Boston North End Restaurant to Avoid...
 

Just back from Boston. Great restaurants, especially in the North End, with one notable exception. Carmen's. Recently opened to rave reviews. Not sure why. We made a reservation, very much looking forward to trying this well-received newcomer. And were greeted by an arrogant maitre d' who could care less if someone had a reservation or not and who told us we would have to wait for quite a while or go to some other restaurant. Well, now even more intrigued, we waited it out. To make a long story short, the meals were unimpressive and not worth the wait. On top of it, one of my fellow diners came down with a horrible case of food poisoning. <BR>Save your Boston dining experience for one of the many wonderful North End restaurants -- you usually can't go wrong.<BR>

thanx for passing your experience on...with so many places to try in the North End, we're still eating our way thru. We'll take a pass on Carmens!

Interesting. Many times I have read here that "you can't go wrong in the North End." We too "went wrong" last weekend at Francesca's. I enjoyed the North End years ago (and even as recently as 4-5 years ago), but it is now noisy, over-crowded, and over-rated (and there's no place to park). We'll stick with the South End, Cambridge, and other areas.

And Mama Maria's isn't what it's cracked up to be.

What's going on in the north end?

I heard Mama Maria's was great. Did you have a truely bad mea or just so-so?

First time I went to Mama Maria's it was fabulous. Subsequent times in the past 5 years have been ho-hum. There are several mentioned on this site that seem much better.<BR>