Jump to content

Robin Meredith

participating member
  • Posts

    154
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Robin Meredith

  1. Somewhat problematic lunch at Perry Street yesterday. The current fresh mozzarella preparation (with black cherries and microgreens) is a bit unbalanced on the sweet side. Steak tartare was basically just raw beef with a creamy tapenade - nothing explicitly wrong there, but definitely lacking the extra "zing" this place usually delivers. Poached eggs served with gravlax came out cold (twice). The current fruit dessert (a custardy thing with meringues and a mango/kiwi garnish) really doesn't work - needs a lot more acidity. Endured some long waits between courses that weren't really acknowledged by the house (not the first time this has happened, by the way, although on at least one previous occasion our entire food tab was comped). Having said all that, it is still a remarkably pleasant place to spend an hour or two on a hot summer afternoon, and I can't praise them highly enough for offering three well selected bottles of wine at $20 with the lunch menu. Just not sure this is one of their better menus.
  2. In case anyone is planning on trying to catch the tasting menu of classic dishes before they close, when we arrived for our 7:00 pm reservation tonight we were informed that they weren't offering it because they were short staffed We left.
  3. Give Fatty Crab a try - it is anything but buttoned up, and the food is definitely adventurous!
  4. FWIW, we are semi-regular visitors for lunch on the weekends, and I think they've asked us that question every time we've been there, usually followed by a reminder that "the food comes out when it's ready". Service at FC certainly can be puzzling - almost aggressively informal at times, but the last time we were there my wife asked for some help with the beer list and we were treated to an incredibly well-informed and thoughtful description of every item on the list - a sommelier at Cru couldn't have done better. And while the blaring, discordant music sometimes gets on my nerves, I also discovered a really great Arcade Fire song while dining there (can't remember ever getting turned out to some new music while dining before!). We often are amazed that we like the place as much as we do despite all the quirks - for us I guess it just works.
  5. Taco de Mexico is a must-visit for me, especially for breakfast - the carnitas burrito smothered with onions and salsa comes very highly recommended (it's not smothered with onions and salsa, which sounds kind of disgusting, but when you order a carnitas burrito smothered they will ask you if you want onions and salsa and you should say yes). Luca d'Italia has been missing more than hitting for me lately, but I can't think of an alternative Italian recommendation - that is kind of a tough category for Denver.
  6. You guys are great! Marche Moderne was a superb recommendation - I had to drop off colleagues at the Orange County airport, so I was practically right there. Food was excellent (roe-on bay scallops with black trumpet mushrooms and black truffle emulsion, veal cheeks with mashed potatoes, arugula, and bacon), wines by the glass were well chosen and in excellent condition, and the bar was very comfortable. Plus, by the time I left for the airport the traffic had dissipated so I had clear sailing all the way in. Thanks for your help.
  7. I'm visiting LA from NY next week. I have a meeting in Fountain Valley that should wrap up around 4:00, and I'm taking a red eye home from LAX around 10:00. So the question is, can I squeeze in a great dining experience during that period? I have a rental car, so I can get around, and I have no problem with bar dining. Are there any great LA restaurants that make sense geographically and that I can get into as a solo diner with no reservations? Any suggestions you can share will be greatly appreciated!
  8. Sorry in advance for answering a request for recommendations with a rant, but we had a positively miserable dinner at the Great Adirondack Steak and Seafood Company last fall, and I would hate to see anyone else repeat our mistake, so I couldn't resist passing that along. So there.
  9. Just to support the notion that you can get acclimated to different levels of saltiness - as a lifelong heavy salt user I can honestly say that I have never encountered an oversalted (to my taste) dish in a New York restaurant (well, maybe the green garlic soup at Jean-Georges once, but even that wasn't bad). This is a fascinating discussion for me, because it is completely foreign - my wife and I still end up asking for salt shakers at the table at the vast majority of our meals.
