mizuna

[mongo_jones]

do they have a website?

thinking of making a reservation for saturday night--curious about the current menu. has anyone been recently?

[pepperedpalate]

Mongo--

Mizuna's Website:

Mizuna

Frank has September's menu up.

-L

[mongo_jones]

thanks! that's a nice website--now i want everything on the september menu! hope october's menu will be as good.

made a reservation for saturday dinner using open table--report forthcoming on sunday.

[Rusa]

I can recommend the duck breast and the mac and cheese. The desserts aren't up to the quality of the savory items.

Have you been there before?

[mongo_jones]

nope--been to luca but not to mizuna (we've only been here a year and tend to spend more of our money on ingredients and non-fancy restaurants). but everyone here raves about it.

[rlm]

Hmm. Their website used to be mymizuna.com (that's what still shows up in search engines), and I was never able to find one for Luca. So thanks to Lori for posting the new URL. Looks like there's one for Luca too! Haven't been in a while, so please let us know how the meal goes, Mongo. I also expect a 1000-word essay on why you've chosen to try Mizuna before Frasca.

[mongo_jones]

I also expect a 1000-word essay on why you've chosen to try Mizuna before Frasca. 

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let me refer you to the state of colorado's budget spending on higher education

[mongo_jones]

so, we're back. quick review follows:

food: decent to good.

mrs. jones started with the veal sweetbreads saltimbocca and moved on to a duck breast with something or the other. i had their trademark "mac and cheese" to start and moved on to the double-grilled pork chop. mrs. jones' items were all good. my mac and cheese was good, but my pork chop was over-cooked. everything was more than competent but nothing blew us away.

ambience: some might say their tables are set too close to each other in a place where the cheapest entree is in the mid 20s.

service: um. read on:

our waiter started off somewhat friendly but seemed to lose interest in us as soon as we said we wouldn't be having any wine (mrs. jones can take it or leave it and till tomorrow i am on medication that doesn't allow for alcohol). from this moment to his taking our order took about 15 minutes. in this time he took the wine and food orders for two tables that were seated after us, brought two others their desserts, another a check and engaged in hearty conversations at all of these tables. while walking around he studiously avoided eye-contact with us. i predicted to mrs. jones that there might be a 15% tip in his future-if he was lucky. eventually he took our orders with a marked lack of enthusiasm and proceeded to ignore us for pretty most of the rest of the evening. those who remember my luca review will recall the overly-aggressive water refilling; well, this gent seemed to be of the opposite school--at one point i went 10 minutes with an empty glass and our man nowhere in sight.

our food took a long time to arrive--along the way there was a mixup as i watched the hostess take our order to the wrong table; unfortunately, one of the people there had also ordered the pork-chop, so she left it with him and walked indignantly back to the open kitchen, only to be informed that she'd served the wrong table. she actually went back in an attempt to retrieve the pork-chop but the dude had already dug in. this meant our food took longer to arrive, and i'm convinced it was during the argument between the chef and the hostess that my chop got left longer than it was meant to on the grill. our original waiter did not materialize until 10 minutes after the food arrived--and i hadn't had the energy to track anyone down to complain about the chop (also, it wasn't that overcooked either). since we'd filled ourselves up with bread while waiting for our order to be taken, and then waiting for our entrees to arrive, we had no room for dessert. our waiter sniffed on being informed of this state of affairs, as though to say that he was not surprised. when the bill arrived he made me a prophet--i couldn't bring myself to tip less than 15%, but i gave him exactly 15%. before tax.

rlm, you'll be glad to know we won't be picking mizuna over frasca again.

a side-note: we've now been to luca once and mizuna once and at both places we were pretty much the only people of color. is this too small a sample-size or is this par for the course in the denver fine-dining scene?

Edited October 10, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[rlm]

a side-note: we've now been to luca once and mizuna once and at both places we were pretty much the only people of color. is this too small a sample-size or is this par for the course in the denver fine-dining scene?

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Just the basic demographics of Denver. When my friend Raymond visited CO from the Bay Area for the first time for a Niners-Broncos pre-season game, he surveyed the crowd and declared, "Damn, Denver is...pale. Give me your binoculars. I think I see a brother way over there." A waiter at a restaurant in the Denver 'burbs the day before kept staring at him and acting weird at our table. Waiterboy finally asked if he was a professional athlete and we burst out laughing. You just have to shake your head sometimes at the assumptions people make, and tip accordingly.

15% sounds pretty generous for the bonehead that waited on you.

Edited to ask: Did you speak to a manager about the way you were treated? I did that on my first trip solo to Cap Grille (about the hostesses) and never had problems after that.

Edited October 10, 2004 by rlm (log)

[mongo_jones]

Just the basic demographics of Denver. When my friend Raymond visited CO from the Bay Area for the first time for a Niners-Broncos pre-season game, he surveyed the crowd and declared, "Damn, Denver is...pale. Give me your binoculars. I think I see a brother way over there."  A waiter at a restaurant in the Denver 'burbs the day before kept staring at him and acting weird at our table. Waiterboy finally asked if he was a professional athlete and we burst out laughing. You just have to shake your head sometimes at the assumptions people make, and tip accordingly.

15% sounds pretty generous for the bonehead that waited on you.

Edited to ask: Did you speak to a manager about the way you were treated? I did that on my first trip solo to Cap Grille (about the hostesses) and never had problems after that.

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we didn't make too much of a fuss about the waiter etc. largely because we are more amused than anything by these kinds of things. in any case, the space is so small that it doesn't seem possible to speak discreetly with anyone anyway--and it was hard to tell who the manager was. if the food had blown us away this would probably not have deterred us from going back, but it didn't. and so we'll be checking out adega and frasca for our next few special outings--and i'd go back to luca (frantic water-pouring and all) before i'd go back to mizuna.

frank bonnano was in the house and working the room. he didn't come to our table either--perhaps he was going only to the tables of regulars? or perhaps, since it is obvious from looking at me that i am not a professional athlete, he couldn't think of any small-talk he could make with us? edit to add: at the table next to ours the conversation with frank seemed to revolve around golf games and houses in aspen.

Edited October 10, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)