this was our second visit to ischia. we loove italian food and arancini is definitely our favorite entree to order in any restaurant. sadly the arancini here was my least favorite of all time, and any restaurant.
although they hadgreatconsistency, the rice balls were completely flavorless. the menu describes them as filled with mozzarella cheese and a spicy arabiata sauce. our portion was lacking not just the spicy part but any kind of flavor. a bland ball of rice with mozzarella and a side of garlic aioli is what we got and this definitely wasn't what we were hoping to start our dinner with.
probably even more frustrating was the fact that i wanted to mention it immediately as i wanted to at least ask for arabiata on the side, or just for some salt (there was no s/p on our table) but we couldn't make contact with any of the staff and our server didn't come around until we've long finished. maybe we didn't get that much attention due to sitting outside a bit away from the entrance, i don't know. our server seemed to be in a rush when we ordered our mains, so again there was no opportunity to say anything.
we have also finished our pizzas without anybody checking in on us. my partner was content with his pizza regina, which was a simple margerita with buffalo mozzarella. i've ordered pizza ischia and have asked to have no cherry tomatoes or parsley but they forgot to put garlic on as well, therefore the pizza was quite bland. luckily the guy that brought the pizza also brought some chili oil, which definitely helped to make it tastier.
after we paid and still nobody asked us how everything was, i mentioned the arancini to the front staff, because i do think that they should know so maybe they could fix the batch and other customers could have a better experience.
on a better note, we both thought that their pizza dough is extremely nice. it makes the pizza very light as a meal. and as you can see from the photo, my pizza was topped generously. and we've had the chocolaty almondy cake again and again it was fantastic!
as i have worked in hospitality for years myself, i consider myself to be very patient when eating out. i am one of those people that are happy customers even when not all is perfect, as long as things are fixed to a satisfying level. with ischia there is definitely room for improvement of the service.