Carma

This restraint is no longer Italian. It is bland bad Mexican with a smattering of Italian dishes. I miss the old Carma; I will not return to the new Carma.

Decent food and decent prices. It was a strange set up in the restaurant for the lunch crowd. We went in to the restaurant and were a little bit confused as to where to even order our food.
I wouldn’t offer up Carma as a favorite place to go eat but if someone else wanted to go I would have no problem tagging along.

We stopped in here randomly on a weeknight to have dinner since we were in this part of town. It was about 6:30 and the place was completely empty except for two people at one other table.
The décor is cute-​everything is red and white, and the inside was nicer than I expected it to be. Our waiter (I wish I could remember his name) was really nice and very personable. He gave us numerous recommendations off the menu, checked on us frequently and provided really great customer service.
So given everything that I liked about this place, I really wish I would have liked the food a bit more than I did. I ordered a pasta dish and it was very soupy and bland. It was also about half the size of the same dish at Garozzo’s. My boyfriend ordered the eggplant parmesan and while his portion size was large, he commented numerous times about how bland everything was. The dipping oil was good, but the bread was a plain white sesame bread that wasn’t even warm.
I’m not sure if we will ever give this place another try given that neither of us liked the food.

Came here for lunch during KC Restaurant Week. I honestly probably wouldn’t have otherwise. It was your traditional American Italian fare. I had the Minestrone Soup, which tasted like it was leftovers that had been watered down to reverse thickening of soup from sitting in the fridge overnight. In other words, it could have been better.
Their garlic olive oil/​butter dip for the bread was really good, though the bread itself was your basic sesame seed packaged Italian bread. I also found it interesting that they charge for extra dip. I overheard another table asking about it.
Moving onto the rest of the meal… My SO got the Chicken Spiedini Trio, and his favorite was the Alfredo one. Though, he always prefers Alfredo to any other pasta sauce. I got the Richmond’s Rigatoni, and I was surprised at how much I liked the vodka sauce. I guess you could say my expectations had been low for the establishment, but was pleasantly surprised.
And then there was dessert. The Tiramisu was delicious. It was light, which was unexpected, as most tiramisu I’ve had has always been on the dense side. I enjoyed the lightness of it.
Carma is on the casual side for lunch, but it appears they do have live music, so perhaps it would make it more romantic for an evening meal. There was a man who was constantly zipping by the table, whom I assume was the manager-​on-​duty. He did most of the refilling of water and was very chipper.
Overall: 3.5÷5
Food: 3.5÷5
Service: ⁴⁄₅
Atmosphere: 3.5÷5

My sister-​in-​law and I decided to stop by here on a whim since it was restaurant week and was able to secure a reservation 2 hours before hand. We got there about 10 minutes before our scheduled reservation and had to wait another 10 minutes to be seated. We were there on a Friday evening so it was packed, but the restaurant itself is pretty small. The hostess is located 2 feet away from the door so if you’re waiting to be seated, you’ll be standing in the way of the waiters, other customers and other people. While we were waiting to be seated, we noticed the hostess handing out roses to all the female patrons as they were walking out the door. However, they didn’t give one to us when we were leaving which was disappointing.
The food itself was DELICIOUS! They brought us bread with olive oil and herbs/​spices. I need to get the recipe for this. IT WAS SO GOOD! We couldn’t stop eating it! For our first course I had the house salad and it was great. My sister-​in-​law had the caesar salad and she said it was the best caesar salad she’s had in a long time. I had the Chicken Spiedini Trio and it was amazing! It was filling, flavorful and I had extras to take home. For dessert we both got the tiramisu and cannoli and decided to split it so we could each try it and WOW! We practically licked our plates! I’ve never tasted tiramisu that good. It melts in your mouth! Our waiter was very attentive and nice even though it was packed and he was extremely busy. There was also live music! I couldn’t understand what they were singing as the instruments and other people were too loud but we didn’t mind. We will definitely be back.

Extremely satisfied with the whole experience of Carma. In town for work and found Carma thanks to other Unilocalers. Exceptional service by Miss Chloe throughout the meal and a warm and inviting conversation with Owner Don and Manager Richmond. Loved that Don was handing out roses to the ladies as they left after their dinner. I really appreciate a place that goes above and beyond to wow a diner. Food was fantastic and portion was what you would expect from authentic Italian. Oh yeah, Tiramisu is a must. Can’t wait to go back already!

