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| - Fahrenheit was the latest stop on my self-guided eating tour of Tremont. I'm issuing 4 stars, because it meets my basic expectations for fine dining, but 3.5 stars is what I really want to give.
I guess my complaint is somewhat trivial, but this place seemed to lack a sense of uniqueness or distinctiveness or direction. Almost too generic and safe all the way around. It's like the Tremonty version of Hyde Park Grille. The menu seemed very safe to me. (No entree specials were even offered to us on a Saturday night.) Don't get me wrong, the food and drink were good, and the service was professional (if a tad bit slow), but I really struggle how to answer the following question:
"I really want to go back to Fahrenheit because _______."
a) I haven't eaten in 4 hours.
b) I like spending a few hundred dollars on dinner because I'm exceedingly poor at managing my personal finances.
c) I got confused when I made reservations and thought I was going to "Fire" in Shaker Square instead.
d) I like the deeply-unsettling painting of Chef Rocco wielding a pair of bloody knives on display in the dining room.
Dunno. Fahrenheit just doesn't seem to have that compelling or unique aspect that differentiates itself....neither in the decor, atmosphere, nor food. There are so many good options when it comes to fine dining in Cleveland, you need to give me something distinctive so I'll make the effort to come back. Fahrenheit just didn't do that.
So, anyhow, I don't want to dwell too much on the negative. The food was pretty damn good, as one would expect. The arugula and Lake Erie creamery goat cheese salad was fresh and tasty, with the salty and bitter arugula in a precarious balance with the goat cheese. It was perhaps a bit one-dimensional and could have used another ingredient or two. For the entree, I had the coffee-and-mustard-crusted pork tenderloin, which was excellent. There was a nice contrast between the charred pork and the maple sweet potatoes, and the complex Asian vegetables were an elegant garnish. After I paired it all with a bottle of dusty red Dundee Hills Oregon pinot, I was really satisfied with the quality of the meal.
The one thing that at our table that didn't look very appetizing was the lobster mac 'n cheese. Tasty enough, but compared to the other colorful and sophisticated entree presentations, the lobsta' mac kinda had the depressing yellow-brown color of fresh dog vomit. (Is Andrew Wyeth in the kitchen, working a tube of yellow ochre #5?) And speaking of the lobster mac n' cheese, why is this stupid dish on every menu of every restaurant nowadays, anyhow? Have you noticed this? It's ubiquitous. Is it a state-mandated menu item? I understand that lobster mac n' cheese represents a singular convergence of the recent comfort-food craze and our crustacean preoccupations, but I'm finding it at restaurants where it simply doesn't belong. (I mean, what the hell is it doing on a contemporary Asian-American menu like Fahrenheit?) It seems to me like a cop out, like a way to shamelessly sneak in a $25 penne pasta dish to exploit the masses. Where's the originality, chefs? Mac n' cheese? That's all you got? You could put lobster meat on a turd and people would still order it.
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