08/31/07

Best Italian in town

by foodiejc

This restaurant has great service, great food and reasonable prices. I love how personal the staff makes you feel when dining here. My wife and I had the spinach and artichoke dip for an appetizer, which I now think is the best in town by far. The chips are homemade, I love that. I also had a homemade blackbean soup that was delicious. One can always tell the difference in store bought and made in house. For my entree, I ordered the chicken marsala, which is a chicken breast sauteed with a marsala wine and mushroom reduction atop a bed of angel hair. My wife had a grilled 14. 0z ribeye with a wild mushroom risotto, that melts in your mouth. For exceptional Italian at a decent price, I highly recommend Bol a Pasta. Being new to the area, Im glad we finally found a place we can both agree on. We will definately be back. Hopefully, we can meet Mr. Frank Grisanti himself, I hear he is at the restaurant often!

08/04/07

Salsa Marinara

by memphistiff

This is my first review, but I had such a strange Italian eating experience tonight, I had to write. We went for our first dinner at Bolla Pasta tonight (we are new to the area). We loved that the restaurant was smoke free. However, I can't say much for the cuisine. I was surprised to learn that the restaurant was started by an Italian family in Memphis. We ordered an appetitzer of mozzarella sticks. We received six very small sticks w/ a strange sauce that we could not identify. Much to my horror, the same sauce arrived on my pasta....yikes! Apparently, this brown sauce with carrots and peppers (?) is considered marinara sauce at this establishment. It looked and tasted somewhat like a mild flavorless salsa, which was not good at all. I have never seen brown marinara sauce with carrots and peppers in it. Never. Chef Boyardee would have been a step up from this stuff. My husband ordered spaghetti w/ meatballs and ravioli. Different sauce, but still brown and tasteless. All I can say is yuck. I have no idea where these sauces are coming from, but they are not from Italy! The salads were pretty good, although plain. The atmosphere was nice and our server was slow, but nice. My husband had 2 glasses of wine, which I should have had as well in order to make that sauce go down. Overall, I would not recommend anything w/ meat or marinara sauce on it at this restaurant. If we go back (which we actually might b/c it's smoke free), I will order the pizza or perhaps one of the other dishes that other reviewers mentioned here. To be fair, we have only gone one time. Maybe it was an off night.

• Pros: SMOKE FREE, good parking, comfortable booths, nice decor, not very expensive
• Cons: Mystery Sauce, not good italian,

05/06/07

trust me when i say Olive Garden is better than this, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY

by sheebac

do NOT go to this restaurant if you're looking for good quality italian food. this is about as worse as it gets. we were seated promptly, the WAITRESS WAS RUDE enough to interrupt my husband while he was on the phone (talking to a nurse about a sick patient) and ask him what he wanted to drink. we ordered the chicken marsala and a chicken dish with artichoke hearts in a wine sauce...... what we got was DISGUSTING BLAND FOOD that was DRIPPING IN BUTTER. the supposed white wine sauce seemed more like a melted butter sauce. the bread that we got was also dripping in butter, i had to wipe my hands everythig was so greasy. after a very unsatisfying dinner, my husband got sick, severe cramps and trips to the bathroom. it was inevitable. we will NEVER go there again. what a shame, Grisanti sounded like an Italian name.

• Pros: good location, good parking
• Cons: horrible food, immature service, weird, cafeteria like ambience