The theme at Rosewater is "too much goin' on".... This goes for both the decor with its garish, over-the-top, attempt at elegance as well as the food which is either over-spiced or tries to make use of flavors that simply overpower one another.
When I walked in the door it felt like I'd just stepped into a scene from Scarface. 80s' lavish excess is the style they seemed to be going for here. The crowd looked like it was made up of rich guys from Woodbridge with too much cologne and hair gel trying to impress their floozyesque dates.
Now lets get to the food. We started with the seared fois gras. The actual liver was delish, however it was served with cooked fig which is too sweet and overpowers the delicate flavor of the duck liver. An amateur mistake, if you ask me. We also had the Beef Tataki - WAY over-spiced - I could barely taste the meat. On to the mains! The Big Eyed tuna was over-spiced, are you getting the theme here? The tuna itself was a wonderful cut of fish cooked to perfection but ruined by a heavy handed cook. We also had the Black Cod on flavorless mashed potatoes drizzled with what appeared to be Cambell's vegetable soup. On top of the cod were two over-cooked, rubbery shrimp - another amateur mistake.
We didn't even attempt dessert since by this point it was clear the caliber of the cuisine did not match price tag. Thankfully we had $50 off coupon - a sure sign the restaurant is in trouble.
The only good thing about this place was the service. The staff were all very cheerful, bubbly and helpful. I'm happy their attitudes didn't match the pretense of their surrounding.
In my opinion, the dinning experience should be 90% food and 10% everything else. This place was designed to cater to the flashy yet unrefined wannabe gourmet who's crude pallet and desire to impress their date with big checks and ostentatious surroundings override the value of good food... If you're even the slightest bit a foodie, save yourself the trip - even if you do have a coupon.