Jeannene and I always get here once during each theater season because the food's always fantastic but we got a little nervous last Saturday when we sat down and they said they had just instituted their fall menu -literally less than an hour earlier. Did the staff have time to work the bugs out? (ouch, in appropriate reference, sorry).
And when we ordered our cocktails the waiter had to take a quick look at my menu to see exactly what I ordered. But from then on it was smooth sailing.
The drinks had an autumn quality to them as my rye drink included a nice smokey honey to it. And for appetizers we split the seafood dumplings with cabbage and lobster sauce ($11). The appetizer was served in a way that I had only seen done at Lola's -- instead of serving it in the usual dish and then letting us split it up on our side plates, we were each given a composed dish with half the amount of food. Very thoughtful! And the food was very unctuous with light bites of seafood in a sauce surprisingly full of spice.
For one of the very rare times, I did not get seafood for the main course at a Zack Bruell restaurant -- instead going with the beef shoulder that was very tender over a sweet potato mash ($23). The hearty meal had a vinegary kale to go with it and a watercress pesto. The perfect rustic dinner for fall. Jeannene had a $24 Boar Bourguignon (Hey, I only had to check 3 times to make sure I spelled it right... no, I wasn't talking about "boar") I loved the taste she gave me -- it evoked the same heartiness as my dish -- but she thought the sauce at the bottom of the bowl was too salty.
For dessert we split a nice cheesecake -- again we were each give our own composed dish of half portions. And again we loved it as it was just a nice light bite after a big meal and with various sweet notes.