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| - Touch was stretching for something out of its reach.
This isn't fine dining. It's more like a nice mid-range place to eat. It should have embraced that. I was a bit concerned when I noticed that the price for a "aphrodisiac" four course meal that included 3 glasses of wine was $30. I was even more concerned when the wait staff consistently referred to Mon cher chou and I as "you guys" and the bus boy was completely befuddled by the whole silverware situation.
The food wasn't bad at all, really. Some dishes were very good. It was particularly onion-y for something touted as a romantic dinner. We started with an onion-y blini as an amuse bouche, then on to an onion-y leek soup. Both tasted like something your Irish mam would make you on a cold night. Nice and homey.
The watercress/ pancetta salad was delish. They should have found some younger watercress, but the dressing and the goat cheese were well executed and balanced to the peppery nature of the watercress. The accompanying champagne was very sweet.
My lamb chops were perfectly medium rare and very juicy. The rissoto-ish accompanyment tasted much like the soup-- just onion-y. The standout was the red pepper sauce-- really vibrant, with a hint of mustard and not onion-y. The accompanying wine was very soft and uncomplicated. Mon cher chou's lobster ravioli was quite delicious. The raviolis were packed with more lobster than marscapone and filler. How refreshing!
Dessert-- ah molten lava cake. Weirdly enough, it didn't taste like Sysco's ubiquitous offering. Impressive-ish. Unlike the center of the cake, though, the ice cream was rather liquid, as was the truffle, but both were tasty in their liquid state. The accompanying rose champagne was well matched to the sweets.
So all in all, tasty. Not as impressive as they were trying to be. I would go back, but in jeans, rather than Escada.
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