Sabatino's Italian Restaurant

08/29/06

Huge disappointment

by sedeplacer at Citysearch

Didn't think I could go wrong with a 9 rating but this was possibly the worst meal I've had in a long time. I had the fruti de mare with white sauce. I live in central (land locked) Texas and we have better seafood at chain restaurants. I've been to Italy and, there, the meal is an entire evening's entertainment. We received our appetizer before we had even ordered wine. The salad plate was picked up at the same time the entry was delivered. If you are looking for authentic Italian, this is not the place. If the seafood can't be as good as as a chain restaurant, then take it off the menu. If you can't let diner's dine leisurely, then call it a fast food joint. They couldn't even successfully call us a cab.

10/03/09

Not everything they say

by homemade MOM at Citysearch

On our first and only visit to Sabitino's we were surprising amazed that such a resturant could still be in business after the food we were served. Lets start with bread you would buy in the supermarket, italian soft and cold. served with butter in foil wrappers. You call this italian..where I come from italian bread is crunchy and served with olive oil and olives or something apptetizing. Next salad iceberg with very few vegtables to say the least.Dinner OH MAMMA chicken and veal somewhat rubberized and clams and linguine made right out of a can. Have you heard of bay leaf in clams. Sides of pasta served with a sauce that tasted like ketchup. If this is italian I have been glad to be at sabatino to really appreciate a good sauce. Don't waste your tastebuds or money on this so called Italian resturant.

• Pros: fast service
• Cons: food prepared from a can

10/01/09

great food & great service

by johnnyMO at Citysearch

I was visiting Baltimore for a business meeting and several of my co-workers suggested Sabatino's from previous trips to the city. I was NOT disappointed. I was greeted by a friendly host at the front door, seated immediately and served by a very attentive waiter. I had a Bookmaker Salad which was delicious. My Veal Cacciatore was perfectly tender in a wonderful and obviously freshly prepared marinara sauce with just the right texture. My side order of penne vodka was served al dente - as it should be - and it was really tasty, too. I travel frequently for business and dine out often. If my travels bring me anywhere near Sabatino's in the future, I will definitely be back!

• Pros: great food, reasonable prices, big portions, friendly staff

09/28/09

still the best overall for consistentcy

by nanaandgg at Citysearch

sabs has been around a long time and the food has always been very good the service is also very good I've been in the service industry for a long time and I always go to sabs for a great meal

• Pros: shrimp renato
• Cons: nothing

09/21/09

great food great service great price

by jeslo1213 at Citysearch

im a frequent customer of sabs and only because their service and food are so consistently good, i read some of these reviews and just encourage people to not let one bad experience keep you from going back. Sabs is family friendly when ever i have a family event i go their because it feels like they are apart of my family. Servers have been there for years. That should say something about the work environment. I ask one server and she said she was there for like thirty years wow. I dont normally write these reviews but i thought sabs was getting alot of bad slack and wanted to give them the review that they deserves. Go to sabs become apart of the family.

• Pros: service
• Cons: not open til 3am seven days a week

09/03/09

An afternoon spoiled

by Jimbo623 at Citysearch

Just stay away! The menu was unimpressive, the specials posted on the outside sandwich board were not really "specials" but normal menu items. The Bookmaker Salad was comprised of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, a couple of bland olives, cut up salami, tasteless cubes of some nondescript cheese, and pieces of shrimp that had any and all of its flavor somehow removed. The House Dressing, although full bodied, was also devoid of flavor, but had a nice flavorless gritty texture. The Bread was adequate, but if you go to the trouble of serving it wrapped in a napkin in a breadbasket, please heat it a little!

• Pros: Server was friendly
• Cons: Poor, poor quality

07/29/09

worst of the worst

by tamsmith at Citysearch

Had a waitress that looked like a big red neck, had to track her down everytime we needed anything.

The two tiny mannicotti was frozen inside, and there was just tons and tons of sauce, literally enough sauce for a family, and it tasted exactly like Chef boy ardee meat ravioli sauce.

