Proofreading with Your Parmesan!

My 280.com advertising brochure for this month features a mouthwatering ad for Nino's Italian Restaurant in Pelham http://www.ninos-pelham.com/. The food sounds wonderful, but the person who wrote the "Southern Palate" review of Nino's needs to be more careful with the grammar and usage. In describing the lasagna, she wrote:

"This lasagna was even better than your moms with lots of gooey cheese and a generous portion of meat, the sauce was perfect!"

Whoops twice for this sentence! First, this lasagna is NOT being compared to your moms, and your moms don't come covered with gooey cheese! This lasagna is being compared to the lasagna your mother might make. Second, "the sauce was perfect" should be a completely separate sentence--partly to avoid a comma splice (run-on sentence) and partly because the point about the sauce should stand on its own and not be buried in the previous sentence. This part of the review should read as follows:

This lasagna was even better than your mom's with lots of gooey cheese and a generous portion of meat. The sauce was perfect!

BONUS POINT: I don't recommend frequent use of the exclamation point in formal business prose, but in a restaurant review in an ad brochure, it is certainly acceptable if you want to exclaim over the sauce!

Another run-on sentence appears in the last paragraph of the restaurant review:

"Don't be afraid to step out and try something different, this delicious dish is mild and includes a side of pasta."

This sentence, which refers to Eggplant Parmigiana, dilutes both parts by running them together. They should be separate and read as follows:

Don't be afraid to step out and try something different. This delicious dish is mild and includes a side of pasta.