If you’re looking for a restaurant with belly dancing, we don’t recommend Khayyam.  We thought that some belly dancing and Middle Eastern food would be a great way to end a year’s worth of restaurant reviews, and Khayyam was conveniently located right in Coolidge Corner.  It proved to be disastrous.

We walked in at 7:45 p.m. on a Wednesday.  Belly dancing was scheduled to start at 8 p.m.  We were the only ones in the restaurant, and when we asked the waiter if there was going to be belly dancing that night, he said, “I don’t know.”

He came back a few minutes later, after having asked his boss if there was going to be belly dancing.  It turned out that his boss didn’t know either.  The waiter also brought us some water, which tasted grainy and a bit like dirt.  That was when we decided to make an escape.  An empty restaurant with gross water and no belly dancing just was not appealing.

So we found ourselves in Coolidge Corner with hungry stomachs and decided to try Bottega Fiorentina, an Italian deli on the corner across from Citizens Bank.

To sum it up, most of the food was edible.  The pasta primavera consisted of bow-tie pasta and veggies in a cream sauce but sounded better on the menu than it actually tasted.  The eggplant parmesan was an oily, gray, lukewarm block that was literally taken straight from a box and plopped on a plate (I saw this happen).

Though eggplant parmesan is usually my favorite, this was revolting.  I had to return it.  The gnocchi I got instead was a slight improvement, though it was a bit too mushy.  The service was mixed as well.

The food came quickly (a bit too quickly, in fact) and there weren’t many other people in the restaurant, but the workers were not very friendly and tended to give death stares if we asked for silverware.  At least the water tasted good; the pitchers left on tables even had lemons inside.

After a year of successful restaurant reviews, we were bound to hit some disasters eventually.  We just happened to get two bad restaurants in one night.  At least now you know where not to go for a good meal in Brookline.

Sarah Plovnick can be contacted at [email protected]