We had to pay "Extra" for the house dressing? AND, to top it off, the veal parm was so salty we couldn't eat it.

I told the waitress we didn't like our meals, and she DID take them off the $50 bill.

But, she never asked why or said one word to us, we just saw the meals taken off the bill.

The floors were dirty too. What a disappointment.

• Pros: famous story of man shot in hallway
• Cons: every damn thing

07/23/09

Don't dis the bookmaker, it makes books shudder

by ReginaldBuxley at Citysearch

Look,

The bookmaker salad is hands down the best value in Little It. When you go anywhere else you're looking at $15-16 for a salad 1/3rd the size. Salami, Shrimp, Lettuce, Eggs and dressing -- all you need.

For all those crazy cooks out there in culinary complaint land they've never had a high quality ingredient based dressing that is of the utmost respect to the littlest of italy. That "grit" you taste is authentic Parmesan coming right from the motherland. I apologize that you're tongue can't handle such delicate intricacies so if you need your food refined and processed down to Gerber quality, go hit-up Olive Garden and have them nuke you some dinner in the micro-oven.

Boolean true;

• Pros: Bookmaker salad
• Cons: All these naysayers

07/26/08

Awful. The worst meal of my adult life.

by joeby at Citysearch

The Bookmaker salad is gross. The dressing is gritty. Plenty of other reviews have stated the same thing. There is sand in this dressing........period. The entree's are typical low class Jersey garbage. This is not Italian food at all. You are better off picking a fronzen dinner at Safeway than this pablum. Had the food be flavorless I would have given it two stars. Since it tasted like sweaty feet I gave it one. Although, I am frustrated with paying $40 to eat freshmen year dining hall food, the most amazing part of the night was walking through the restaurant to get to the bathroom and seeing every single table packed. For the love of God, do not eat here. Go to Cafe Troia in Towson for the real deal.

• Pros: Decent service.
• Cons: Gross, overpriced food.

07/22/08

Find another place to eat

by danloc78 at Citysearch

Only reason it gets a star is for the friendly service. And even then, our server disappeared for about 20 minutes while we waited to exchange our salad, which was drenched in a house dressing that had an overly sandy texture to it. Friend selected balsamic vinaigrette as a replacement dressing...what we received was neither balsamic, nor vinaigrette. Next we were served eight dollar 'fried mozzarella', which were clearly frozen mozzarella sticks. My friend had the veal scallopini, which looked and tasted more like a hungry man dinner than an italian specialty. I actually did enjoy my entree, which was the tortellini with tortellini sauce. But overall, less than authentic, and just poor food, especially for the price.

• Pros: the tortellini with tortellini sauce, although oddly titled, was delicious; service
• Cons: overall quality of the food; ambience; pricey

07/20/08

Health Hazard! DIRTIEST PLACE EVER!!!

by abigale3 at Citysearch

I'm not sure many people know about the inner working of this place. Being a former employee, well, I can tell you some stories. MInd you, I am not disgruntled and therefore am not writing this in anger but I just think the public should know what it's putting into it's mouth!! In my 3 years employed there, I witnessed cooks smoking cigarettes WHILE cooking your food (some of the ashes not exactly making it int the ashtray if you know what I mean...), big sweaty cooks digging into the pots of pasta with their big sweaty hands and a cigarette in their mouths. It was the most dirtiest disgusting place I've ever worked at. The thing that really surprised me though? The night that the new bussboy threw away the bowl of cheese dressing that a customer had requested to dip their bread into. Vince Sabatino himself rushed into the kitchen and basically reamed him out in front of the entire kitchen for dumping it out, saying that it could have been reused!!! So against health code violations!!! Germanos is pretty filthy too but no where NEAR as bad as Sabs. Watch yourself folks and remember, big portions = good, cigarette ashes in your pasta primavera= hideous

• Pros: VALET PARKING ALTHOUGH NOT FREE
• Cons: VERY FILTHY