La Casa not worth the wait

Right across from the Covent Garden Market, and right around the corner from the JLC, La Casa sits in a prime spot on King Street where all the action happens. This small restaurant has an Italian style menu with a semi-formal attitude. I've always admired the restaurant from the outside and was intrigued when I saw it on the list of Londonlicious restaurants. Knowing that we only had until February 4 to take advantage of the three course for $25 Londonlicious deal, I decided that La Casa would have to be a priority to hit up as my next restaurant review.

When we arrived at La Casa, a very friendly man set the mood for our visit by taking out coats, making small talk and pulling out my chair for me. We were seated in the middle of a classy looking dining room and given menus promptly, including a wine menu with a fine looking selection of high priced wines.

The Londonlicious menu was a bit drab indeed. The options were not very intriguing to me, and I had a very hard time choosing my three courses. I was happy to hear, though, that the soup of the day was a parsnip, celeriac and apple soup with blue cheese crumble and ordered that as my appetizer. Our waitress was slightly unprofessional in her approach to us and she was finding it hard to remember our order 20 seconds after we had placed them. She brought us our drinks and some bread and butter. Free bread and butter is always a nice thought in any restaurant, but I am sad to say that even East Side Mario's bread and butter had more going on than the plain baguette that was before us. Once we had eaten the bread, the dirty plate was not cleared from our table until the end of our full meal.

I was extremely thankful for the morsel of bread though considering the amount of time it took to bring our appetizers. The appearance of our food was seemingly adequate although hard to make out due to the dimly lit location of our table. Excited to try my soup (as parsnip and apple is one of my favourite combinations as far as pureed soups go) I was extremely disappointed when I had my first bite. The flavour was acceptable, but the temperature of the soup was only slightly warmer than the room. I was shocked that the chefs at La Casa would make such a mistake. The plate and bowl appeared to be heated, suggesting that temperature was meant to be a consideration, but somehow they missed the mark. My companion's mussel dish was not as piping hot as it should have been either, making me think that perhaps the food was ready far before the server brought it to our table.

Again, the dirty dishes lay before us for an extremely long wait while we wondered if they had forgotten about us and our entrees.

Finally, after too long of a time, our plates were cleared and we were brought our main dishes. I do forgive the speed of our waitress slightly considering that the night had become quite busy for the two wait staff on the floor, but still felt like we were being a bit ignored.

My main dish was a margherita pizza. The portion size was quite large and left me with a couple of slices to pack for lunch the next day, but the pizza itself was lacking. The flavour was non-existent. It was like someone had taken a store bought crust, slapped some canned tomatoes on and covered it with cheese. The only exciting element of the pizza was one or two ripped up basil leaves placed on top.

After another long wait, our dessert arrived. I ordered the sample of five sorbets and was given three out of the five. Perhaps the other two sorbets spoiled in the time it took for our meals? Regardless, the dessert was tasty. A taste of each flavour - mango, blueberry and strawberry - was just enough as they were all exploding with fruity freshness.

You would think by now the servers at La Casa would have realized the length of our stay, but instead they followed with the tradition of the evening and took a lifetime to send us the bill.

On my own accord, I would not choose La Casa as a place to dine again, but if a friend was having their birthday there I wouldn't refuse to spend an evening their either. I would just make sure to clear any other plans for that night.