Cafe Enrico

closed.

hey an italian restaurant! owned by chinese!
thats peculiar… however the food was really good and the portions are the size of rhinoceros balls. not that i am familar with those, but yea they are pretty fricking huge.
anyways i chatted with the owner too, he’s very friendly… even invited me for happy hour.
too bad they dumped the
coupons. .that was a swell deal.

Alas, this place is no more. Feb 1, when their annual vacation closing was set to end, they posted a sign indicating that they are not returning.
My experience was considerably different than that of most posters here: my dad and his crony [typical of the 80-​plus clientele] ate there weekly, on the early bird. I joined them often and always enjoyed the pasta and seafood selections. The service was excellent, though as regulars we may have seen a better side than some. The water view was delightful and the ducks were always entertaining. Early bird prices were excellent, and drinks were inexpensive and generously poured.

You know it’s a bad omen when you walk into a place and there’s just one table of diners. On a Friday night. And they are leaving.
Then, you know you’re in trouble when you order the lasagne, and they have to check if they have it.
Then, you’re sure you’re in trouble when they bring it to you, and it is very thin, with three obviously placed squares of Kraft American (yes, American) cheese carefully laid across the top. I am not kidding.
The correct serving is grated mozzarella, melted, with a little bit of sauce,
and topped with a garnish of fresh parmesan.
The pasta was awful. I was warned, though, by a neighbor. They said it changed hands a while back. They had a meal there and it was bad.
Thankfully, we had a coupon from
, so it wasn’t a total loss.
I feel bad for the guy who was serving. I think he used to own it.
He came by and asked us how it was. That was one time I was glad I had my mouth full! You can always go «mumble mumble» while thinking it sucks.
I think this place is more popular for the bar and karaōke.
Don’t ever mistake it for a real Italian restaraunt!

Terrible experience. Judged my girlfriend and I from the minute we walked in the door. Said, «we serve food here» when we walked in, two late 20s/​early 30s white women with bags.
«Oh, do you know there is a minimum charge per table here?» when my g-​friend said that she was just interested in having a bowl of soup.
We left because he did not even let us see the menu, because he was disrespectful and because we did not feel safe eating there.
The host was pretentious and I felt so judged. I wish Unilocal had a zero stars category because this host would have put the establishment in that category in a heartbeat.
May we never be as classist, agist, and condescending as this host.

I hate this place. I did have a really memorable meal here about four years ago it was on Christmas and was really good. But the was the only one, I heard it changed owners. I ate here about another 4 times after since my boyfriends parents always wanted to eat there and it was horrible – frozen everything, warm food not hot, chicken not all the way cooked. Then after that I would not go back, just not worth the bad experience. Now my boyfriends parents won’t go back either because the food has gone from bad to worse.

Yuck.
My husband and I were eager to try out a restaurant we hadn’t been to before and landed here. Ambiance is beautiful, of course– overlooking the Harbor Bay/​Bay Farm lagoon, but indoors felt OLD.
We ordered the chicken picatta and it was so nasty. We barely touched it. We decided we were better off hungry with very little to eat for dinner than to force ourselves to eat disaster. And that’s a lot to say coming from an 8-​month pregnant woman. The chicken didn’t seem like chicken, I don’t know what to call it but it was bubbly with a weird texture. And the «picatta» was NOT picatta. It tasted like a sauce you would put on seafood, but it was on chicken. It was… confusing.
The young hostess that greeted us was very friendly and had a pleasant attitude, but I couldn’t help to notice her unprofessional attire — she had jeans and a midriff top on. Reminded me of a hostess for a diner… but we were at an «Italian» restaurant.
It was a strange dining experience to say the least.

If you enjoyed dining with Miss Noelle from Oakland’s famous Gingerbread House, you’ll be pleased to know she’s now at Café Enrico in Alameda. Sit at the bar with Noelle as your bartender and it’s Cheers-​of-​Alameda, only more cheery! The food is very good. You can get a large burger and fries for $ 1.95 during happy hour, if you buy a couple drinks [even soda]. Their array of $ 9.95 early bird specials [good until 7pm] are surprising!!, and you can get a very nice 4 course dinner for 4 people — TO GO — for $ 29, including soup, salad, pasta, and your choice of 4 entrees. But the desert is quality time with Miss Noelle — in a new setting right on the lagoons of Harbor Bay. Café Enrico is located in the Harbor Bay Shopping Center on Island Drive at McCartney. Go see Noelle and tell her Bob and Ellen sent you, from Unilocal!

