Riva Cucina

For lunch yesterday, a few co-workers and I decided on Riva Cucina. It's a relatively new restaurant located in an office complex on Heinz in West Berkeley. Although we ate inside, I was pleased to see that there was outside seating available. Something to keep in mind when in the mood for outdoor dining.
A number of my co-workers had already eaten at Riva for lunch and dinner and gave it decent marks. One of my lunch mates had eaten there before a few times. She noticed right away that we had a particular server and warned us that the last time a few people hadn't gotten what they ordered. She immediately said, "Order by number rather than entree, that server got it wrong before." One of my collegues ordered the seared scallops with a cake of eggplants, zuccini and summer squash. I shied away from tasting the scallops but the veggies were quite good.

My other co-worker got the sausage, braised lentils and vegetables with roasted potatoes. I sampled the potatoes and the sausage. Oh, that was good!

So, where was my other co-worker's dish and mine? We both had ordered number 13, the brown butter ravioli filled with spinach. But, what they brought us was some pasta with shrimp. Uh, that was definitely not right. They were surprised and embarrased that the wrong dish was brought. We dismissed our lucky coworkers politeness and ordered they eat. While the two of us hungrily eyed their dishes, we chomped on bread and olive oil. It also gave me a chance to look around the spartan room and was neither offened nor impressed with the layout.
After finally getting the ravioli, I had to say that I felt the same way about the food as I had about the decor. Neither totally put off nor was it worth any praise.

Maybe this is due to the establishement's infancy and they'll get it right as they go along. I would be willing to give them another chance.

One thing in their favor, to apologize further for their mistake, they comped us one of the entrees.