| rev:text
| - [This review is based on two meals, dinner last year and brunch last week.]
Meal 1: Dinner
I've stepped into Coopers a few times hoping to have a beer with some colleagues but it's always been so crowded that we've gone elsewhere. Finally went for dinner tonight with my wife and was quite disappointed.
As many other reviewers have mentioned, Coopers has a horrible layout and always feels cramped, so we decided to sit outside, even though it was unseasonably chilly.
Service: Ok. The waitress was very nice, though she forgot to bring us water the first time we asked for it. She also didn't tell us the specials (although the host had when we were looking at the menu and deciding whether or not to dine there, so perhaps he told her that ) but ultimately she redeemed herself (more on that later.)
Drinks: My wife and I both ordered a mojito, even though it was pretty cold out. Big mistake, and not just because of the weather. The drinks were watery and the mint was wilting and brownish which made it seem like a large glass of rotting leaves. But booze is booze and I could have overlooked this.
Menu: Coopers has what looks to be an incredible menu. There were a number of items that sounded really good and I was already plotting my return voyage while I was making my choice. But alas...
Appetizer: About four months ago I tried bone marrow for the first time at Graze and was absolutely blown away. It was rich, decadent, and seemed to hold the very essence of beef in its silky embrace. I don't know if Graze is just buying much better marrow bones or if their doing something in the preparation, but the marrow at Coopers was nothing like what I had at Graze. It was flavorless and fatty, difficult to scoop out of the bone and disturbingly pink at points. It came with only four small pieces of bread, so you had to slather an enormous amount on each one (which, by the way, so many restaurants do and i don't know why... bread is cheap.)
Speaking of bread-- I appreciated that the waitress warned us that the appetizer would take 20 minutes to prepare (although I wonder why this isn't written on the menu). I would have appreciated it even more if she would have offered us some bread or something to munch on while we drained our watery mojitos. As it turned out, Coopers has some really good baguettes. In any case, all that is a minor complaint compared to...
The Entrees:
1. Pork Belly Mac and Cheese-
I ordered this one, and kind of liked the first bite. But after two or three bites I just couldn't go in-- it was overwhelmingly sweet. The pork belly sweetness would have been a good thing if it was offset by the sharpness of the cheddar. But its not. In fact, I'm not even sure that this was cheddar at all, though the menu claimed it was. It tasted like the sweet ricotta filling that you get in a cannoli. When my wife tried it she had the exact same experience. She proclaimed the first bite to be "delicious," then put down her fork after two more, gagging on the sweetness.
2. Beef Stew on "Dumplings"
My wife ordered this. It was terrible. Really, really terrible. A thin layer of spaetzle is not what I (or anyone) would expect by "dumplings." The beef looked like poop and didn't taste much better.
The Resolution:
The waitress came to the table when we had both eaten about 20% of our meal. We said that we were finished and she asked if we would like our food wrapped up. When we said no, she said that must be because we were so full. No, I said. The food just wasn't good. She comped us for the entrees which was the right thing to do.
MEAL #2: Brunch
My parents were in town and we were looking for a place to grab brunch before we left. Again, everything on the menu looked really good. Again, it really wasn't. I ordered eggs benedict. I don't know how you could possibly make a hollandaise sauce that ins't tasty, but Coopers managed it. The corn beef hash my dad ordered was also just bizarre-- it looked like little shreds of corn beef and was garnished, rather bizarrely, with fruit.
The waiter was really fantastic and the atmosphere was nice, but once again the flavors just weren't there.
I highly doubt we'll be going back.
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