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Adventures in Fine Dining

I may not be obsessed with Manolo Blahnik’s but I do enjoy the romance of a night on the town at a nice Restaurant.  However, the last few spots have been rather underwhelming.  My friend wanted me to meet his new girl, and we all decided on this new Restaurant that everyone has been positively raaaving about.  It’s tucked into one nondescript parking lot, wedged in between subsidized housing and homes that may just very well be featured in Home & Garden.  I suppose it’s some sort of poetic irony to be “slumming” it in the cut whilst gnawing away at a $50 Steak, clutching your new Louie?

I’m not gonna beat around the bush here.  Remember when I reported on how pretentious it was for the Waiter to replace my chopsticks from Appetizer to Dinner at the last place?  Sure, I want another spoon if it’s transitioning between soup to cake but I don’t think I’ll die if the same tip that touched my Wontons touches my Noodles.  Perhaps I’m alone on this, and perhaps I’m making too much of it.  I just so hate waste.  I don’t believe for a second that one, single dinner should require 3-6 plates/guest.  That seems absurd to me.  


So, this new spot.  We received more plates than actual food:

This was their featured “Cheese Plate.”  “Meant to share” insisted our Waitress.  We received 4–yes 4 mere shards of toasted Crackers as a vehicle to eat the Cheese.  I don’t really care that the ridiculous expense of this plate came from non existent dots of Truffle reduction.  *sigh*  Still, if this were spectacular and held my body in foodgasm (how I measure my food experience), you would be reading praise, not complaints but don’t give out on me yet–the night gets better (a bit).

$28 for CHICKEN.  Chicken Breast.  The winning point to this plate: notice the globs of Potatoes.  Wasabi whipped Potatoes.  The single redeeming pinnacle of Dinner.  They had such a creamy mouth feel–like buttery clouds spiked with a heavy dose of slap-in-your-face *ZING!*

This was good.  Not OMG great but good.  I especially loved the random Chocolate “crinkles” that littered the plate…great contrast to the decadence of Flourless Chocolate Cake and cold, creamy Ice Cream.  We were told that the Ice Cream was made in house.  I can always appreciate that but again, for what we paid, it should have been absolutely fabulous–not good.  My rule of thumb for dining out is usually this: I want my mouth to be treated to something that a). I cannot duplicate exactly at home or b). is something so arduously time consuming that I’d rather you (the Restaurant) take the time and care to make it for me.  Of course, this isn’t always the case but I feel that (especially) in a Fine dining setting, your expectations should  be higher because you’re paying that much more for it.  


For almost $50/guest, I feel like the experience should have been commensurate (at the very least) to what we paid.  I feel like one should walk away with the tingle of delicious memories still washing over you.  Maybe I missed something, that could very well be possible, but I don’t think I did.  This experience shall not deter my exploration into Fine dining.  I just hope the next place is so great that I want to blog about it more than once!


XOXO
Your-still-hungry
Squishy Monster ^.^

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