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| - This was a very disappointing evening so could well be rated a one-star. To say it was A-OK is simply not true. Too many not so great aspects. It is terribly expensive, certainly a business expense kind of restaurant and there were plenty of such there that Wednesday evening.
Wife and I went with our neighbors so the four of us had a 7pm reservation. We were excited as none of us had eaten here. We were greeted in the bar by the hostess who seated us in the rather plain dining area.
Behind us was a table set for 14 or more and there was one other table set for 12, which later would prove to greatly disrupt the service and servers. Our server greeted us and as he handed us a notebook which had the wine and cocktail listings he mentioned that we might want to choose our meal options because of the two large groups coming in.
We were in-sync with his thinking, so we got with it.
We each had a glass of wine to go with out meals and ordered appetizers. Wife and I shared an onion soup $8 and I had oysters $18 for six of them. Our neighbors had onion soup $8 and split a deviled egg and beet salad $14. The onion soup did not measure up to Sullivan's or Beef and Bottle, let alone others. The onions were not caramelized and had a raw taste to them. And the broth was thin and lacked much flavor. The oysters had a caviar cream mini-dollop with vinegar so I scrapped that off and ate them with hot sauce and lemon. They were OK, but very expensive.
We sat until after 8pm wondering where our main dishes were. In that hour of sitting the two large tables filled. Noise level rose substantially enough as it was hard to talk at our table. At 8:15 our main courses arrived. They looked pretty.
Ii ordered the Monk Fish $32 which consisted of a narrow four inch piece of pan seared fish sitting on a pile of beans and sausage slices. A fennel sauce/cream was described but it was not distinctive to recognize. The fish was nicely cooked and when I was asked how it was my reply was, "Nothing special." And so it was.
The two ordered the beef tenderloin $42 each, which was a card deck sized steak mounted on a potato puree with mushrooms and sauce. The beef eaters commented that it was a good quality piece of meat, but was too dry. They asked our server for more sauce and that helped greatly. The other lady ordered the duck breast $34 which she said was quite good.
I will mention that our server and basically all the other servers were diverted to handle the large tables. We anticipated that, but we had to work to get their attention during our meal and to order coffee and dessert. It was after 9pm when we got our coffee and a little later our two desserts.
The desserts were the chocolate millefeuille $10 and the orange gianduja tart $10. They sounded and read better than they were. I had a Drambuie $8.50 and two others had coffee $2.50 each.
We each sampled the desserts and found that they were so dry. They were beautiful, but even with the ice cream, jam and ganache they stuck to the top of your mouth and needed to be washed down. Golly!
Our server was really stretched, but he did as best as he could. As we finished out desserts the large tables emptied, much to every one's relief.
The bill was $307 and we tipped the server $100. I do tip on the high side as I understand what it is to work for a living. So over $400 for an evening of so-so food in a plain, noisy setting that lasted two and a half hours.
In the car home conversation we agreed that the meal was over priced and that The Gallery was not our cup of tea. If you want the facade of elegance at a premium price...go for it. But for us, two retired business executives and our wives, you could do far better, getting more for less.
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