10/05/09

Good food, horrible service

by pinkett

Food is pretty good but the staff is terrible. They asked my group to leave IMMEDIATELY after paying the bill because there was a line outside to be seated. The four of us still had half full wine glasses. Very rude considering we all got expensive entrees and appetizers. Won't be going back.

• Pros: Atmosphere
• Cons: VERY RUDE

09/14/09

Pretty Terrible & Disappointing

by MRS19129

I went here for a girl's night & was so excited because Cafe Fellini in Media is my favorite restaurant, but Ardmore is a lot closer. Started out waiting for our server for 15 minutes although she came over several times saying how busy she was & complaining. I turned around in my seat to see how busy it was & there were 2 other tables. Seriously? Some of are/were servers & you leanr to deal with stuff in a rush hour, but c'mon. Our server was nice, but ditzy. Finally got some water. Another 10 mins later we got wine glasses for our wine. We were fine & having a great time since it was a girl's night, but wow. We couldn't even order any appetizers because it's their policy that you can only order them when the dinners are ordered. Uh, ok! They were quick, as promised, but disappointing! Brushetta was just huge piles of shaved parmesean, a few tomatoes & stale bread. The caprese salad was pretty terrible too with un-ripe tomatoes & a tiny bit of balsamic. I ordered the same meal I get at the Media location, which is amazing. It was a completely different recipe at Ardmore! No resemblence in taste at all. I even had to ask for more ricotta cheese, which is the main part of the meal. I was sooo disappointed. I'm eating my leftovers right now which is what spawned me to write this review. All in all, it was completely terrible, except enjoying a night out with my friends. I will definitely not return here.

• Pros: BYOB & Big portions (But see the con)
• Cons: Food & Service

08/17/09

"Waterbugs". Terrible food. Slow. Dark. No AC

by adamjcor

"Waterbugs"<---because they wont let me type their regular name here.

4 of them crawled out of a crevice of the wall when our food was placed on the table. My Tortaloni was cold, our calamari grilled over arugula was overcooked and dry, and my girlfriends "angelhair" was really shreads of mealy pasta one to 2 inches in length.

I am going easy on them, BTW.

• Pros: Huge plates
• Cons: Huge Plates of inedible food

06/26/09

Mediocre service, worse food

by rome

My fiance and I each supported ourselves in undergrad serving tables so we know it can be tiring, stressful and frustrating sometimes. But we also know it is possible to provide at least adequate service during a 4 hour dinner shfit. That is why we are hyper aware of when we are getting bad service. And that's what we got at Fellini's followed by terrible, terrible food.

Our waitress was a rather uninterested Guatemalan girl who mostly regarded us as a nuisance. None of our orders were correct, she did could not open a beer or wine bottle and she allowed dirty dishes and trash to accumulate on our table forcing me to clear the table myself and bring the garbage to the waitress station.

Then she brought out some of the most putrid "Italian" food I have ever eaten in my life. The menu alludes to some Italian woman that home made her pasta and carefully stewed her gravy for a day. Everybody I saw working was from Latin America including the kitchen staff that clearly took ZERO pride in their food.

The side pasta with oil, garlic and basil that I requested was dried out spaghetti soaked in oil with a hint of garlic. My grilled salmon did not look or taste anything like salmon after they grilled it to extra crispy well done. It had the texture of charred chicken breast and tasted like nothing but the lemon wedge I squeezed on top of it.

I could not justify spending $20 on this flavorless hunk of rubber so I returned it for a simple ravioli dish that was supposed to have basil and tomatoes. Our sweet, but very dim waitress brought out water logged raviolis with splash of texture-less red sauce on top. No exagerration- it tasted exactly like the Chef Boyardee canned raviolis my roommates and I ate in college.

Mercifully our bill finally came and we left.

Go somewhere else.

• Pros: The bathroom hand soap smells nice
• Cons: Garbage food that tasted like Chef Boyardee

05/11/09

ROACHES-Dirty, nasty, AWFUL service

by KM32

This place is DISGUSTING. The Board of Health needs to shut them down. this place needs to be exposed before people get sick. We ordered the Minestrone soup which arrived as a clear chicken, greese-laden broth with nothing but celery and carrots. We are Italian descent and have never been served Minestrone this way no matter the region. It was awful. food took forever to be served. the usual toasted Brushetta to hold us over, was STALE. The portions are huge, however only the pasta element, the rest of the ingredients(vege and protein) were nearly non-existent. My father ordered gnocchi and received tortellini. He sent it back and was served almost RAW gnocchi. Just as I was taking my second bite, I noticed a creature staring at me from on the wall. It was a cockro ach that was looking for a way to crawl down onto our table. We quickly called the waiter over and showed him as we leapt from our chairs. He pretended to squish it in a napkin as if to go through the motion, but I saw the creature quickly escape. The waiter seemed to think everything should be fine now and for us to sit back down and continue our meal. As he apologized, and motioned for us to sit, our new friend crawled back out. I motioned to the waiter towards the r0ach and he again tried to swipe at the creature, but was not quick enough. Again, we were told to sit back down. I, being on the inside next to the wall, opted to move my seat to another table and away from a wall. This table was dirty with used utensils and napkin and had been this way since we entered the place. It was a Wed evening at 5:30pm,not busy. Next the manager or owner came over and tried to blame everyone but his dirty restaurant for our experience. the manager would not let up until he moved our table. He wanted to know why we were sitting there as they never let guests sit there(as if the creatures were contained to one table). He went on to tell us that the restaurant was supposed to be SPRAYED that day but they didnt show up. So he was aware of an infestation and allowed people to continue eating there. He then forced us to move our seats to the table directly behind the contaminated one even after we stated numerous time we did not want to. This new spot was wall locked on 3 sides and made me feel like I had to keep eyes on every side of me as the walls are inches away. Next the lights were dimmed, this is how they planned to HIDE their R0ACH infestation! After the lights were dimmed is when I was done with the place. Every corner of the place has holes and cr@cks and it is filthy, bu g heaven. The manager offered us free dessert as if that would make up for this disaster. Told him I lost my appetite and did not want to eat another thing from there. He had my meal wrapped, telling me I could eat it later and made me pay for the meal. UNBELIEVEABLE. This disaster didnt end there, placed the bag on the floor of the car and as we pulled from our spot, another BEETLE or R0ACH type creature arose from the bag

