March 2, 2010 5

Gjelina (Abbot Kinney)

By in 15: Venice

My friend and I went to Gjelina for lunch on a weekday. This place is usually packed but we managed to be seated. But being seated doesn’t necessarily mean you’d be served, or the food would come on time.

We waited for quite awhile and finally got our order in, thus our waiting game has begun.  We’ve waited for what felt like a century and still haven’t seen our appetizer  (and it was next to impossible to flag down our busy server). After some enquiry, they found out that our order was mistakenly delievered to our neighboring table and no one bother to do anything about it.

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After much fuss, it’s finally here. Grilled Seckle Pears, Burrata, Prosciutto, Arugula & Radicchio. It’s like all my favorite ingredients in one dish. The sweet grilled pears with runny burrata has gotta be one of the most delicious combination.

After chowing down that delicious appetizer it’s more waiting for our pizza. We waited and waited…nothing. Finally we found our server and he said our pizza was burnt in the oven so they have to remake it. Can our luck really be that rotten? Two orders and both are ‘delayed’ somehow.

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Pizza: Mushroom, Goat Cheese & Truffle Oil.  It’s rather lukewarm and the bottom of the pizza is still very burnt…did they really remake it!? Pity because this would have been a perfect pizza…but at this point I was too fed up and just wanted to get out of here. They probably realized their mistakes and offer us a free dessert.

Their menu sounded very interesting and unpredictable (i’d love to try everything on it), but sadly the service was careless and lacking. I’m usually the kind of person which ‘service’ is low in my priority (as I rarely talked about it). But this time the disappointment and  frustration of bad services has outdone the taste.

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5 Responses to “Gjelina (Abbot Kinney)”

  1. Diana says:

    Wow. Service wasn’t great the first time I went to Gjelina for brunch, but when a friend and I went this past Sunday, we had a completely different experience. We were seated right away, the food came out quickly, and everything was perfect — including the lamb pizza. What a bummer that the restaurant seems to be so inconsistent. When the food is good — it’s amazing.

  2. weezermonkey says:

    I still haven’t tried Gjelina. Sad to hear about the service. 🙁

  3. Freda says:

    Hi Diana
    This entry was actually from a month ago, so maybe they have improved their service since then? That’s good to know!

  4. Jeehee says:

    Sam Fox, a Phoenician restauranteur guru who has, like 80 restaurants under his belt, when asked where he’d eat if he wasn’t eating at one of his, said GJelina!

  5. Good write-up, I’m regular visitor of one’s site, maintain up the nice operate, and It’s going to be a regular visitor for a lengthy time.