Restaurant: Gypsy's Trattoria Italiano
Location: 2519 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA. In the Durant Square, or the "Asian Ghetto" as it's less-officially known. No, I don't know either.
Pluses
- Convenient: especially for dwellers of Unit 3. It's literally down and across the street a block or so. Can't do much to beat that. And, if it's raining locusts or sunlight turns you to ash (or you just live someplace else), there's actually an Asian Ghetto Delivery service you can call, if I'm not mistaken.
- Quality: It's "pretty good," I think is the best way to put it succinctly.
- Location: it's in the Durant Square, within striking distance of a lot of different dessert places. There's a... serviceable boba place next door, a good doughnut shop across the square, and it's a matter of blocks to C.R.E.A.M.
Minuses
- Service: Not fantastic, from my experience. It's very much "flip flop here's your slop," no frills attached, which, depending on what you're looking for, might be just the thing. Not terrible, just indifferent.
- Speed: This is a subcategory of Service. One issue with Gypsy's, especially around dinnertime, is that it's almost always busy. What this translates to is a pretty formidable wait when you order, especially if it's something involving baking like lasagna or the "famous" calzones. I don't mean a little while, either; I waited half an hour on one occasion, which is fine in a more "sit-down" restaurant, but for food to go not so much. This sounds a little nit-picky, but it's important.
- Quality: Again, it's "pretty good." It's only "pretty good," nothing more. Things tend to be pretty greasy, which is a personal pet peeve. Orange globules on lasagna... yeah, no. This feeds into the next minus:
- Cost-Quality Ratio: For "pretty good" Italian food, it's actually pretty spendy. The entrées are generally around $7.00 a pop, which is a pretty good deal, and you can add a salad on for $2.00. One problem is that they have a service charge for credit cards of around $1.50, and it's charged per item you order in addition to tax, so suddenly your $9.00 meal is more like $13.00 or $15.00. College budget, bear with me. Combine that little trick with the fact of Orange Globule Lasagna and that your added salad is worth exactly two dollars and, well. Yeah.
- General Atmosphere: Gypsy's somehow always manages to be extremely loud and busy, no matter how few people are there. All the kitchen noise resonates directly into the eating area, which is also where people order and so on. There's a huge amount of bustle going on, and the restaurant has very close quarters, making it fairly unpleasant to eat inside. For people waiting outside, there's a loudspeaker announcement system to call out orders, and let me assure you that it's just God-awful, and nothing else needs to be said.
"Eh" (things that didn't affect the experience so much, but might be issues for some people)
- The guy running the counter most nights doesn't speak the best English, which is fine except when it gets really hectic in there and he's tired and can't hear you very well. That's actually less an English thing and more an issue of "It's Bloody Loud in Here," honestly, but an issue nonetheless.
TL;DR Overall rating: 6/10, it's "pretty good."
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