Review: Bella Italia, Uxbridge

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As a family we eat out a lot, although every week we say we’re not going to, we always end up going somewhere to eat. Mainly due to our lack of cooking skills. We have recently been using sites like Groupon and Wowcher to find cheap deals. We found one for Bella Italia on Groupon which cost £21 for 2 three course meals. Pretty cheap huh? Neither of us have been to Bella Italia before, here’s how we got on.
We were greeted and seated very quickly, they gave us a special menu for their deals which is shorter than the normal menu. Ryker and Xander got a kids menu that has colouring and activities for kids. They also get a multi crayon. It was pretty cool, although they had a Sudoku game as one of the activities which I think was a bit advanced for the age range they are targeting. I ended up doing the Sudoku whilst waiting for our food and Ryker enjoyed colouring in. Our drinks arrived and Ryker got a special Bella Italia straw which he was happy about, I think it's a nice touch.

The waited took our starter and main orders pretty quickly. We was a bit confused as there's a grey section in the starter area which says 'to share', we assumed if we ordered this, it covers both our starters. The waiter told us no we can have it for one but its just a big portion. I thought that's great, Ryker and Xander can share the sharing starter with me whilst Connor has the mushrooms to himself.

Our food arrived pretty quick, the cheesy bread was really yummy and Connor loved his mushrooms, they were creamy and cooked perfectly. Our mains arrived soon after. We both had pasta; mine was Pomodoro and Connors was duck. The pasta was really fresh, had a strong tomato flavour not artificial it had chucks of fresh tomato. Connor really enjoyed his pasta but found it sweet so couldn't eat too much.

We had to wait a while before being asked what dessert we wanted, which was understandable as the restaurant had got pretty busy by then. For dessert I had a chocolate moose with a spiced crumble. I couldn't eat too much of it because of how dry it was, although it was really yummy and had lots of flavour. Connor had a chocolate orange brownie, which he loved. Ryker tried both our desserts and surprisingly preferred mine.

We didn't have to wait too long to pay, turns out the starter did cover both of us so had to pay extra for the mushrooms. That was pretty annoying as if we knew this we would have both had the mushrooms each and got Ryker a kids meal instead as that would have been cheaper. Xander was tired by this point so I couldn't be fussed with making a scene about it.

All in all I enjoyed the food, you could tell that it was freshly made and hadn't been sitting around. Service was quick even when the restaurant got busier it was still not too bad, but with Xander getting grouchy it felt a lot longer. Although the waiter was nice to Ryker and got him an extra crayon, I left pretty annoyed about the whole mix up. Decor I wasn't keen on, they have random scaffolding kind of poles around that doesn't suit it but then they have parts of the restraunt that has a nice homely feel to it, the poles just ruin it. I like how you can see into the kitchen from your table through a hole in the wall. Its nice to see what they're up to in there.

I would definately reccomend going there but if you chose to go there with a deal maybe double check with someone else in the restraunt if something doesnt sound right.

Have any of you ever been to a Bella Italia? How did you find it? Thank you for reading.