I work in the area and occasionally stop in for lunch. Good quality ingredients and solid service — –today was especially good!!! Clam Chowder with Italian Bread to dip on a cold wet day!!! Doesn’t get better than this!!! Keep up the great work.

Went to Carma tonight, Black Friday, with a party of 10. The food and service were both excellent! We will go again.

Do not come here on a Saturday night or during peak hours. They are not ready for it yet.
We had reservations and still had to wait 20 minutes. The entire staff was flustered. After ordering it took them a while to bring our entrees and the decided to tell us that the appetizer we ordered was no longer available. Our pasta was undercooked and the sauce was soupy.
The manager didn’t do much in terms of making things right. The server gave us free deserts but brought them in to go boxes. He just gave them to us and walked away. They wanted us out of there ASAP.
I will not be back until I hear that they are well staffed.

One of the best eggplant parmigiana I have ever had. Fresh flavorful sauce and very crispy eggplant. Ambiance was beautiful and the waiter was attentive and friendly. The flatbread was good, but not on the level of the parmigiana.

Carma has good Karma in its ambient environment from entrance to seating. It has 70s live music band to keep you entertained. The service is friendly but not too knowledgeable. We ordered Blackened Salmon, Kale salad and Caesar salad for Dinner. The quality of food was average, too salty and over priced. The price of blackened salmon at $ 25 is overpriced for the low quality, small portion and color enhanced farmed salmon. The 90% empty tables in a restaurant on a Friday evening is a first sign I missed. It does not have a true Italian feel in the food either. Great location of the restaurant with ambience but food is lacking the Oomph in quality and taste!

Love the al fresco dining option. However, the food is Midwest Italian, which, by definition is not what many real Italian cooks would like to be associated with. The complimentary bread was slightly warm and the dipping oil was yummy. Gin & Tonic was pretty weak and for $ 8 I’d expect a solid g&t. Our server, Brian, was polite and attentive. Kale salad was pretty terrible. Kale is one of those greens you’ve gotta massage with some salt and lemon to breakdown its not-​so-​pleasant texture. While the chiffonade was executed perfectly, we grew tired of chomping on the pretty bland salad. The chicken spiedini with diablo sauce was pretty good and definitely beat out the shrimp scampi. While the shrimp in the dish was delicious, the linguine was bathed in a confusing lemon butter cream-​sauce that was both heavy and astringent at the same time. Also… when is shrimp scampi garnished with broccoli? The crème brûlée trio for dessert was enjoyable. The two entrees, salad, g&t, Boulevard wheat, and dessert cost $ 85.00 prior to tip… so if your palate can discern between Olive Garden and NYC’s Del Posto, maybe don’t go here.

The food was ok. Our table had a salad, a pasta dish, the special of the day and a sandwich. It’s nothing to rave about. The service was disappointing. «The BOSS» kept walking by our table to see if we were done eating to clear the plates. We were the only table in there and it got to be annoying. We felt stalked the entire meal. As soon as we were done eating, they cleared the plates. I didn’t like the service and for that, we won’t go back.
Mentioned above, the food was fine. Nothing that I can’t find somewhere else.

Excellent food with a great atmosphere. Not a lot of space so you could wait a while but the authentic Italian was definitely worth the wait. Solid wine list with many affordable options.

Had a very friendly server who was chatty and provided great info on the menu. The food was delicious! All of the noodles and sauces are made in house and are fresh. A little more pricey than some Italian but worth it. A good wine selection too. We went in a large group and they accommodated our party easily.

Carma has become one of our local favorites. In addition to eating at the restaurant, we recently hired them to cater our engagement party. The service far exceeded our expectations. Colby, the manager, showed up himself with their chef to finish off the lasagna and appetizers in our oven. Then they helped arrange the food and made the presentation top notch. Pricing was reasonable for the food, but the extra service was really outstanding.
The restaurant itself is always great and has very good service. The happy hours is one of Overland Park and Leawood’s best, and the portions are big for the price. There is outside sitting on the street. Our favorite meal is the fettuccine carbonara. which has fresh in house made pasta and prosciutto ham. But everything here is good.

Had an order of Frito Misto, and the Kale Salad and added chicken. Both were really, really good. Could maybe go a bit lighter on the dressing, but other than that, it was perfect.
Finished off with a Sam Adams, and it was a very pleasant meal while I read the WSJ.

