Lucino Ristorante Italiano

We frequent Manuka and Kingston very regularly. We live around the area, and we often make small detours on our way home from a ride or a run late in the evening to grab a frothy hot chocolate or a decaf. And this Thursday just passed we did just this, selecting Lucino's in Kingston for our nightcap.

Lucino's can be a bit off-putting when you are not properly dressed. It is rather plush and deluxe from the outside looking in--elegantly laid out, palatially lit and accoutred. And we were wearing track pants. But, unapolagetic as we are, we decided to seat ourselves outside on the little checkered chairs and order us up some tea.

Up close, Lucino's is not so opulent. The fabrics are cheap, the paint job is budget and the finer points of decor (vases, chandeliers) are decidely malapropos. No problem, we think. It's a very good folly--all the trappings of opulence without the overheads that come with it. We will be immersed in quasi-Italian decadence if we just squint a bit, don't touch anything and don't look too closely at the dried stick arrangements. We will sip at out tea and our imagination will do the rest, unfettered by anxiety over how much they will have to charge us for it to pay for the new tub of silver polish.

So we order our tea. English breakfast and a mint. And out come the tea pots, with a big spoon full of honey for Rachael's. James' English Breakfast turns out to be Earl Grey, which is an unpleasant surprise to people not accustomed to drinking eau de toilette, but mistakes happen so we are resigned to it. The problem is that our pots of tea are actually just pots with a Lipton tea bag in them. One tea bag, fairly overdiluted in the two-cup capacity pot.

Suddenly squinting is not effective any more. This place is cheap, appearances aside. They don't just budget on the fittings, they budget on the ingredients. Don't get the wrong idea--we happen to love cheap eats--but we call a spade a spade. This place seems to be a sow's ear passing as a silk purse. It looks the goods, but it's all for show.

Unfortunately, they took themselves a little too seriously right up to the end. We knew we had just been given Lipton tea bags, they knew we had just been given Lipton tea bags, but they still charged us $4.90 for each of them.

K, thanks, bye, Lucino. Addio.