The Little Village: Three Strikes and You're Out!

I love Italian food.  I love local restaurants.  I love giving second chances.   But after three tries, I still don’t love The Little Village!  And I have no idea why it remains a popular Baton Rouge restaurant.

Let me just fly through the first two meals. 

Try #1:  Mediocre meal, and there was that pricey bread that they sort of trick you into buying. (More about that "bread trick" later.)

Try #2:  An o.k. meal with my sisters—but the restaurant was infested with fruit flies.  Not appetizing, and the servers seemed to think it was not a problem.  (More about that "not a problem" later.)

Try # 3:

The atmosphere of the new location is pleasant enough, but, as with so many restaurants, the acoustics are a bit loud.  More annoying is the fact that the tables are so cramped together that trying to dodge waiters on the way to the table is difficult.  Evidence of this was a head-on collision of two waiters and a lot of broken plates.

And the restrooms are not IN the restaurant.  You have to go out to a hall and then another turn into another hall—no signage to guide you there or back!

Our waiter took our drink order and asked that tricky question: Did we want to start out with bread? Since we hadn’t even looked our menus yet, we didn’t remember that the “half loaf” that we agreed to was $6.  It was a good thing we declined the tapenade the waiter suggested ($1.50) and roasted garlic ($3.00).  The bread is very airy and drenched in oil and topped with cheese.  Good?  Yes.  Worth $6?  No.  

[Let me just pause to say that I am so tired of the new server mantra:  “Not a problem.”  Is waiting on customers mostly a problem and I am the exception?  I just don’t get this expression.]

We ordered the “A la Village Oysters 2-2-2” for an appetizer—2 Bienville, 2 Rockefeller, and 2 A la Village oysters--or so we thought.  After our waiter brought our wine and took our entrée order, he said he would have our salads out right away.  We thought he just misspoke, but, nope, he had forgotten our appetizer order.

So we were told to “enjoy” our salads before the appetizer.  The salads were unremarkable—only greens, not a vegetable or garnish in sight. 

The oysters arrived, lukewarm, but edible.  Well, again—sort of.  My oysters had a lot of grit in them.

My husband did enjoy his bruccialuna, which is a veal cutlet roll stuffed with bread crumbs, prosciutto and pine nuts and stewed in a red sauce.

I had the veal marsala.  Although this dish consisted of a generous two-slice portion of veal, it was a little over-breaded.  The marsala sauce was plentiful but tasted more of beef broth, and not a homemade one, than marsala. 

Then there was a long wait after we finished our entrées until our server came to ask us about our dessert order.  There was another long wait before our server brought our dessert order.  There was another long wait for our check to arrive.  There was another long wait for our bill to be processed.

The Little Village was crowded, even on a rainy Saturday night, but I continue to wonder why.  Mediocre food.  Slow, spacy service.  That’s it for our The Little Village “inning.”  You're outa here!