the big air pocket? Makes it look like a lot more than there is.
6 minutes later, a dude brought out the main course.
Ugh. Way too much liquid and waterlogged, overcooked rapini is a recipe for disappointment. The sausage tasted like it was boiled, and there wasn't much of it. They did use good, thick pasta (unlike the junk that I got at Big City Tavern), but the dish was just all wrong. There's a way to make this dish, and whoever made it doesn't understand how to cook rapini. This was also a $12 portion; maybe $2 worth of food for $18.
At this point I knew that the server was totally incompetent and totally overmatched with her 2 tables (the girls had long since left). She disappeared for long periods of time. Very long. She never checked on me after the food was delivered; if you can't do that with 2 tables, then you really don't know your job.
The beauty of this dish when properly made is to spear a chunk of sausage, a piece of rapini and a "little ear" and get all of the flavors together. So the ratio is important. When you have a lot of pasta left over, you've been cheated out of the other ingredients.
I waited a full 10 minutes for her to appear. I thought she went home (it was after 3pm by now). I seriously thought of walking out, because I couldn't sit here forever. Finally she came running over.
She asked if I wanted to take it home. "No thanks, I have to go". Then she started to get chatty, realizing that her tip might be in jeopardy. There was nothing she could do to get more than 3 bucks for this debacle. She confided in me that she didn't even know how to enter the order into their system. For some reason this didn't surprise me.
Conclusion
This place doesn't really look like a restaurant, it looks like a back room in a hotel with some tables set up. It was a joke as "Tokyo Blue"; an attempt at a club that just happened to serve really expensive sushi.
I suspect that this "idea" was borrowed from Bossi's; Wildly overpriced pasta; $23 for $4 worth of food. The difference is that Bossi's is on Las Olas, and this place is in a second rate hotel.
Totally untrained, incompetent servers, no hostess, no bussers; the feel of a poorly run deli, and prices like a top notch restaurant. Don't waste your time or your money. This is the worst expensive Italian restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.
He's not very 'hands-on' at this place and his ownership and involvement there is minimal.
But I'd like to know what you believe is a joke about the place---not the owners themselves.
Based on the poor review above I haven't tried the Restaurant, but Vito's family coffee shop is good.
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