Cafe Niebum Coppola - 2006.05.29 -- **

Fresh off a relaxing hike around the Los Trancos open space, on a gorgeous early summer day, the conditions were just right for a lazy stroll of downtown Palo Alto and a rustic yet sumptuous meal evocative of southern Italy. We set out in that search, and by chance choose Cafe Coppola. Fortune was not smiling on us then.

Typically the only thing I focus on is the food. And the fares at this place, more a wine bar than a restaurant, are not bad, only just really average. But when the service is so bad it ticks even me off, then even the best food could not salvage the dining experience. I fully understand meals in Europe take multiple hours and it is customary to have the courses arrive in very long intervals. But, this is not Europe; and when our waiter of a whole 3 or 4 tables could not bother to check in on us for the entire meal including the prodigeous wait we endured for our main course (more than twice the advertised wait time for pasta), that's indication of bad service. And, when I catches his attention by catching his eyes, he turns and ignores me while continuing his chatter with another waiter, that makes me a little ticked off... just a tad. Then he tells me that the un-cooked sides of my Pasta alla Madda, where the dough cover is still wet and soft and gooey, is perfectly normal. Perhaps that is the chef's intention, but somehow, uncooked flour dough just isn't acceptable in my book, no matter how "rustic" an experience I may be looking for.

Perhaps I am wrong to expect anything out of a showbiz tycoon's chain establishment. Money wasted. Lesson learned. I certainly could've done away with the movie-star attitude of their waitstaff. The only reason I gave them 10% tip is for our mexican busboy/water person, whose service is in stark contrast with that of the black suited waiter.

$149 for 6, all incl.