| rev:text
| - The name "Palatte" is purportedly a combination of "palate" and "palette." Sadly, I found nothing pleasing to my palate here and any aspirations of artistry are just that.
I had heard good things about this place and I brought the BF here one afternoon to give it a try. We won't be back. My guess is that Palatte is the first restaurant that Christine and Edward McHale have run. This operation is amateurish and in desperate need of a good short order cook. Perhaps the owners can poach one from Matt's Big Breakfast.
Let's start with the whole "service" concept. We showed up toward the end of lunch and there were several staff members lurking about. We kept looking for a host stand and the staff saw us obviously trying to figure out what to do, but no one offered to give us any guidance. Finally, we made our way into the house and the BF figured out that we had to order at the counter. Palatte has decided to go with the lazy approach of making customers order at a counter and schlep a numbered marker to a table for the "server" to find later for food delivery.
We decided to start off with a pineapple upside down muffin. It turned out to be bland and dry. Since Palatte desperately tries to lean toward the French, they should mix in some "sucre" so that their baked goods actually have some taste.
The BF and I decided to split the sweet potato pancakes after hearing so much about them. The menu proclaims that the pancakes combine sweet potatoes with mascarpone cheese, pecans and maple syrup. The end result is an abomination. The pancakes must have been seriously over-mixed as they were absolutely rubbery and yet tasteless. When a restaurant's signature dish is this bad, things can only go downhill.
I ordered The Potato "Mish-Mash," which is really a $9 plate of scrambled eggs with potatoes, bacon, spinach, onion, Gouda and Monterrey Jack. It was okay, but the portion was tres, tres petit. The Breakfast Potatoes on the side were a disgrace. They were par-boiled potatoes that had been sitting around for hours. I know because I saw a huge pile of them in the kitchen when we placed our order at the counter. The kitchen barely warmed them before plunking them on my plate. They weren't even showing the faintest hint of brown. Sacrebleu! If you want real breakfast potatoes, go for the hash browns at Matt's Big Breakfast where you can get a decent breakfast in downtown. But back to les pommes de terre aux Palatte; they're served with creme fraiche for dipping. When Edward brought my plate to the table, I asked for a side of ketchup. Edward directed me to try the creme fraiche first before he would bring me the ketchup. Here's the deal, Ed. I've eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the world. I don't need to be coerced into trying your creme fraiche and it actually works better on the scrambled eggs. I asked for the ketchup to try to mask the taste of your pathetic potatoes.
A faux French vibe permeates Palatte. This place looks like what Sage Antiques might look like if robbers broke in during the middle of the night and cleared out everything of value or perhaps a vintage southern home after the estate sale. What's with the pile of old barrel drums in the corner of the yard?
For over $40 for two, we could have gone to a Arcadia Farms for a delightful brunch.
Bonne chance, Palatte. You're going to need it!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)