Lost in the translation
At the risk of sounding like a character in the movie Cool Hand Luke, let me say that when it comes to dinner at the new Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Overland Park, there’s definitely “a failure to communicate.”
What do I mean? The staff at this slickly operated, Texas-based chain restaurant (operated by parent company Outback Steakhouses Inc.) could use a little extra training when it comes to answering even the simplest questions.
It started the minute I walked in for my second dinner in the place. The roof of this newly built, freestanding building (constructed on the site of a tired old Chi-Chi’s restaurant) is cleverly planted — like the terrace roofs of Babylon’s legendary hanging gardens — with an assortment of shrubs, junipers, leafy little trees, and perennial plants. It’s an unexpectedly beautiful exterior in the middle of this dullsville suburban shopping strip, and I was nearly caught off guard when my friend Bob asked the hostess guiding us to our table whether the greenery on the roof was real. To anyone who has ever yanked weeds in a garden, those shrubs and trees are obviously real.
That’s why I laughed when the hostess, an apple-cheeked young woman, said, “No, they’re fake.”
Surely she was kidding, I thought, looking for a trace of a mischievous gleam in her eyes. But no, she was absolutely serious. “They’re fake,” she insisted, plopping down two menus on the plastic-topped table and scurrying back to her hostess station.
We sat in shocked silence until our waiter arrived and we asked him the same question. “Oh, no, that stuff’s all real,” he said. “There’s a sprinkler system up there to keep everything watered.” It would be the last question of the night he would answer with any confidence, but there it was. Later, when one of the managers walked by, I flagged her down to ask the first of many questions during that dinner.
“Who told you the plantings weren’t real?” she asked, almost incredulously. When we tattled on the hostess, she simply shrugged as if our answer was expected. “I’ll have to talk to her,” she sighed.
There are plenty of staff members at Carrabba’s — named for one of the chain’s two Italian-American founders, Johnny Carrabba (who opened his first namesake restaurant with partner Damian Mandola in 1986) — with whom I’d like to have a talk, starting with that night’s server, who was eager but awkward, and deserves points for his inventiveness, if not his serving skills.
Looking at the restaurant’s appetizer list, I read that the plate of sausage and peppers ($6.49) offered “handmade Italian fennel sausage.” Where, I asked our waiter, is the sausage actually made?
“Made?” he gasped. “Oh, where is it made? There’s, uh, a really interesting story about that. It’s, well, made on a little island off the coast of Italy.”
Oh, really, I thought, imported all the way from Italy? As I narrowed my eyebrows at his “really interesting story,” the waiter abruptly stopped his monologue. “Maybe I better find out more about it.”
And off he ran, returning quickly with a basket of warm, yeasty bread (actually baked in the Carrabba’s kitchen) and a plate of chopped peppers and herbs, which he doused with a splash of olive oil. “You can dip your bread in this,” he explained. “And I found out about the sausage; it’s from Texas, made from an old Carrabba family recipe.” And he vanished again.
“Poor kid,” said Bob, dipping a wedge of bread into the oil. “It’s probably his first night on the floor and you’re torturing him.”
Torture? I reminded him that torture was the years I worked as a waiter for a certain huge national restaurant chain that demanded, in addition to a perpetually perky attitude (which finally did me in), an encyclopedic knowledge of its large menu; we were frequently tested on the ingredients of every single dish. It was grueling, but I can still name them, two decades later.
On a previous visit, our perpetually perky waitress had been a much quicker study. If I asked any question she couldn’t answer, she dragged over a manager or another server to answer for her, like a kindly camp counselor. And when she accidentally brought me a plate of Speidino Di Mare (grilled shrimp and sea scallops; $14.99) with a mound of pasta in the slightly spicy tomato-and-basil sauce instead of the fettuccine Alfredo that I had ordered, she rushed back to the kitchen and the manager returned, in seconds, with another plate of fettuccine, this time drenched in butter, cheese, and cream. “She’s so sorry,” he clucked, in a fatherly fashion.
