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| - This restaurant opened four days ago, and you can tell that they are still working out the kinks.
It's a small venue with only about a handful of table. Certainly not an ideal place for groups, and better suited to tables of 2-4 diners. They have a partially open kitchen so the four seats at the bar overlook the chefs. As a result, or possibly due to the building itself, the ventilation is very poor here causing the room to be really warm - to the point that they had to open to front door to cool things down. This meant that we had to fluctuate between asking for the door to be opened and closed throughout our meal.
The servers are definitely still learning the menu / the lay of the restaurant. I started as the first person to make my order and after I ordered two dishes, the server stopped me to describe what an appropriate amount of food was for our table for four and what she would suggest. Really, this should have happened when we were all initially seated and before we started to peruse the menu. The first dish I ordered was from the "small" section and it was a plate of cinnamon roasted beets with preserved lemon. When I asked for it, she remarked the the dish was a lot of beets! Our table laughed when we received the plate because in actuality it was quite small and it would be easy enough for someone to eat on their own. You could really taste the cinnamon and I did not detect the preserved lemon. Also, although not described on the menu, it comes on top of a layer of yogurt / cream - just in case you don't eat dairy (I don't). Another dish we ordered was the eggplant dip. I didn't particularly like it. It was more like a macerated bruschetta with bits of eggplant too (the tomato flavour came out more though) and a Seasoning that I did not particularly like. For $10, it was a tiny portion which I thought was overpriced.
Originally, we ordered two tagines, two of the "small" dishes, and three of the "sides" (steamed carrot salad with raisins, couscous, and horchata - a fried buttery biscuit). This was way too much food and we canceled the second tagine after we could barely finish the first.
While the food was interesting, I don't think I would rush back anytime soon, because it wasn't the type of food that blew me away and left me craving it over and over again.
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