I can answer Jefry T.‘s question of «what happened?» What happened was it changed owners a few years ago (4 or 5 maybe). It used to be excellent, but went downhill after the change. The servers, the food, the décor, everything changed. Me and all my friends have not been back since.

I hate to give any place only 1 star but Café Enrico doesn’t rate more.
Have you ever gone to dinner somewhere and when driving home afterwards you find yourself wishing you’d never stopped there to eat? That’s exactly the case last night at this establishment.
Let me start on an up note. I’m giving this a 1 star rating (instead of 0) for the warm and friendly greeting from the bartender. I’m assuming this must be Miss Noelle from Kacy’s review. I hoped as I headed to the dining room that this greeting wasn’t «needy», just welcoming.
I’m with Jefry — I met a friend here for dinner back in the late 80’s when this place was known for it’s good food. That was the one and only other time I’d eaten here. As I sat looking at the menu and observed the carpets, dirty windows and dated draperies the phrase «Faded Glory» came to mind. Guaranteed, this place has not been renovated since it’s glory days of the 80’s, but perhaps the food was better than the ambiance. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be good from the start but always the optimist, I didn’t go with my gut and head for the door.
Service was so-​so. The waiter didn’t seem phased when I mentioned that there was a large cabinet door that had come off it’s hinges and laying flat in the middle of the walkway to the restroom. Anyone could come around the corner and trip on it. Perhaps this wasn’t unusal here but it would be anywhere else.
The menu has the usual meats and some pasta specialties but it didn’t strike us as an italian restaurant. We thought we’d be safe by ordering a Poached Salmon Salad and a Seafood Cobb Salad.
I agree with Jennifer that the warm bread was the best part of the meal. My poached salmon wasn’t cook all the way which wasn’t all that bad but the black fishy bottom was terrible. The side salad was forgetable and all served with a tarragon white sauce that tasted like flour paste.
My husband looked at my fish, felt sorry for me and offered me some of his Seafood Cobb. It had the usual Cobb ingredients, bacon, tomatoes, avocados, blue cheese plus a few seafood items, shrimp, prawns and a darkish mystery meat. I asked him what it was and he thought it was either crab or tuna. It was difficult to identify because it didn’t look like either. I took a bite and think it must’ve once been crab but not anytime recently.
All in all we couldn’t wait to get our check and make a gracious exit, never to return. Save your money, there are many wonderful places to eat in this area but this isn’t one of them.

Can not remark on the food, as we didn’t eat… but, we had drinks at happy hour last sunday night. it was just us and the staff. our bartender, miss noelle, was phenomenal, and the rest of the staff was friendly as well.
the drinks were a little expensive for my taste, $ 7 per for mixed drinks… but it’s the bay area and i’m from new england…

So granted I haven’t been here in 5 years, of course 5 years ago, to my knowledge Unilocal wasn’t in existence. But last time I was here I was very disappointed. My grandmother and grandfather used to take us here all the time and it was fantastic. Maybe my taste buds changed as I grew up but to me this last experience was heart wrenching. Back in the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s it was so good. What happened???

I have to concur with the other reviews here. If you’re into the bland generic food that caters mostly to the wheelchair /​walker /​earlybird special crowd, then this is the place for you. If you want really delicious Italian cuisine, then look elsewhere. The il fornaio chain restaurants are much better than this. Even California Pizza Kitchen beats it, which is sort of sad.

We had dinner there a few months ago. The food is passable. We had prime rib also. It looked like it had been reheated a few times. There was no real flavor to it. Nothing really to write home about.
Italian food by chinese own restaurant???

So one day, my cousin felt like have Italian. We decided to try this place in Alameda. Tucked away in the back of the shopping center of Bay Farm Island. Anyway, what you don’t know about this place is that it is very close to a retirement home and this place seems like the restaurant of choice. If these are not the type of people you want to be around, then don’t go here.
The food sounds pretty good, but when you get it, well, leaves a bit to be desired. I had the prime rib lunch special. It was probably enough food for the regular person, but it was kind of small and didn’t have much else with it. The meat didn’t taste that great and the potatoes were not that much. I also got a clam chowder soup. The soup was good, but a small cup. For desert, it came with a bunch of things to choose from. I had a slice of pie I think. I can’t really remember. Must have not been that good.
So in summary, the price is a little much and the clientele is a lot older. If you really want some anonymity when you eat, this is the place to go, otherwise, pasta pomodoro is the place to go.