| rev:text
| - MRKT Sea & Land (http://www.aliantecasinohotel.com/dining/mrkt.php)
Some friends and I went out to MRKT on a Wednesday evening; the three of them wanted to take advantage of the 2-for-1 prime rib special between 5 and 6pm. We were seated promptly. The dining room was pretty sparsely filled. Maybe that's due to the economy, maybe it was the early hour, and maybe it was the a la carte menu -- a $15-$25 entree and $5-$7 sides runs up the tab right quick. Even moreso if you take advantage of their gargantuan wine selection! (We didn't.)
Two of us ordered soft drinks: a lemonade and an Arnold Palmer (half lemonade, half iced tea). My Arnold Palmer was almost too sweet to drink. A sip of the straight up lemonade revealed a serious lack of tartness.
We enjoyed a breadbasket while reviewing the menu. Personally, I'm hard on restaurants with bad bread. It's tough to screw this up, and if you do, it's telling as to how the rest of the service is going to be. Fortunately, the basket came to our table filled with delicious warm bread in three varieties: dark sweet raisin and nut loaf, lightly salted soft pretzel sticks, and a simple, though still yummy, sourdough.
Our server was outgoing and a joy to dine with. When one of our party changed her order, subbing a MRKT chopped salad (with pancetta in every bite!) for the butternut squash soup (on the suggestion of the woman at the table next to ours, who sent hers back with a critique of "not enough squash" and "Wolfgang Puck's is better"), he left the slightly less expensive soup on the bill instead of the salad, saving us a dollar or two. (Of course, that was added to his tip.)
The Blue Nut Salad is an interesting combination of mixed greens, halved red and green grapes, and candied pecans, tossed in a fresh, peppery sort of vinaigrette and served with a pinch bowl of crumbled blue cheese. I say "interesting" because while I think I know what they were trying to achieve -- balancing the sweetness of the pecans and grapes with the strong cheese -- I think they missed the mark. Also, I should add that while I was happy with the amount of "fixins" in my salad-as-entree (though the pecans were stuck together in a few big chunks), two of our party shared this salad before their entree and were disappointed with what seemed to be just a pile of leaves.
When the two that ordered prime rib received their entrees -- WOW! These were big, tender cuts of meat. The flavor was a little lacking, but for a 2-for-1 special, you definitely got your money's worth. The same might not be said if we'd paid full price for each of these. The last member of our group ordered the tuna mahi appetizer as an entree; wonderful flavor, again tender, and the presentation was beautiful.
We split between the group three sides: a sweet potato, baked potato, and asparagus. I don't think I've ever seen a larger sweet potato in my life! The potatoes each came with a trio of toppings. The asparagus came, as requested, drizzled with lemon juice; this is, with a little salt and pepper, the best way to eat asparagus, in my opinion.
Full up, we passed on dessert and were left comfortably at our table to chat, no rush. All in all, MRKT seems best suited to big eaters and date nights -- each of you can order an entree and split one of the large-portioned sides.
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