| Cape Coral - Uno Chicago Grill |
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| Written by R D Lang | |
| Thursday, 03 April 2008 | |
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In early January, Uno Chicago Grill opened a new eatery on Pine Island Road in Cape Coral, placed right alongside Carrabba's Italian Grille, The Shrimp Shack, Foster's Grille, Timbales Puerto Rican Cuisine and Lounge, and the soon-to-open Bonefish Grill. All of Pine Island Road is exploding with commercial development, even in the recent economic downturn, but this particular section of road is becoming an established dining destination for the entire city of Cape Coral. The multitude of reasonably priced restaurants conglomerated in this growing section of the city answers the middle-American call for low costing, quality meals from names they know and trust. The developers have pegged Cape Coral as a blue collar, low to mid-scale restaurant city with an enormous appetite for national chains...and, for the most part, they've been right.
It was 2:15 PM on a Wednesday afternoon in early April as I pulled into Uno's, and the crowded parking lots outside all of the surrounding restaurants stood as testament to the hunger of Cape Coral for what the before-mentioned developers have been serving up.  A Booth at Uno's We were presented with huge, plastic covered, comprehensive menus with a mind-numbing number of options for a mid-day meal within them. The bar at Uno's is a huge, cavernous affair with plenty of TV's and ample seating. The mixed drink list on the menus we were given matched the bar in scope. An almost ridiculous number of colorful, trendy, well-described, and often-times frozen mixed drinks dazzled our eyes on the glossy pages before us. Mango Mojitos. Pomegranate Margaritas. Windy City Hurricanes. Before long, an undertrained and overburdened waitress happened by to take our drink orders. My dining partner ordered the Uno Signature Sangria, and double checked with the waitress to make sure it was a red, and not a white, sangria. "It's not red...it's actually kind of purple," the waitress replied. We agreed purple would be all right, and finalized the sangria order. I was pleased to see Uno's offers one of my favorite beers, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. "I'll take a Sierra Nevada." "What's that?" the waitress responded. I informed her it was one of the beers listed prominently on the menu she gave us, and she accepted my order and told us our drinks would be by shortly. The drinks arrived quickly, and the waitress asked if we were ready to order. The menu concept at Uno's is apparently crafted around a corporate vision of healthy food. Uno's was recently named "America's Healthiest Place to Eat Out" by Health Magazine. Some of the health endeavours evident on the menu are, no trans-fat oils being used, lots of grilled items, antibiotic-free chicken, whole grain pasta and brown rice. They also offer half price salads when you order a pizza "because we want you toget some greens in your diet", and plenty of gluten-free options. We decided to begin by splitting a house salad with a blueberry pomegranate vinaigrette. For entrees, my dining companion opted for the Chicken & Penne With White Wine. I went with the Crispy Chipotle Chicken Sandwich. About five minutes after we gave our order to the waitress, she re-appeared by the side of our table with a troubled look on her face. "Did you guys order yet?" We informed her that, indeed, we had placed our order with her about five minutes prior. "Oh yeah..you ordered." Ten or twelve minutes later, a second waitress brought our entire order, all at once - salad and main courses, and auctioned off the entrees to the two of us. "Who ordered the Crispy Chicken Sandwich?" The salad, which the kitchen neglected to divide onto two plates as we had requested, was a fresh garden mix with a smattering of croutons. A tasteless breadstick was tossed on top. The dressing was tart. Unfortunately, the salad remained mostly uneaten. We had our main courses to contend with, and the excessive air conditioning threatened to prematurely steal their heat. The chicken and penne dish was a large portion of pasta in a creamy wine reduction tossed with cubes of seared chicken, broccoli and plum tomatoes. Another bland bread stick garnished this plate, as well. My Crispy Chipotle Chicken Sandwich was of large size, too. The bread was overstuffed with fried chicken cutlets, a large onion ring, lettuce, tomato and red onion. The chipotle element was in the form of a highly suspect chipotle mayo with no smoked jalapeno flavor present at all. A dill pickle spear and a super-sized amount of wonderfully seasoned french fries competed for plate room with the sandwich. Our waitress did two entree check-backs on us. I'm convinced she forgot about the first one. We both agreed the meals were satisfactory and more than appropriately portioned. We were much too full to consider dessert. Check service was handled efficiently. The two drinks, salad, and two entrees came to a very reasonable 36.00 before gratuity. In summation, our Uno's experience proved to be precisely what we expected it to be...a filling, large-portioned meal shoddily served in a relaxing and attractive setting. As such, I've chosen to rate this restaurant as "Neutral". Certainly not a place I'd advise anyone to visit for a unique dining experience. But if your looking for a quick, frugal bite to eat and don't mind negotiating the slipshod service...have at it...you could do a lot worse for your dollar. But, two questions come to mind as I write this review. The first has to do with the news that the newly-built Olive Garden took in a record number of applications when they began hiring this week. I think the number I heard was 1,700 applications for around 125 available positions. With this number of potential service-industry employees scouring the Cape for jobs, how can any restaurant in the city justify the lack of good help at their establishment? The second question is...what will it take to get an upscale chain to take a chance on our beloved Cape Coral? |
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