| rev:text
| - I originally wrote this nearly a year ago. I've been back several times since. While I think the food is pretty good, the service leaves much to be desired. On one trip, had to ask the manager to get a coffee refill. Now, my original review.
We arrived at 6pm and were seated in the main dining room. It was quite busy for a Thursday. In remodeling the place, they did not think using any materials to absorb sound was important. Large room full of people, all trying to talk above music that was playing quite loudly -- very annoying.
Service was hard to describe; perhaps "peculiar"? They may be suffering from over-specialization. The person who took our order was very friendly, etc., but she was not our server, only our order-taker. Others served the food. I've seen this done better and worse, but it almost never is done well. Pet peeve: food delivery staff that does not know who gets what, and does not understand the special request communicated to the order-taker. When we were done with a course, the order-taker (not being the plate-clearer) left our dirty plates until the plate-clearer eventually arrived to remove most (but not all) of the dirty plates. Twice with coffee and at least twice with water, we had to point out the need for refills. Our order-taker, not being the one responsible for refills, assured us that someone would be right over to take care of it. Several minutes later (on each occasion), a refill-person arrived and needed prompting to fill more than one type of vessel. Seems to me that there should be someone assigned to be in charge of service for a table, and that should include being aware of the need for more water, coffee, rolls, whatever, before the diners are. And that person, if the designated refill delivery person is slow, busy, or MIA, should take it upon him/her-self to grab a pitcher and refill glasses, all while continuing to be friendly and helpful.
We had a pair of appetizers shared among the four of us, bruschetta and calamari. Here, I should point out that we had the pan-fried calamari, having been informed that they were out of the grilled calamari. The order-taker did not know how they could be out of just one kind of calamari. My wife says they were cooked perfectly. The marinara sauce was very nice, but the aioli was even better and (unfortunately) in shorter supply. We all thought the bruschetta was nice, but I prefer the bread for my bruschetta to be toasted and to have a bit of extra virgin olive oil and garlic before we even think about the tomato mixture. Here, the tomato mixture also included marble sized pieces of mozzarella, which was a nice addition.
The "house" salad was nice, though not extraordinary, coming with a nice (small) cheesy crackery thing. After confirming that the house dressing was oil and vinegar, we were surprised to find that it had a fair amount of (unwanted) sugar. It tasted quite nice, but one of us really did not want the sugar surprise. I had the very nice endive salad, which also included a mixed green portion, which is where the blue cheese and caramelized nuts were.
For a main course, my wife decided on the tomato soup and the appetizer mussels. She absolutely loved the mussels, but mentioned that they were a bit sandy. (I thought there was a technique for this, involving milk or corn starch, which they really should try to employ.) The soup had a good flavor, but was really thick. It would have been better as a spread for bread.
My main course was the Grilled Barramundi (Sea Bass). The type was not specified, so I do not know whether it was a good sustainable choice. I should have asked, but didn't think to until later. On the whole, I really liked the flavors in this dish. There were a couple of issues, though. First, the fish was perfectly cooked and had great texture, but it was coated with a thick layer of extremely thick (tasty) spicy tomato sauce. I'm talking thicker even than the soup. As I said, it is really tasty, but its flavor completely overwhelmed the flavor of the fish, to the point that they could have used pretty much any fish. Second, the pesto broke, leaving the gnocchi swimming in green oil.
Strip steak received rave reviews from one of our companions.
Desert "Creme Brulee Napoleon" was very tasty but nothing like any creme brulee you've ever seen. Combining crisp, caramel, fruit, yum!
Got our checks at about 8:30. Nice we weren't rushed. Remains to be seen whether they can handle diners in a hurry to get to a show.
(I had to edit this review for length, to fit Yelp maximum.)
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