| rev:text
| - On an evening where basically every other restaurant was packed full (aka Valentine's Day), Customshop was one of basically no restaurants with reservations left. Me, being semi-anal about having actual reservations before going anywhere that is going to be packed, plucked the last available spot on OpenTable.
The restaurant itself is conveniently located in Elizabeth (close enough to Uptown) along a street with many other popular restaurants such as Carpe Diem and Passion8. The lighting is pretty dim, but it matches the atmosphere of the restaurant, which isn't too loud or too quiet, but just right... maybe because the entire restaurant was of couples? We were seated closely to another table, but didn't have to listen to their conversation the whole night. Our server, Zoe, was an absolutely delight and was super friendly to us the whole evening. The drinks took a little long to arrive, but it may have been because it was a full house... so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
As for food, we chose to order a bunch of small plates and one main entree:
- Tuna crudo - slightly different texture than what I'm used to, but the flavor was okay. Could have been a bit more tangy
- Beef carpaccio - holy moly this was the motherlode of all beef carpaccios. It's a LOT for two people.
- Razor clams - best flavor of the night, but some of them were a little overcooked and very chewy
- Pork belly - could have been a little more melt-in-your-mouth and was rather bland
- BBQ octopus - I was a little apprehensive about ordering BBQ anything, but this actually turned out to be the best dish of the evening. I liked that it had a little kick to it and was more flavorful than the other dishes
- Smoked duck - cooked just right... loved the crispy skin.
Overall, the food was a bit lackluster in that many of the dishes simply were not flavorful, salty enough, or just quite bland.
BUT... for dessert, I ordered the brownie souffle with coffee ice cream and that solved all my issues for the night. The souffle was the perfect amount of chocolate - not too rich, and just melty enough. The cold ice cream and the melty goodness of the souffle complemented each other so well. I ate the entire thing by myself, thanks to my dinner companion that evening, and have zero regrets!
Excellent service and atmosphere, blandish food, but amazing dessert. Prices were reasonable.
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