Problem: What would be an example of an negative review?

Answer: My wife summed it best: "This tastes like a Costco burger". Translation: go to Costco, buy some buns, some frozen patties. Grill the patties, add cheese, favorite toppings, and you have a burger that tastes like a Five Guys burger. Nothing special. To the more faithful, I'll be deemed a heretic. But I was told that Five Guys was "better than In-n-Out". I go to In-N-Out at least once a week. I own 2 t-shirts. I love In-N-Out. But I'm not so religious that I'm unwilling to try another burger that could be better. I went to delux burger, and was rewarded with a innovative, great tasting burger.. I was hoping Five Guys would give me that same experience. Nope. Not even close. Five Guys is not as good as In-N-Out, and it's more expensive. The fries are good, thick cut, seasoned and fried right, great with ketchup. But the burger was average. The bread tasted manufactured, the toppings generic. The tables are cramped, squeezed close together. Eating as a family of 5, I had to put my bag of fries on the floor: no space left on the table. Chairs and people stick out the narrow aisles between tables make getting a refill a dangerous mission . No drive thru to bypass inside. Not my kind of place. Sorry Five Guy's, I'm sticking with In-N-Out.

Problem: What would be an example of an negative review?

Answer: I always root for the little guys - especially when it is something unique. Ergo, I was really pulling for Tiaga. My first impression, was good enough, as the little space they have in an odd part of town (for a restaurant) is decorated with a modern, slick-yet-comfortable style. The server was friendly and really attentive (although, we were the only customers in there). So far so bueno. Now if we just did not order any food... Outside of the tasty caterpillar roll, everything else (gyoza, tom yum soup, scallops, crepe cake) was a letdown. Largely, the problem was that there was little flavor going on - and if you have ever had tom yum soup, you know that that is a difficult task! Both the gyoza and scallops seemed to be victims of overcooking, while soup lacked spice and the cake was just plain bland. Additionally, there was a gnat/fruit fly problem going on. With the food and the location, it was not too surprising that there was no else there when we arrived nor left.

Problem: What would be an example of an negative review?

Answer:
Let's see where to start. Relatively awful service, we were split across two waiters, one who was very attentive while he was assigned to us for the first 10-15 minutes of our 3 hours there. The follow up waiter was rude, and short with us when he was sporadically paying us attention. We were a group of 7 adults, yet seemed to be treated like a group of teenagers at Denny's wanting free refills on coffee while loitering for a few hours after school. After about 20 minutes with no refilling of our glasses of the champagne we purchased, we asked a hostess to grab the bottle for us. She takes it out of the ice bucket and puts it on the table and walks away. I think it's all part of a picture of how poor the service is there. So we're off to a bad start, and ultimately those qualities of service could potentially not be factored into the star rating if the food made up for it. The food was mediocre to bad in most cases, the one exception being the artichoke salad which was tasty and may only be worth pointing out because the rest of our meals were so bad. My Vegetable Risotto was easily the worst Risotto I've ever had, it was completely underdone with the hull of the rice somewhat crunchy... there was also absolutely no seasoning whatsoever. I ate a couple of bites and decided to ask for salt and pepper (something you shouldn't need to do at a restaurant of this stature, they should season their food properly), seasoned it myself... took a few more bites and decided it wasn't even worth the digestion. I chose not to say anything or send it back since it was a birthday party and didn't want to bring attention to it. The waiter cleared my plate which was mostly untouched and didn't say a word, again the lack of attention or care. My girlfriend got the Gnocchi in tomato cream sauce, nothing special that I couldn't whip up myself at home without much effort. We eventually get to the main course where the majority of us decided to have the Branzino. First of all the cost of the fish by weight is astronomically expensive, but I guess it might be due to the fact that all their fish is flown in from the Mediterranean daily. Don't even get me started on the environmental and sustainability issues that arise from that. There was an option of accommodating sauces that you could choose from to go with the fish. I guess I assumed wrong that the fish might be cooked with the sauce, this was not the case. The staff bring over the cooked fish and dissect it and plate it for us table side (they did a rush job because I found several bones in my pieces), it was served with roasted (overdone) fingerling potatoes and sauteed (mushy) zucchini slices. The fish was unseasoned and we were expected to dollop the accompanying (average) sauces ontop of it. The potatoes and zucchini were nothing to be worth remembering, and neither was the fish. The other slight upside of this meal was the desert, their gelato and sorbetto were great however I have no idea if they were responsible for them or if they shipped them in from Italy everyday. Gelato is not hard to make either so its a good sign they didn't miss the mark otherwise this would be a zero star review. Ultimately there are so many other more amazing restaurants in Vegas, and probably even better Italian restaurants in your hometown that you should visit first before Bartolotta. What a huge disappointment.