  10. We spent Christmas there last year - one additional piece of advice is to check in advance to see if the places you are interested in are serving their regular menu or a "special" holiday menu. We had reservations at Mix but decided to cancel because they were serving a fixed (and very limited) holiday menu that didn't include any of the dishes on their regular menu that we were interested in trying.
  11. We loved the food at La Boca but really didn't groove on the atmosphere (which is unusual, 'cause for the most part we could care less about atmosphere). Deafening sound level (not a soft surface in the entire place), tables jammed close together - felt like we had never left New York. Although the cooking was far superior to El Farol, I am more likely to end up there for the local character and atmosphere.
  12. Ate at Table 6 for the third time last night and, after a stellar first visit and a pretty decent second visit, came away extremely disappointed. First course was an arugula risotto with wild mushrooms, parmigiano reggiano (sp?), and saba. A really troublesome little plate of food - the mushrooms had an unpleasant earthy flavor bordering on metallic, the risotto was extremely inconsistent (excessively creamy on one bit, a bit al dente on the next), and the large parmigiano flakes on top just soaked up the saba and became kind of nasty. Main course was a nice piece of duck confit with walnuts, pears, grilled endive, and (here's the rub) allegedly some sort of blue cheese, but the cheese in the dish was distinctly orange, not very well integrated, and regardless of whether or not it was some kind of blue-veined cheese it just didn't integrate well with the rest of the ingredients. This was a near success, since all the other elements were nice, but the cheese just didn't work. This may have been a new menu, since there were some inconsistencies between the blackboard menu and the printed menu, so things may improve with time, but last night was just not a great showing.
  13. Based on our lunch last Saturday, this place is operating at a very high level. We opted for the four course tasting menu (actually five, since it includes a pre-dessert), which is a terrific bargain at $40. The menu included: *Pumpkin/squash soup with brussel sprouts, black trumpets, and chorizo *Peekytoe crab cake with endive/celery root salad (maybe some truffle oil in the dressing, but very lightly done) *Squab with Israeli couscous, red pepper, merguez sausage, and a few other things *Some sort of custardy thing with concord grape sorbet (the pre-dessert), and *Chocolate tart with salty chocolate ice cream. Everything was very clean, straightforward, and well prepared. The squab in particular seemed like an exceptionally strong raw ingredient - my wife and I order squab whenever possible and we both thought it was one of the best examples we have tasted. The wine list has improved substantially, with well selected local bottlings supplemented by some nice international selections. We are regulars for lunch at Perry Street, and we both thought this was almost on that level from a price/value perspective (that applies specifically to the tasting menu - the a la carte selections probably wouldn't stack up as well). Kudos to Hayden and Fleming for bringing this kind of experience to the North Fork.
  14. Two of the highlights (for me) on the current menu at Pegu are both made with Douglas fir eau de vie. One is a gimlet, the other (if memory serves) is sort of a Last Word variation with the eau de vie standing for maraschino. Both are outstanding (especially the latter, which in addition to being delicious has a wonderful greenish sheen). Anyone have any experience with this product? A Google search turned up a Douglas fir eau de vie produced by Clear Creek that fits the profile of the stuff they're using at Pegu. I would love to get my hands on some (even though it is $49.95 for a 375ml bottle).
  15. Visting Montreal later this week, and wondering if there is anyone there doing classic cocktails along the lines of Milk & Honey, Death & Company, Flatiron, and other places in NYC. Any suggestions? We will visit and report back if there is anything worth checking out.
  16. OK...we all need to get past the PL="horrid service" thing. I have been there several times, I am definitely not into the "mystique" of rude service, but I find the servers at PL to be wry, efficient, and genuinely concerned with my welfare. Fawning? No. Obsequious? No. Effective? In my experience, yes.
  17. Thank you. After a quick search and checking out some reviews it looks like there isn't anything especially noteworthy available, so you saved me some time and effort.
  18. I will be travelling to Montreal at the end of the month, and I understand there may be some things available there that I won't be able to find in the states. Does anyone have any specific recommendations for places to look? Any chance of finding some of the Ted Breaux bottlings, or is it just going to be the Czech stuff?