At Carrabba’s, the servers are young, peppy, and energetic. They need to be, in the frenetic environment of this bustling dining room, with its tile floors, mauve stucco walls, and faux arbors, all leafy and covered with tendrils of grapevines that are clearly of the no-nonsense fake variety. On a busy night, even during the weekdays, this place fills up quickly and the staff members working the hostess station often stand right outside the front door (where the handle is painted to look like a chianti bottle) holding clipboards and passing out beepers; the wait can be as long as an hour on the weekends.
One night, waiting for a table, my friend Carol and I sipped iced tea and chatted with the bartender, a broad-shouldered guy who looked like a turn-of-the-century bartender, complete with a handlebar mustache and starched white shirt, which might cause one to think that Carrabba’s is a family-owned eatery that has been around forever. But like its more-established chain rivals, Romano’s Macaroni Grill and Olive Garden, Carrabba’s is a modern restaurant that’s accessible, reasonably priced, and serves big portions (but with a more discreet hand on the garlic press than Olive Garden). Unlike its rivals, Carrabba’s gives the illusion of being an old-fashioned neighborhood joint (old sepia-toned photographs of the Carrabba family hang on the walls, along with decent pieces of Tuscan-style pottery), even though it’s a corporate operation.
The fare at Carrabba’s is definitely more sophisticated than the fare served by its equally popular rivals. The fragrance of the open kitchen’s wood-burning grill can intoxicate a hungry diner (especially if you’re stuck holding a beeper for more than 30 minutes), and the best dishes here are the grilled offerings, including a moist, flavorful chicken marsala glazed with a slightly sweet wine sauce ($12.99) and served with two scoops of garlic mashed potatoes that should have been hotter.
The 9-ounce grilled tenderloin ($16.99) is luscious, and the Chicken Bryan ($13.99), topped with cheese and swimming in a fresh-tasting basil-lemon-butter sauce is practically decadent. All of the dinners here, grilled entrées and pasta dishes alike, are served with big ol’ salads: a choice of Caesar; a house salad with a creamy parmesan dressing; or an Italian version, perked up with lots of carrots and a tart, citrusy vinaigrette.
After eating an appetizer, bread, and salad, an unsuspecting diner might groan (as we did) when the generously laden dinner plates finally arrive. Carol barely made a dent in her bowl of wildly rich Pasta Carrabba ($11.99), a fettuccine Alfredo adorned with pieces of grilled chicken, sautéed mushrooms, and green peas (luckily, the Carrabba’s staff happily boxes up leftovers in easy-to-microwave plastic boxes tucked into brown paper sacks).
On another visit, I was so full of sausage, bread, and salad that I just picked at my bowl of pasta and grilled chicken ($9.99) in a fragrant sauce of crushed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil. I opted to take the rest of it home so I could nibble on something sweet instead.
There are five desserts on the Carrabba’s dolce menu, with the greatest bargain being the most outlandishly sinful: the delicious Sogna Di Cioccolata ($4.49), which roughly translates as a “chocolate dream.” Dream? It’s a fantasy, actually, this eye-popping slab of chewy, fudgy brownie, lightly brushed with Kahlua liqueur and layered with milk-chocolate mousse and freshly whipped cream. I polished off half of it at the table, had the rest boxed up, and ate the other half at 3 the following morning after literally waking up from a chocolate dream.
It was especially good after those last few bites of the leftover fennel sausage, which I also took home with me. And now I confess that I’m suffering from a failure to communicate: I forgot to praise the virtues of that grilled “handmade” sausage (which comes from a Texas factory, not from some sunny Sicilian town), even if it was a shade overcooked. I could have made a happy meal out of that single dish, eating slices of the modestly spiced sausage with big wedges of sautéed red peppers and that addictive Carrabba’s bread. Bread, sausage, and chocolate are the staples of life in any language.
Carrabba’s Italian Grill10586 Metcalf Lane, Overland Park, 913-385-7811
Hours: Mon.-Thu., 4-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 4-11 p.m.; Sun. 3-10 p.m.
FOOD: Three stars
SERVICE: Two Stars
ATMOSPHERE: Two Stars
PRICE: $$
OVERALL: Two Stars
