Last night, we were in the city of Davis, Ca and  This time we had my parents with us, and we wanted to take them out to a nice dinner. Hubby took out his iPhone and looked up restaurants in the area, and Strings Italian Cafe came up on the list. We’ve been to the Sacramento/Natomas restaurant several times now, and each time have had a great experience. My parents had never been there, so we figured it would be a nice place to stop for dinner. We knew there were menu items the girls would like for dinner, and I love the menu here in Sacramento so we really didn’t give it a second thought.

We walked in and were actually surprised at how small the restaurant was. They set up a couple of tables for us and seated us within 5 minutes. When we sat down, my dad noticed their little salad plates were dirty, and set them aside. Our server came to take our drink orders and Dad passed her the dirty plates. We asked for a couple of booster chairs for the girls, and one of the girls brought them to us. I was a little grossed out by the cleanliness of their booster chairs! They were sticky and grimy. I seriously didn’t want my girls to sit in them but I didn’t know what else to do! They didn’t have any more.. Luckily the girls were wearing long enough shorts that they didn’t really touch the chairs.

They came back with our drinks and took our meal order. A few minutes later, they brought a family bowl of salad to us. It was pretty good, until my mom found a large piece of plastic in her salad. She stopped eating her salad after that. When our server came to give us our meals, my mom told her about the plastic, and she came back with an offer, if she wanted, of a free dessert. I was a little disappointed in my meal. It didn’t look like what I remembered ordering the first time we went to Strings. It also didn’t taste like what I remembered. It was really greasy, and hardly had any artichoke in it. I was very disappointed.

After our meal, we were ready to leave. My mom didn’t order any dessert. We asked for the check, and noticed that we were charged full price for everything. We had hoped that since she didn’t take advantage of the dessert offer that they’d at least give her a free meal or something, but no.. We got our check and were charged full price for everything. It was a bit of a disappointment. It was almost 9pm though, and all we could think about was getting the girls home for bath and bed. 

All in all, it was a pretty disappointing dinner experience. I don’t often venture over to Davis, but I do know that the next time we’re in the area around dinner time, we’ll either check out Dos Coyotes, or make the drive back home for dinner..