  19. So what is the consensus on the Rothman & Winters product? I just purchased a (fairly pricey) bottle and thought the results were pretty favorable. Any other opinions on this product?
  20. Visited a restaurant called Tables tonight in the Park Hill neighborhood on the recommendation of a friend. It's another one of the intimate, slightly quirky, chef-driven restaurants that Denver really excels at (thinking Duo, Fruition, Table Six, Cafe Star, etc.), but with a twist - a strong seasonal orientation (not that common around Denver) and a real greenmarket culture. Dinner tonight was an extremely well assembled spinach salad with bacon, multicolored beets, blue cheese, pickled onions, and cucumbers, and a simply amazing entree of crusted halibut over heirloom tomatoes, snap peas, and baby carrots. The carrots were undercooked, but everything else about this dish was spectacular, and it is the only heirloom tomato dish I've had all season that really delivered. Wine list is quirky and short (typical for these places), but I had an Aussie Semillon by the glass that was an excellent choice and a good match with the food. The place is a bit cramped, but I was so caught up with the food I didn't really notice. Highly recommended.
  21. Agree completely with all of the favorable comments above. I travel to Denver once every three or four weeks and eat out a lot, and based on my first visit Fruition is about as good as it gets around here. I had a complete pork fest - the deconstructed carbonara pasta with pork belly and the BBQ pork entree - and it was great - intensely flavored but not heavy or ridiculous. Service was great and wines well selected - only drawback from a solo diner's perspective is the lack of a bar, so if you're going to eat there on your own you will need a table (and probably a reservation).
  22. Visiting from New York this weekend and wondering if the classic cocktail trend has made it's way to Santa Fe yet. Thinking of an equivalent to NYC places like Pegu Club, Flatiron Lounge, Death & Co., etc - fresh squeezed juices, homemade ingredients (ginger beer, bitters, etc.), knowledgable bartenders, everything measured, nothing from a gun, etc. Anything like this in Santa Fe?
  23. I was a fan of this place in its original incarnation, but our one and only visit since the ownership change was pretty uninspired. It was several months ago, so I can't be more specific, although I do remember that my veal entree was quite ordinary and no one in our party seemed particularly impressed with the food. I guess it's not that surprising, given what a personal, chef-driven place this was.
  24. We always stay at the Claremont Hotel - although dinner is served primarily for hotel guests, I believe it is open to the public, and might make a nice change of pace from the lobster pounds. The dining room has a terrific view of the bay, and if you are at all into wine they frequently have some selections on their list that are terrific bargains. Food is not spectacular, but never bad, either - get there a little early and grab a drink at the boathouse before hand.
  25. I'll second the recommendation for Rioja - the food can be inconsistent and the wine list is a bit pricey (although they had an excellent and very fairly priced 2004 Edmeades Zinfandel the last time I was there). The pork belly seems to be a permanent fixture on the menu, and should not be missed. Across the street from Rioja is Bistro Vendome, owned by the same team - surprisingly good, fairly classic French cooking - I actually like it better than Rioja, but that may be personal preference more than anything else. I've only done solo meals there so I've never had an opportunity to study the wine list. Jax is an excellent seafood joint with a reliable but not terribly exciting wine program - excellent selection of oysters and a blackened catfish that for me is the most consistently satisfying entree in Lodo. Haven't been to Kevin Taylor but had an absolute train wreck of a meal at Prima, a casual Italian place right next door run by the same chef. Truly hard to believe how bad this meal was - paper thin veal scallopini the consistency of shoe leather smothered in black pepper so you couldn't taste anything else. Just awful. Finally, I agree with the reservations about Sullivan's expressed previously, except I actually pretty much hated the place - the wine program isn't bad, but they have an uncanny knack for taking every classic steak house cliche and running it into the ground. However, I did get an e-mail from them recently about a Turley wine dinner that I would probably have attended if I had been in town at the time, so it might be worth checking for special events. Enjoy your visit!
×
×
  • Create New...