CaLACaLA義大利廚房內湖店 - Neihu District

Good

Atmosphere is nice. Taste is good in general; however, food portion for risotto is quite small compared with other dish.

The service is very slow. Some customers that arrived later than me got their before mine. The pizza I had was overcooked.

It was surprisingly an enjoyable experience having seafood in such an old style european ambient in the center of commercial district in Taipei! Squid ink pasta was delicious, seafood was fresh. Every corner of the restaurant was well decorated. Really nothing to complain!

We felt ashamed to have taken our customers to such a terrible restaurant. BEST AVOIDED! We had reserved for 17 people. To make things even easier we placed our food orders 24hrs in advance and limited to 5 mains. We paid a deposit, confirmed again on the day. So no excuse just BAD MANAGEMENT! The food all came at different times over 2hrs, then at the end the drink took another 30 minutes and left at the end of our table for us to sort out and serve ourselves. GREAT SERVICE! Steaks came at different times over 2 hrs, how long does it take to make a steak, we suspect they had to go to super market in between our service to restock. BTW the Steak were really bad, chewy and not done to people's order, but at this point we were lucky to even be served. Some risottos were served in takeaway trays as they had run out of baking trays. Such a big place, built to accommodate 5 times this crowd but does not have enough waiters, cooks and managed very badly. Even tables of 4 regular customers were complaining of the service. The service was total chaos with waiter constantly barking out orders as they did not know which table had ordered what. It was like a MARKET. This makes the service terribly slow, so best avoided unless you have 3hrs to sit around for lunch.

Look good on photos but not for taste

4 stars for the decor, 3 stars for the food. Interior was beautifully decorated with Christmas decorations. The inside was designed to look like a more rustic warehouse look with exposed wood and brick. Really felt like I was transported out of Taipei and to somewhere in the US. Food was less than spectacular. Other than waiting maybe 30-45 minutes, the dish I got was a bit disappointing. It was a baked salmon rice dish but it felt more 50% cheese and 50% other. Cheese is supposed to be a top layer, not the main ingredient in a baked dish...

Dropped by for lunch, ordered: Beef steak - pretty good but should have bigger portion Chicken pesto casserole - a little lacking on taste Spaghetti beef bolognese - not bad for price $180 Fries bolognese - good Calamari rings - ok Clam risotto - good Overall, can order risotto, casserole is meh. Can add $160 for set meal, or $60 for a drink.