Speaking of Enoteca Roma...

I love Chicago, and lord knows it has its share of wonderful restaurants, bars, bakeries, etc. But among the waitstaff of said establishments there seems to be a nasty case of apathy going around. And in case you were wondering, apathetic is not among the list of adjectives used to describe grade A servers.

Enoteca Roma, on "hot, hot Division," is not yet dead to me. But it is very, very ill to me. It should be writing its will, and gathering its loved ones around. And mentioning to its employees that being attentive to their customers is sort of, um, their job.

The food, (when at last it arrived), was neither here nor there. Which is a shame. If it had been phenomenal I might have more readily forgiven that it took an hour for it to arrive, an hour during which all the tables surrounding us, including those which had arrived long after we had, were served their meals. Our waiter showed up at one point to assure us that our food was on the way, then he conveniently disappeared. In a place as small as Enoteca, you have to make an effort to disappear.

Because they're known for their polenta dishes, and the wacky way in which they're presented, (poured onto a marble slab, spread thin and sprinkled with toppings table side), we ordered some. When the polenta arrived it arrived alone. The food runner spread the polenta out for us, then disappeared. For twenty minutes. The rest of the dish never arrived, nor did the rest of the meal. When no one appeared to rectify the situation I finally went to bar to plead with the bartender. To his credit he seemed appropriately appalled, and went immediately into the kitchen to sort things out. While we waited some more our server appeared to apologize weakly and ask if he could get us dessert on the house. "Um, we'd like to eat first."

Eventually we did. Everyone else had paid their tab and was heading home. Even the percentage of the bill that was knocked off our check didn't make up for the long wait and insufficient care that had been taken to let us know that no, we were in fact not invisible.