"Farina’s is located in the heart of historic downtown Grapevine. It is housed in a pre World War I building which offers a lot of charm. Upon entering, the space may be small but there are plenty of overflow spaces including a party room and a large, partially shaded patio in the back. On Saturday and Sunday, Farina’s is open for brunch from 10 1. Having never sampled their brunch offerings, we made a recent trip only to have a most underwhelming experience. I found it interestingly strange that there were no other guests dining when we were there. We arrived right at 10 am. We were greeted by a friendly young woman upon entering and seated promptly. We found the brunch menu to be quite short, which did not bother us. It is interesting, however, that the other neighboring restaurants on Main Street that serve brunch have many other offerings. We ordered a raspberry mimosa. Neither of us had ever had raspberry in our champagne. Thinking it might be from raspberry puree, the server brought out two glasses of champagne and one glass of raspberry lemonade. Any connoisseur of mimosas and most mixologists and barkeepers know this should never be an offering. Farina’s needs to rethink their mimosa choices and be in better alignment with other competitive restaurants who offer better choices. And more importantly, the champagne that was served was subpar. It lacked flavor and tasted a little flat. For a restaurant that touts itself as a winery, the mark was truly missed at this juncture. The food that was ordered was much to our surprise lacking in flavor as well as presentation. The Caprese toast was nothing more than a crustini that was quite small and seemed more like a margherita pizza. The bacon was slightly burned. The chilequiles was unlike any other that we had ever tasted before and not in a good way. If you order this dish, be prepared for it to have mozzarella cheese and spaghetti sauce instead of what you might be more used to, which is normally a Mexican dish. It was served on a plate instead of in a bowl as it normally is in most places. The taste was very strange and subpar at best. The ground meat that was added, did not seem freshly prepared, but seemed more like a prepackaged meat that was warmed and placed in the dish. When it arrived to the table, the dish was not hot. Overall, I think this could be a great little place for brunch, but there definitely needs to be several changes in order for Farina’s to achieve such notoriety. It definitely has potential, but it also has a way to go if it wants to truly match the competition in the area."
