Cin Cin! Italian Restaurant Doesn't Live Up to Expectations

I'm sad...because giving a restaurant a bad review when you had such grand expectations of it is such a downer. 

But a journalist's gotta do what a journalist's gotta do. And, in this case, a food reviewer has to do what she has to do.

Let's start out with positives, though.

Cin Cin! Italian Restaurant, which was opened by 25-year-old Chef Geordie Moulios four years ago, is welcoming. The restaurant's exterior is donned with sweet Christmas lights and the staff is as gracious as can be (in fact, on a $70 check, I left them a $25 tip because my dining companion and I liked them just that much).

The indoor decor, though not spectacular and quite undefined with a skateboard deck on one wall and plastic/tacky butterflies on another side, was decent and showed obvious effort on whomever put together the pieces.

The desserts we had were stunningly fantastic too. Moulios creates his own desserts and offered us his seduction chocolate cake and heavy canolis. The desserts were far better than any I've ever had and left me in awe.

The wine list was great too—offering a hefty variety of wines including a delicious Chianti.

But alas, it's time to get into the details of it all.

When I asked the waiter what the best vegetarian dish was, I was surprised but curious when he said the mac-n-cheese.

Being the curious journalist I am and after having Cafe Chloe's amazing and famous mac-n-cheese the night before, I decided to give it a shot. But it didn't live up.

The mac-n-cheese was burnt on one side, and not deliciously burnt like Cafe Chloe's, but burnt with too much pepper on one side and ironically another side was completely tasteless. 

While I attempted to devour bad carbs, my dining companion had the lasagna. The cold lasagna. Yes. Cold. But to be fair, it wasn't too bad even though it was cold. It had the potential to be quite delicious had it been at a normal temperature.

Though our mains failed, we ordered veggies (asparagus, mushrooms, bell peppers and zucchini) that were incredibly fresh and incredibly tasty.

And when Moulios attempted to please us by bringing out two vegetarian pizzas, I wasn't all that impressed either. The pizzas, though they had incredible toppings from his farm, were also burnt and lacked any real substance that forced me into wanting more.

Maybe my expectations of the restaurant were too high, given the praise it offers itself on its website, or the fact that it said it's been on the Food Network. But cold or poorly burnt food doesn't make the grade in my sweet cookbook.

So, would I make the trip back to Cin Cin? Yes, definitely!

I'll go back for the desserts after I have a burrito at , which is in the same shopping center.

Vegetarian-friendliness on a scale of 1-10: 7 because they are vegetarian-friendly. The mains just weren't that great.