Sicilian Wine Dinner at Fork - Pretty Bad

[davidbdesilva]

Fork has been doing this dinner for at least a few years now so I finally decided to go. Being of Sicilian decent and dearly missing my gramdmothers cooking, my wife and I along with good friends went last night. The dinner is hosted by Fabrizia Lanza of the Tasca d'Almerita estate and Regaleali winery in Sicily. Well, what a real disappointment and at a hefty price! The predominant taste of the entire meal? SALT SALT and more SALT. Everything was SO salty that by the end of the meal we were parched and downing glasses of water. Don't get me wrong, I LIKE my food with a good amount of salt, especially Italian food, but this was ridiculous.

The wines were all good, the reds being much better than the somewhat boring whites. Service was pretty bad and came with a somewhat snooty attitude. The first course was bland and fairly tasteless antipasti or teeny-weeny snails. Two of us got each. The snails were so small and required so much work that they weren't really worth it. Combined with the fact that the majority of the shells were empty and it was pretty embarassing. The next course of Spelt soup with beans was good but again, WAY too salty!

For mains, 2 of us got the lamb, one the pasta and one the rabbit. The lamb, while fairly tasty, was also somewhat dry. The pasta was eh, and my rabbit in sweet and sour sauce, while somewhat tasty, was again WAY too salty (the olives and capers not helping at all).

Desserts of profiteroles were small but pretty tasty. The cost of this meal you ask? $65/pp, so with tax and tip the four of us spent $350!!! WAY too much for the lacking quality and weak service that we encountered. People next to us were ordering off the menu and we overheard one of them complaining about how fatty his piece of meat was. I had heard that Fork was way past its prime, this encounter surely proves that that is definitely the truth. I would avoid this place, a shame because it is such a nice space. I stated my dissatisfaction on their website, I shall see if I hear anything back from them.

[etalanian]

I wonder if there is some "salty" trend going on right now. We went to the Fountain on Valentine's Day with two friends who had arranged a special chef's dinner. Everything my husband and I ate was salty. So much so that it was difficult to distinguish one dish from another.

Eileen

[Vadouvan]

I wonder if there is some "salty" trend going on right now. We went to the Fountain on Valentine's Day with two friends who had arranged a special chef's dinner. Everything my husband and I ate was salty. So much so that it was difficult to distinguish one dish from another.

Probably due to the usual phalanx of cooks at the fountain chain smoking behind the kitchen on 19th street.

[davidbdesilva]

Wanted to follow this up by saying that Ellen Yin herself responded to my e-mail, apologized that we didn't like the dinner, and sent a gift certificate for dinner for 4. At least she handled this situation professionally and personally, lets hope the subsequent dinner from the regular menu will be better.

[zeffer81]

Thanks for the update, David. I appreciate your taking the time to report Ellen's professional response. While my two experiences at Fork have been ok but not great, I appreciate what she does for the community (one lunch was compliments of a gift certificate that she donated to a fundraiser) and now know that she truly cares what her customers think.