Catelli Duo
12101 Town Center
Boulevard
Voorhees, NJ 08043
I was pretty bummed when Catelli's closed a few months ago.
My sadness was reversed however when I heard that the chef would be opening a
new place with two of my uncle's friends becoming partners with him. My uncle
decided we should all go for my aunt's birthday to try it together about two
weeks after it opened.
The restaurant décor is absolutely incredible. It really is beautiful
inside. The bar is great, the outdoor fire pit is a really great spot to have
some drinks, especially during the warmer summer nights, and the restaurant
just looks beautiful inside. It has an open floor plan, and you really get a
great view of the décor from everywhere in the restaurant. We sat down and
ordered some wine, and my uncle ordered us some cheese steak egg rolls while we
perused over the rest of the menu. Unfortunately for us, and especially in my
opinion, the cheese steak egg rolls were the best part of the meal. They were
super crunchy, fried to perfection, and the whiz sauce that they were served
with was amazing.
We all ordered our respective meals, without much help from
our server who seemed out of sorts. I am not sure if he had ever served
anywhere before Catelli Duo opened, but he was extremely inept in many ways. He
didn’t spend much face time with us at the table, he left our drinks sitting on
the bar for a long time before bringing them to us one at a time, and he didn’t
seem to know the menu very well. I had ordered a bowl of the lobster bisque,
and the veal carbonara, a signature dish of theirs. Catelli Duo offers two
different sizes when it comes to appetizers, one being a small plate style, and
one being a more social style for more people to share.
I was really excited to try the rest of the food because the
meal had started on such a high note with the cheese steak egg rolls.
Unfortunately, the lobster bisque didn’t live up to the expectations. It was
lukewarm when it came out, and although it had pretty good flavor, I was less
than impressed with it. It didn’t have enough cream in it to really make it a
good bisque, and I thought it was really strange that you would have chunks of
crab in a lobster bisque. I know lobster is expensive, but if that’s the case
then make a crab bisque instead. Don’t call it a lobster bisque and then put
crab in it.
After the disappointment in my soup, I was hoping my veal
carbonara wasn’t going to give me the same feeling. It wasn’t as bad as the
soup, but it really wasn’t good either. The veal wasn’t well seasoned at all.
The carbonara sauce was pretty bland as well. The pasta was cooked well, but
that was really the only thing good about the dish. It was a severe disappointment.
My cousin's husband had ordered a stuffed veal chop saltimbocca and not only
did it come out raw in the middle, but it wasn’t stuffed with anything. The
waiter then tried to explain that saltimbocca isn’t stuffed, but that isn’t right.
The manager came over and said that it should have been and he would take it
off of our bill.
I decided to give them one last chance for dessert, and I am
glad that I did because it made the experience a tiny bit better. My girlfriend
and I decided to split the baked Alaska. It looked beautiful when it came out
with the perfectly toasted meringue on the outside. Inside was some delicious
vanilla ice cream and a tasty little piece of brownie on the bottom. The
caramel sauce on the bottom was nice, but the brownie was a bit too hard and
the dish overall lacked the flair of a traditional baked Alaska.
Two pints for Catelli Duo. I had really high expectations
for Catelli Duo based on knowing that the chef that used to run Catelli's was
still in the kitchen and he had a hip new place to work with. Unfortunately
though I don’t think that they are operating at optimal levels right now.
Hopefully they will get their act together in the next few months and it will
be better the next time I go back. For now I can’t tell you go to there after
the experience that I had, but I will keep you posted if they redeem themselves
on my next visit. From what I have heard in the past few months, things have
improved in the food department over there. They seemed to have remedied some
of their kinks from what I have been told, so I am looking forward to giving
them a second chance. Check it out and let me know! Cheers!
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