Palermo's Italian Restaurant, 646 E Shopper's Ln, Covina, CA

June 18, 2013

Frank was famished after swim and wanted some Italian, so I got on Yelp and UrbanSpoon to seewhat was in the area.  Found Palermo's Italian in Covina, looked like a cozy family place, so we figured we'd give it a shot.

Food:  Salad, soup and garlic knots were quite good.  However, main courses were a different story.  Frank ordered manicotti, and while the sauce was very tasty and definitely homemade, the dish was way too heavy on the cheese.  Frank even commented that he thought they used poor quality cheese, because long after he had swallowed the pasta and sauce he was still chewing mozarella like Double Bubble, and kept doing so until I made him spit it out.  I ordered the Palermo house special pasta, which was described as pasta with olive oil, garlic and fresh vegetables.  Sounded like a nice light lunch; however, as you can, see what I got was essentially a chowmein in my opinion.  In fact I boxed and brought it home and made it with Chinese style spicy shrimp.  Given the quality and that both plates, with soup or salad and bread, were $10, felt it was overpriced.

Decor/Cleanliness:  Decor was relatively non-existent, although we are not opposed to the dive establishment so long as the food is awesome.  However, that being said, I could easily have gotten past that had the sanitary conditions not been horrific.  After we ate I looked for the restroom, which you had to walk through the back-end of the restaurant, past their sink (which had a strainer of some sort in the drain hole beneath filled with compost materials...ughh, and the horribly dark, unkempt actual cooking area.  The restroom itself was dirty, their was urine on the seat and no paper towels, which of course made me wonder what in the world the employees were washing their hands with and drying with what???  Not to mention that the woman who served us was also preparing food, saw her when I went to see the restroom, and cashiering, thus handling filthy money and our food, and I did not once see her wash her hands.  So overall, pretty disgusted.

Overall Rating:

Frank:  2, thumbs down
Monique:  1, thumbs down and I think if he'd seen the restroom he too would have given it at 1!