Trick or Trattoria?

It pains me to write this post, but I feel I have to. Sigh.

So, last Friday, my husband and I decided to have lunch together. I suggested Asti Trattoria (I took him there for his birthday 2 years ago and he loved it). We met there and ordered food and I ordered a glass of wine. The wine ordering part actually went very well. The server brought me two samples to help me decide what to order. The rest, not so much

We were there for and hour and a half and the table looked like the picture above for an hour. My husband ordered a dish that had Monkfish in it and I had the chopped salad with grilled salmon. When our orders finally came out, the server told Ruben that they didn't put enough fish on the plate and that she would bring him some more. Maybe I've been watching too much Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef, but should that have even left the kitchen if it wasn't right? My salad had onions on it, which I had asked to be cut. I sent it back. Normally, I would have just picked the onions out, but we had waited an hour for a salad with onions and a dish with a tiny piece of fish on it. But wait, it gets better. My husband takes a bite of the small piece of fish and makes a face. He said the fish tasted old and definitely overcooked. I take a bite of my salad; bland. I add salt. Yes, I did. Then, finally, one of the staff brings out another plate of fish and apologizes. My husband takes a bite and says that this is what they should have sent out in the first place: fresh, well-cooked fish. We eat quickly so we can get back to work.

Cheetah doesn't like tricks, only treats please.

Asti Trattoria (Tricktoria)

408 C East 43rd Street

Austin, TX 78751

512-451-1218

http://www.astiaustin.com/asti/