A truly fine choice for a JoCo business lunch. Quiet, with excellent service and okay prices. The menu is broad enough to assure anyone can find something enjoyable, but, if you like garlic, you MUST have the Chicken Spiedini with amogio sauce.

Well, how do you start a review like this. We have eaten here many times but this will be the LAST TIME! From start to finish everything was horrible. Our server was MIA through out most of the meal. We always needed to ask someone to find her for us. We ordered a bottle of wine to go with the dinner, the incorrect one was delivered (cheaper than what I had ordered so we kept it!). Our salads came (yum!) but then the meals didn’t arrive for about 40 minutes. When the meals finally arrived, yikes! When I cut into my chicken spiedini steam spurted out! Almost like the turkey on ‘Christmas Vacation”! The sauce on my pasta had actually changed color. It turns out that the meals had sat under the heat lamp for most of the 40 minutes. There was a large party being served in the banquet room that through the restaurant into a tizzy. They comped my meal but who cares. None of that should have happened. There are too many other places in town to eat at that give you good service and food.

Went here for Restaurant Week and boy was glad we did. For my entrée I had the Chicken Spiedini Trio and it was fantastic. Three sizable pieces of chicken with different sauces, each one excellent but my favorite was the marinara version.
After the entrée we had to sit for some time before anyone brought dessert — I don’t want to say we were forgotten but I think they were short some staff. It was no big deal since we were conversing anyway, but if I was in a hurry this would have bothered me.
For dessert they had a cheesecake option and a cannoli option. I had the cannoli and it was great, it kind of fell apart on me but I think that’s the nature of the thing. I tasted the cheesecake and it was also quite good. I would for sure come back here again, though I hope they get their staffing issues figured out.

I don’t know why there aren’t more reviews for this place and being far away shouldn’t be an excuse since I drove like 35 minutes to try this place out during restaurant week. Plenty of parking in the garage just behind Carma. I went by myself to check this place out for dinner. There was bar seating which was open seating and there was dining room seating. I called ahead since I wasn’t sure how busy it was and it was pretty busy. If I wanted to sit in the dining room area, then I would need to make a reservation since those were for 2 or more people. I sat in the bar area instead.
The first thing you might notice was the live band playing which added to the atmosphere. I liked it especially hearing the bass. The bartender, Casey, took my order from the restaurant week dinner menu (it happened to have food on their regular menu) and later Chloe helped me throughout the night. They were both great and I especially liked Chloe since she was very friendly and easy to talk to.
I ordered the Chicken Minestrone soup, the Chicken Spiedini Trio, and the Cannoli. It took awhile before the bread came out and I was just sitting there waiting patiently, watching the TV and watching the chefs cook. The bread and oil were okay and nothing special to me. I waited some more for the Chicken Minestrone soup to come out. I guess they were pretty busy. Chloe added some cheese to it and I was off taking pictures in the low-​light. lol The soup was delicious and I liked it. I filled up on some more bread so I think I ate a total of 5 slices (one loaf and one more slice).
The Chicken Spiedini Trio came out and their menu online had 3 different sauces to choose from: amogio, diablo, and alfredo. However, all 3 were on mine most likely for the restaurant week. They also gave me a bowl of pasta which I was probably supposed to eat with the chicken but didn’t. I usually eat one thing at a time until it’s done then will go to the next item on the plate. The amogio sauce was very light in flavor but had a light sweet flavor (hard to describe). The diablo sauce seemed to complement the chicken well in my opinion and I liked that the best out of three. The alfredo sauce was nothing special to me. I was pretty full after finishing the entire plate and still had the pasta to finish. The pasta wasn’t anything special to me but definitely eat it with the chicken.
The Cannoli came out last (of course) and I was stuffed but pushed forward to eat the Cannoli. It was not bad but it was dry when I got to the middle. I tried to spread the cream so it wouldn’t be dry.
I thought Carma was good and I wouldn’t mind coming back to try other stuff on their menu.

My husband and I arrived at 7:30pm, we placed our order as soon as our waiter appeared. UNFORTUNATELY, he had an attitude with us from the moment we ordered. At 8:30pm we asked our waiter where our food was and he snapped at us! He said that they were busy and the kitchen was backed up. The restaurant was extremely loud and most people did not have food!!!
Also, they were not that busy, there were empty tables. We have dined out a lot, and an hour to get served is OBSCENE! We ordered easy to make foods that are usually already prepared!!!
We left without eating and explained to the girl at the door how awful our experience was. I would not recommend this restaurant.