Melograno - Good Food, Not so Good Service

Melograno
2010 Sansom St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Neighborhoods: Rittenhouse Square, Penn Center

+Amy Fan and I came here on a Friday during early evening.  I got there first, so I walked in and stood behind a couple who had just arrived and were in the middle of being seated.  I waited patiently while the hostess sat the couple.  In the meantime, another couple came in behind me.  Immediately, someone came up and asked if he could help seat them.  Then, the hostess came back and asked them if she could help them.  At that point, I was starting to get peeved.  The hostess saw me walk in, saw me waited, and totally ignored me.  Absolutely an abysmal way to treat guests. I interjected and asked for a table. Her immediate response was whether I was expecting the entire party soon - I lied and said yes so she would seat me.  I lied because there was no reason she shouldn't seat me given that there were many tables open and no one else in queue, and also because I was already annoyed with her customer service. Just one last mention of service quality here - we were interrupted several times by the waiter in mid-conversation.  My experiences at other restaurants have been that waiters/waitresses arrive at the table, wait a second or two for the table to turn its attention to him/her, and then begin.  Here, the guy arrived and just started talking.

So, to the food.  We split the Polpette - for ten bucks we got two meatballs made with pork, veal, and beef topped wtih tomato sauce and pecorino cheese.  A bit pricey at $5 per meatball, but...actually, no buts.  We also shared a plate of fried fish.  I can't remember the name of the dish, but it wasn't that memorable anyway.

For my main dish, I had the Cotoletta alla Senese - a fried chicken breast topped with several slices of prosciutto, arugula, tomatoes, and mozzarella.  The chicken was good, but then again, it's hard to mess up fried chicken.  However, it wasn't anything to write home about either.

Finally, for dessert, we had the Panna Cotta topped with berries.  The panna cotta is about 2.5 inches in diameter, but came out on a 12 inch diameter plate.  That was a bit absurd.  All it did was drew my attention to how little food we got.  At least it tasted good!

So, bad service, OK food.  You decide.