• Pros: Absolutely NONE
• Cons: R0ach infestation, still forced to pay bill after not eating

01/27/09

try the felini's in newtown square

by CSMobileUser

I always have great service at the felinis in newtown square. Service is always very pleasent and the food is rustic and tasty. U should also try there sister resteraunt in broomall called gissepie trattoria (sorry for spelling). But they have a larger resteraunt if u don't feel like being back to back with someone. The ardmore felinis is under different manegment the the two I mentioned so I urge you to try those ones

09/06/08

Will not return. Better pasta next door.

by MLMJ5

I could not agree more with the last reviewer. We will not return either. If the food was the only thing by which you judge a restaurant, perhaps, but the service was poor and the restaurant kept filling up with larger and larger parties of (barely 21?) college students looking for a BYOB.

After waiting a long time and listening to the specials I order a pizza and am told they don't serve them on the weekend. This is not on the menu. Okay. I order the pasta special. The pasta was undercooked, stuck together and missing a few ingredients the waiter recited.

We dined with our 3 children and asked for child's size portions. When we received the bill, we are charged $12 each for 2 spaghetti & meatball and $9 for spaghetti with butter. The one other time we brought our children there, they charge us $5.95 for each pasta. When we ask the waiter, he makes excuses and then has us talk to the manager. He says he should have charged us $10.95 for the pastas. I guess they make things up as they go? Even in a fine restaurant, I have never paid $9 for buttered noodles. We were offended by this.

The waiter was defensive, overbearing, left water glasses empty and kept us busy handing him things. When we did get water glassed refilled the waiter dripped on me as his elbow was in my face. When he cleared our plates, we asked to take home our pastas, which were never returned to us. That is okay because as he was clearing our plates one of our pasta plates grazed the hair of the woman behind us. Yuck. I waited tables for 7 years in my earlier days and could not believe how consistently poor this service was.

Enough said. For good pasta and pizza go to Primavera a block away. For excellent pasta and fair prices based on quality, even for children, go to Portofino down the street. The service and food are excellent there. For a BYOB, you have many other choices on the Main Line where the service is good and the management and servers are not so hostile.

08/31/08

Overpriced with Mediocre Service

by faultylight

Well, a group of us regrettably decided to try eating at Fellini tonight (in Ardmore). The server was friendly enough, but pushy. She pushed the specials very hard (which were 25% more expensive than anything on the menu), and even challenged one person's order, urging her to upgrade to a "more flavorful" dish. We also had several rounds of "clarifying" the restaurant policies: the pricing on the menu is unclear; several items are not available for dinner, but the menu doesn't state that; and sharing dishes is not permitted (every person must order an entree).

When our food eventually came out (long wait despite not-full restaurant), the portions were very large, but the quality was not what I would expect given the price. My salad had small, grocery-store croutons and the pasta had cheap powdered Parmesan. The bruschetta was flavorless -- sad tomatoes (despite them being locally in season) on semi-crisp bread. The ricotta and asparagus pizza tasted fine, but there were no asparagus tips -- it was like they were saving the tips for the pasta and using only the stalks on the (cheaper) pizza.

The atmosphere wasn't too awful, although it was a little kitschy (lavishly decorated with "Tuscan-inspired" pitchers, which were hung so one couldn't help but see "made in china" and bargain brands stamped on the bottoms). Also, the owner/host was pacing through the restaurant, barking orders at the servers more loudly than any of the other conversations. The overall feel of the dishes and policies was that they were scrimping and cutting corners, which impacted the food and service quality substantially, while hoping that large portions would justify higher prices. Going here was a spontaneous decision, but it's not one I intend to repeat.

• Pros: large portions, good location
• Cons: low quality, inflated prices, bad policies, pushy servers

06/28/08

A local Gem

by TheRealTopChef

If this was a fine dining restaurant, I would give it 5 stars. But because it is a crowded, hot, sweaty, local hole in the wall, 4-max.

All of the traditional, staple dishes on the menu (Penne alla Vodka, Penne bolognese) are very tasty. The portions are great and the prices can't be beat. Most dishes are under 15.

This is a great place to bring a couple bottles of wine and enjoy the chaotic throw the food at you deliciousness.

Be prepared to wait in line.

• Pros: Taste and environment
• Cons: hot in the summer, cold in the winter

05/19/08

poor service

by jbhs

I have wanted to eat at Fellini's because it has such a great location. After eating there tonight, I wonder how they are able to compete with the other fabulous restaurants in Ardmore. All three members of my party ordered Paninis, only to be told that Paninis are not made for dinner - which is not mentioned on the menu. So then we decided to order two pizzas. We were informed that because three people were sitting at the table, we must order three meals. We considered adding an appetizer to our order, and were told that an appetizer does not count as a meal. After a few minutes, we decided to leave the restaurant, but said we would pay for our drinks. The waitress made a sarcastic and nasty comment to us, although we were trying to be as nice as possible. We attempted to pay for our drinks with a credit card, but you cannot pay with a credit card unless your order is $15 or more. I would not recommend this restaurant, especially given the plethora of other nice restaurants in the area, due to Fellini Cafe's policies that reflect poor customer service.