RED Rossa Napoli Pizza - West Des Moines IA

[firepie]

My wife and I tried this place last friday, It has only been opened a couple of weeks.

Some things really caught my attention as I had not seen them in a pizza resturant before. The entry point is at the cash register. you place your order, all pizzas are the same size, They have a big list of toppings, and then "Standard" combinations. You also get your drinks from the cashier and then a number to place on your table. Then you can walk past the pizza prep area and find your own table. The atmostsphere is like a Subway or Quiznos which was not the charm I was hoping for.

They have a number of workers that prep the pizza in assemble line fashion, one stretches the dough, another adds sauce, another for the topping, another to put it into the wood fired oven, etc.

The pizza is delivered to you table in pretty quick time, the crust was outstandingly good, everything else was so-so or worse. My sausage/mushroom (Standard combination) seemed to lack cheese, perhaps the worker who applies the cheese was distracted. But my beer was good.

My wife couldn't wait to leave, we were probablly door-to-door in about 30 minutes or less. Her comments included: "You make way better pizza in the backyard." Which is prehaps the best complement I've ever recieved from her about by pizza oven.

I'm hoping the Red Rossa will morph with experience in to something with more Italian charm. Of course my glass is always half full.

[mslmspringer]

My spouse and I are retired and choose to eat out often. Tonight we experienced the Red Rossa Napoli Pizza for dinner.....what a mistake!

This evening was our first time dining in your resturant...and I guess we weren't sure of the routine....unfortunately, the staff at the cash register wouldn't even make eye contact with us, so she sure wasn't about to make us feel welcome or try to assist us. She did manage to push our bill across the counter and continued to stare straight out the window (this should have prepared us for the meal we were about to have!)

We decided to select our meal from the house menu instead of making up our own menu items. We ordered the sausage and pepper pizza to share. My husband opted for the house salad, and I decided to chose the walnut gorgonzola salad. On our own we managed to figure out we had to take the glasses shoved across the counter with the bill, and go over to the fountain to pour our own beverages.

This also gave us the clue that we would be required to gather our own plates, salt and pepper, napkins, straws, etc., and bring them to an empty table for our meal. In our opinion, this is not much different than places like McDonald's or BurgerKing What a disappointment! But wait...there is more...My husband's salad was literally soaked in water and every piece of lettuce in his salad was completely wilted. He stated the vinegarette had absolutely no flavor other than the salt and pepper he had to pour over it to try and eat it! My salad was passable...but not much better especially since it had a five dollar price tag for the half order of salad I received. Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, we waited for the pizza to arrive. When it did we wished we had gone elsewhere for our meal. This pizza had little cheese on it. The peppers and sausage were fine, but nothing special. The entire pizza was cold....so much for their wood fired ovens!! All of this poor quality service and food was experienced while the couple in the next booth talked over their screaming, and yes I DO mean screaming children. Not what one might refer to as a pleasant dining experience. I believe that we will take our dining dollars to a place where we can receive quality food and quality service, that will make our dining out an enjoyable time. I doubt we will frequent this place again. When we left this place, we went somewhere other to eat.

[mrniceguy]

Hi,real italian brick oven pizza is very light and spuratic on tha toppings. It is not smothered with layers of unbreathable toppings like the Americans have made it to be, probably much like what you have grown up on and are used to. It sounds as though the service is terrible though, which is too bad. If you do some research about true Italian brick oven pizza from Italy you will find they have the toppings quite right. Thank you for your input, I will not be trying their pizza. If you havn't already, try Romano's Macaroni Grill, theirs is excellent. My lady and I event ate in a booth in the bar area and it was very pleasent and resteraunt like, service at the table.

[SSGLucky]

Ok, don't comment on things that you're ignorant about. I'll give you the fact that the service may lack, and it has a cold, almost fast food feel...but a Pizza Margherita is 5 bucks...it's cheap.

Secondly, if you walk into a place advertising true Italian style pizza, and expect a gooey mess of American pizza with smoked mozz and grease...you're clueless. One person mentioned how great the crust was...but there weren't toppings piled on. This is by design...if you're making homemade bread, you simply want to highlight the bread, not smother it.

My guess is that your idea of Italian food is spaghetti and meatballs...there are no meatballs like you know them in Italy either.

So granted, bad service is not fun...but don't bash food that you just don't understand. Having been to Italy, and owned restaurants in the past, their pizza at Red Rossa is about as close to the real deal as you'll find in the US hands down. I'd recommend sticking to Domino's for your refined palate.

[gjbingham]

SSG,
Did you join the group just to flame these first two posts? Everyone has an opinion. No need to be rude just because you disagree. (IMHO) No one will value your opinion if you have bash other's in order to state your own.

[RCLake]

Originally Posted by gjbingham

SSG,
Did you join the group just to flame these first two posts? Everyone has an opinion. No need to be rude just because you disagree. (IMHO) No one will value your opinion if you have bash other's in order to state your own.

WELL STATED

[mslmspringer]

SSG, You are one rude individual! I usually don't give credence to impertinent know-it-all's such as yourself, but just for the record.... It is really to bad that person's such as you can ruin a forum such as this, where people can post their opinion of places they go to eat, and then share with others of their own experience. I personally happen to know quite abit about real Italian food coming from a large Italian family, and being quite a well versed cook. I personally make a wonderful authentic homemade pizza, and it also isn't floating a mozzerella cheese (similar to Red Rossa's attempt). I also know quite abit about quality resturant food, good customer service, and a good business when I experience one....and our exerience at Red Rossa wasn't a good one. If you are the one rating your pizza by the $5.00 price....perhaps you are the one who doesn't know a thing!!! Today with as many different places that offer a quality meal for a fair price, good patrons don't need to accept what Red Rossa has to offer.