04/24/09

Not a good place to eat on Ocean Ave

by DenaG

I went to I Cugini last Saturday night for dinner and the food was pretty awful. My date and I shared the grilled Calamari and it was gross. I've had grilled Calamari before and although nothing compares to it being fried, their version tasted bad. We then shared a Cesar salad and it was fine. We also split the Shirmp Risotto and it had like a sandy grit (sand maybe) in it. We sent it back. The manager was super friendly and felt horrible and asked if we wanted to order anything else. Since the cooked food was so bad we said no. He then sent over a delicious chocolate desert - best thing we had the entire meal. I would never go back as there are too many good restaurants in Santa Monica and our meal tasted pretty terrible. Interestingly the restaurant was packed.

• Pros: The Manager was nice and wanted to fix our issue
• Cons: tasteless food, patio was quite loud

01/12/09

sat. night visit

by taylordk

Went there Saturday night with one of the restaurant's investor's no less. The place looked nice, then we sat down with the menus, and they looked the menu's at a ridiculous family restaurant, with illustrations and a wacky font. That's fine for Applebees, but this it seems like this is trying to be a top tier restaurant, or at least, its prices scream that. Overall, it seemed like Olive Garden quality food at 5-Star restaurant prices.

I got the whole Daurade fish grilled. There is a choice of having a whole fish prepared four different ways. The waiter told me the chefs prefer to girl it so I got it that way. Just that choice in itself is so ridiculous and awful, I knew it was going to be bad news. The fish came and I had them fillet it for me and it came back in broken chunks and looked very unappetizing. It was bland, screamed for some kind of sauce. The sides were even worse. Spinach salad that was cold like it just came out of the fridge and clumped together, with nothing on it but pickled onions. It was disgusting. Oh, and garlic mashed potoatoes that weren't well mashed and tasted like water. Another at the table had the lasagna, which was way too big a portion and also didn't seem freshly made. She thought it was okay. We got the grilled calamari appetizer too. That was way too small a portion, especially for the price.

Listen, if you like Olive Garden or Red Lobster, this is definitely a step up for you, and I hope you enjoy paying steep prices for mediocre to bad food, but you probably can't tell the difference anyway and are giving this place 5 stars.

01/03/09

I Cugini - Santa Monica = worst place to eat!

by Meerkat2008

To give a star to these guys would be an extravagance..... based on today's experience. We felt ashamed to treat our guests from Italy to such a poor quality food. All was substandard ...we might as well hvae taken them to McDonald's. We all feel sick now. These guys are not seving Italian cuisine! The service was so bad with this arrogant waiter. This is not about knowing or not knowing about seafood or pizza dishes and presentation ..this is about stealing our money. I feel bad for even paying for the junk they served. Funny ..there was a Zagat survey box there .... makes me laugh!

• Pros: Location
• Cons: Quality