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| - My husband and I have a date night every Wednesday night and decided we would try Bentley's this time. I'd heard many a good review and heard this place "knows" their steak. Boy, I was wrong.
Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by the hostess. She found our reservations quickly and had us seated within moments. We were seated with a corner view of the city. THIS IS THEIR SAVING GRACE. The view. The ambiance. Watching the sunset over this beautiful city.
Our waiter was kind, seemed to know his stuff as far as the menu goes! He recommended the Veal Chops and told us the Bourbon Filet was the most popular item (it gets lit on fire at the table). Service is prompt and fast. He had my cocktail and my husbands beer out before we had even decided on a wine for dinner.
My cocktail was good. I ordered a Hendricks Gin Martini with extra olives. Very good.
We ordered a phenomenal bottle of Malbec, the Daily Oysters, Filet Oscar (Rare), and Bourbon Filet (Medium Rare).
The Raw oysters were fabulous. They come served on the half shell on a bed of ice chips, with a mignonette, half a lemon, and cocktail sauce with horseradish. It's hard to mess that up. They were gorgeous and all a very good size.
When our food arrived. I knew I wasn't going to like mine. I ordered the Filet Oscar. It comes topped with lump crab and béarnaise, with mashed potatoes, and asparagus. The first thing I noticed was the béarnaise was SUPER dry. Almost like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for 10-15 minutes. I cut into the steak, the temp was perfect (Rare), I noticed that there was not a good sear on the steak. I asked our waiter how the steaks are cooked. (Olive oil, s&p, on a flat top, and finished in the oven) Which leads me to wonder how if it's being seared on a flat top and finished in an oven... why there was no sear? The lighting was dim, but when one sears a steak, the meat does not look light brown as if it's been boiled. There were some LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT sear marks that looked more like pepper. I took the crab and béarnaise off the steak because I wanted to see more of the sear/what the steak looked like without the topping and also because the sauce was too dry. Still the boiled brown look. I initially thought they may have used the sous vide technique and maybe didn't sear at a high enough heat.
However, the cut of meat was very good and extremely tender. (I asked about this as well. Apparently the chef makes his own cuts.)
-All in all, MY Filet Oscar was sub par. It needed more s&p, a better sear (it should have had a crust like sear), and the sauce was dry.
My husband ordered the Bourbon Filet (medium rare). His came out, they lit it on fire, it looked to have a much better sear than mine did. (Maybe it's because it got lit on fire... LOL) His steak was Rare, not Medium Rare (he doesn't mind eating rare, so that's not a huge deal, but there are some people who are very picky about temp), the bourbon flavor was overwhelming. The steak was also under seasoned like mine was. His twice baked potato was apparently the star of the show.
We finished our meal and our server came to ask if we wanted to order a dessert. I heard you MUST order the Bananas Foster if you come here. Knowing full well that we probably would not come back, we went ahead and ordered it. A different server came to our table to prepare the Bananas Foster. His name was Ray. Ray was an absolute delight. He regaled us with stories from his past and working in different restaurants and one particularly funny story about how he was the reason MJ was standing outside the Ritz in his underwear! Great guy. We talked a lot about cooking and knowing that I was interested, he walked me through step by step while he was making the dish. We had some fun sprinkling cinnamon on the fire while he was flambéing the dish.
The Bananas Foster experience was really great. The taste was nothing immaculate or special, but it was a nice end to a rather sub par dinner.
After dinner, the husband and I chatted a little about the food and decided that we were likely to not come back again, but that it was nice to try a place we hadn't been to yet. Maybe, it was a bad night, or maybe it wasn't, but we hope they do improve. The view this place has draws quite a few people, but it would be even better if the food matched the ambiance.
1-5 Ratings:
Ambiance - 4 (Great view)
Service - 4 (Great service, but it wasn't over the top amazing)
Food - 2 (But because I know my way around a kitchen, the food always holds the most weight in any of my reviews)
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