Portofino, Quebec City

My Girlfriend demanded pasta and we'd read an ad in our "hotel literature" that claimed Portofino was awarded "Best Italian Restaurant in Quebec since (depuis) 1994(5?)," so we asked the concierge to call and reserve a table. Arriving at Portofino, the first thing we noticed was the warm glow of the pizza oven, the second thing was how absolutely packed the tables are in the room and how packed the tables were with clients, and the third thing was the gaudy, tasteless F1 flags covering every inch of the ceiling, and then there was the smell, yes the surprising smell--coming from the kitchen, but more on that later . The wine list offers a very nice selection of Italian, and some new world, wines--on average these seemed to cost about 400% more than the same wines sell for at the government store, the SAQ! We'd had aperitifs earlier, so we opted for a tiny carafe of the house red ($23.00 approx, same wine at the SAQ--$4.75!). The server brought a basket of what would be described as well-aged bread, so well aged, in fact, that we were unsure what to do with those odd shaped pieces of stale and hard sponge. My friend ordered spaghetti bolognese and got a wee, tiny bit of perfectly cooked pasta drowned in a whole lot of "tin-canny" meat sauce; I ordered lasagna and got--mercifully--about the same amount of Portofino lasagna laced with a similar tinny sauce. The whole experience was made worse by the smell of way, way too old fish (I love fish, BTW), bargain brand canned tomatoes, and dirty cooking oil wafting from the kitchen. Yum! There is more, Portofino offers the hungry traveler many other surprises as well. For instance, the couple beside us ordered the "Table-de-hotel", and even though we didn't taste their food, we could tell by the head shaking and their looks of disbelief when they tasted their food that they too were very surprised, indeed. Finally, you can make better, more flavorful, less tongue-stinging lasagna or spaghetti by simply popping a frozen box of Michelina's in the microwave. I will always remember this place, and I can assure you that those people filling the tables and chairs in this bustling bistro last Saturday night are not--NONE OF THEM--regular (dining) customers. Quebec City has many, many good, even some great restaurants; Portofino is not among either group. Stay away, very far away.