Andrea Trattoria Italiana II, Sea Isle City, NJ – Restaurant Review

Andrea Trattoria Italiana II, located at 4216 Park Road in Sea Isle City, NJ has been open in Sea Isle for two years, and the word about town was that it was excellent. My recent dining experience was not excellent. It was average at best.

My wife and I decided to dine at Andrea’s on a whim and since it was the last week before Labor Day, we figured it would not be a problem getting a table. The seating was half way full when we arrived, so we were seated immediately. The first thing we both noticed was the décor was basic, bland, and not very attractive. We were seated in line with the waitresses coming out of the kitchen, and every time someone walked by, I felt like I was bouncing from the vibration. Since I was in direct line with the kitchen, this went on the whole evening.

Our waitress, who seemed to be friendly at first, but we never saw the whole dinner recited the many specials that were being offered. I always give credit to waiters and waitresses who have to recite multiple specials and I wonder why restaurants offer more than just two or three. The waitress nailed the specials, but repeated them so fast, and there were so many, we would not even have considered one of them. So we ordered directly from the menu.

I ordered the Pollo Agli Asparagi, which is sautéed chicken breast with asparagus and crab meat in a lemon zest cream sauce, and my wife ordered Tagliolini Ai Gamberi, which is homemade thin pasta with shrimp, asparagus, diced tomatoes, garlic and extra virgin olive oil. Both sounded like excellent choices and we were excited to try them.

Bread is a very important part of a good meal to many. My feelings are if you are spending more than $20.00 for a meal, the bread should be very good. We were disappointed from the start. The bread seemed fresh, but nothing about it was wonderful. It was basic cold Italian bread, served with butter. Disappointing, but we were still hopeful the rest of the meal would be fine.

The dinner salad that was served next was fresh, but once again very basic. It came with a house Italian, which had little taste. By the time our meals arrived, we had started to loose hope that the meal would be as wonderful as we had originally anticipated. My first observation was that my wife’s dish had steam coming off it, while mine did not look like it was very hot. My first bite confirmed that although it was warm, my meal was not hot.

The chicken was average, but the asparagus was tough and the crabmeat was limited. My dish was $21.99, and I’ve had better similar entrees for less than this. My wife’s pasta dish was good, hot, and plentiful. Not until our meal was almost completely finished did our waitress come to the table to ask if everything was all right. We graciously said it was fine, passed on dessert, and asked for our check.

Andrea Trattoria Italiana II was a disappointment to us, but as I said at the beginning, we had heard very good things about this restaurant. We may have arrived at a time when the staff is short because of students going back to school. Although we may never eat there again, we did see the place was full when we left and customers seem to be satisfied. We are very fortunate to live at the shore where good food is extremely plentiful during the summer months, and this was a disappointment for that very reason.