I lost it as soon as I heard “limitless rolls.”

My sister warned me not to get “too crazy,” but I could not stop eating those steamy rolls one after one, dipping them each into that yummy olive oil. Unfortunately, I would come to prefer the rolls over my main course pasta dish.

Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant is located on 12 Bel Air South Parkway in Bel Air.  The atmosphere it  offers is quaint and pleasant, and the waiters are friendly and polite.  They serve you free, limitless rolls, and now that I’ve eaten there several times, I know those things are traps.  If you get full on them, you’ll be packing your entire entrée to go.

I ordered the chicken piccata priced at $14.99 and my sister ordered the shrimp rossini  priced at $15.49. After playing with the complementary children’s dough (you have to ask for it, just an insider’s tip) and driving my sister crazy, the food came out in a relatively fast fashion.  After one bite of the chicken with the thin noodles cooked just right, my verdict was that it was too tart.  There were lemons all over the dish, so the pasta and chicken tasted like, well, lemons. There was no clearly defined sauce over the dish.  On first glance, the pasta looks like greasy noodles and nothing more.

They say looks can be deceiving, but they were pretty accurate this time around.  I thought about how I could have gotten a nicer pasta anywhere else and it would have been cheaper.  The chicken was tender, despite the soggy breading covering it.  The pasta was cooked thoroughly though, which was some comfort to me.  I tried some of my sister’s pasta too, but I didn’t like it either.  Again, the pasta was well cooked, but I didn’t like the taste of the sauce.   The sauce was spicy and slightly tangy.  There were little shrimp with the pasta which were good though. Both dishes came out hot and  thoroughly cooked, but those were the food’s only attributes.  The sauces weren’t up to satisfaction, and the overall flavor and taste of both was slightly off.

I know from past experience that the menu is filled with a ton of delicious dishes, but I was slightly disappointed with their pasta.  Bertucci’s other dishes are to die for, but their pasta did not reflect that excellence at all.  Next time, I’m sticking to the pizza and the strombolis.

Grace Kim is the Online Chief for The Patriot and JCpatriot.com