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| - I'm not one to be too harsh on a restaurant (just see my other reviews) but there really is quite a list of things about this place that just doesn't quite add up to an overly good review. I've been there several times, but I don't think I'll make it back. How many passes can I give? The majority of this review is for my most recent visit.
The atmosphere is pretty good actually: dimly lit, nice furniture, quality physical environment. And the wait staff is friendly enough. But for some reason (upon which I will later theorize) there are rarely many customers in the place, and unfortunately the sparse crowd takes the atmosphere down a notch or two.
We ate at the bar most recently, and although the bartender was courteous, I definitely got the impression that he was trying to project competence more than he was actually competent. As we took our seats, he immediately asked what kind of beer we liked. He said they "have a great selection" and he said that he could steer us in the right direction, spoken as though he had some expertise to offer. But when I said that I liked stouts, he immediately "guided" me to what I fully knew to be a dark colored ale, saying "if you like stouts, then you should love this one. It's really dark." So he clearly didn't have even very basic beer knowledge despite his initial attempt to give that impression. At least he made a decent Manhattan, for which I finally opted. (It turned out there was no stout, nor even a porter on tap - and I don't call that a "great selection.")
One more thing: later when he cleared our remaining food plates away, he also took my still half-full glass of water, even though my companion had just ordered a brand new beer, leaving me to sit with nothing in front of me for the last half hour. I didn't bother asking for another glass, partly out of feeling awkward and not wanting to make him feel dumb. Didn't it occur to him that I might like to at least sip on something while we sat there for the next 30 minutes?
On to the food, which I can only describe as tending toward mediocre at best. The guy in the back is allegedly a chef, and the plating is often of the elaborate style of a higher end restaurant. Large white plates, food situated just so in the center. From what I can tell, the appetizers are normally plated as such; although for the main courses, the portions are often bigger. But let's face it; neither presentation nor portion size matters when the food is bland, undercooked, overly herbed/spiced, or otherwise poorly or unappealingly prepared. And unfortunately, much of the food I've eaten here fits one of those categories.
The french fries are the stringy curly variety - "julienned" - a style which tends towards greasy for fries, but these are also bland. Sure they kind of look unique - gourmet I guess they're shooting for - but I simply couldn't get enough salt on them to actually make them tasty. And when I asked for ketchup, the bartender brought a tiny cup of it for our two large plates of fries. Apparently they think those kinds of fries are easy to dip - or they think it is more sophisticated to serve ketchup that way. Neither of those ideas work.
This is getting long, so to briefly cover several visits: The goat cheese appetizer: very good. The French onion soup: very good. The mushroom appetizer: completely undercooked - some mushrooms nearly raw. The fish sandwich: bland (especially the bun) but inexplicably even the siracha sauce couldn't lend it flavor. The chicken sandwich: ok, but not overly flavorful. A previous visit's salmon entrée: decent, but extraordinarily small serving for the price. A previous chicken/pasta entrée: very unappealing - the chicken was bland and actually came with a huge bone in it, sitting in the middle of a pasta dish? Weird.
To summarize: high end prices for average food and okay service that fancies itself classy. No wonder the crowd is normally light.
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