Vinology Wine Bar and Restaurant - Ann Arbor, MI

[tammylc]

Nice, nice, nice. Certainly helped that it was a baby-free night, but also a good restaurant. Lots of fun. Good mix of small plates and larger meals. Big wine list, as you'd expect from a wine bar - about 40 wines by the glass, and a broad but shallow selection of other bottles. Pretty reasonable variety, reasonable markup. They have a retail angle as well - you can buy any wine they sell for 30% off the listed price in the restaurant.

There were five of us, and we split three appetizers to start. There was a plate of three mini burgers with farmhouse cheddar and honey roasted shallots, each with a different house-made catsup - tomato catsup, mango catsup, and yellow bell pepper catsup. I had the mango, and it was great, as was the little lick of yellow bell pepper that I got. Great burger too. Then some grilled chicken wing in a sweet hot chile glaze, served with an asian pear and radicchio salad. Flavorful, not too hot, and the asian pear in the salad was nice and crunchy. My favorite was the ahi carpaccio with foie gras, caramelized teriyaki glaze and petite herb salad. Because of splitting it five ways, I just got a couple little pieces of it, but mmm-mmm-mmm it was good.

When it came to entrees, we had quite a variety. And fortunately, everyone was willing to share. Kim got the brick-pressed honey glazed duck breast with ancho ginger reduction, boniato custard and wilted spinach. Eric got the grilled Wagyu steak with truffled creamed spinach and yukon gold potato tots. The Wagyu was a skirt steak cut, so not as tender as you'd expect Wagyu to be, but exceptionally tender for skirt steak. And nice flavor. Hope got the smoked wild salmon sald with honey mustard glazed, young greens, french lentils and balsalmic syrup. A very nice salad. Great smoky flavor on the salmon. Mark and I were a little more unusual in our dinner selections. He got the "Snack Board" from the small plates menu - an assortment of cured meats, smoked fish, cheese, bread and crackers, nuts and dried fruit. Oh, and a super intense wasabi mustard. I got the "spoon hors d'ouevres" flight of the week, which was an absolute bargain at $4.95. Four little spoons, each filled with something different. In one, olive oil poached baramundi with capers. The hamachi with cucumber salad was my favorite. The mussels in saffron aioli weren't particularly interesting, and the spoonful of creme fraiche with capers was just odd. But definitely very fun. I also had the Bellwether Farms ricotta gnocchi, with extra virgin olive oil, morels and asparagus. Pefect for the season.

I should have gone with my original wine choice, which was a white Bordeaux. But Mark wanted to order it, and I knew he'd share, so I got a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc instead. It was fine, but not particularly interesting. I should have opted for some crisp Italian wine instead. The wine menu uses little symbols to classify the different wines - a lime wedge for crisp, a POW symbol for big, etc. Eric got a Spanish tempranillo. It was the cheapest wine on the menu, but exactly what he wanted.

The desserts looked great - in fact, it was the "warm brioche beignets - rhubarb sorbet, sugared berries" that convinced us to choose the restaurant. And even though we were actually served strawberry-sour cream ice cream and unsugared berries, we were happy with our choice. Kim and I split the beignets. Mark got the intensely chocolate pots de creme. Hope got the awesome ice cream sandwich, which was a bittersweet chocolate-pine nut cookie filled with her choice of ice cream. The cookie was really wonderfully awesome, and the banana creme brulee ice cream was a good filling. Eric got the trio of house-made ice creams, and chose the banana that Hope had, the strawberry that Kim and I had, and a quite nice chocolate (the other choice was a mixed berry sorbet).

Prices were really quite reasonable - small plates range from $5-16, entrees $15-$24, desserts $5-$7. Good portion sizes, without being at all overwhelming. We were able to eat all the food described above without feeling overstuffed or underfed. Friendly, reasonably knowledgeable service, and no pressure even though we took a long time to get around the ordering. Flavors were all excellent - absolutely no clunkers in anything that we ordered. It's a trendy, hip restaurant, which means that it's got too many hard surfaces (including a tin roof) so it's quite loud. Probably quieter downstairs by the cellar room.

As a wine bar, they're doing lots of wine related events - weekly tastings, special dinners, etc. I definitely hope to have a chance to go back and check it out, and signed up for their email list to get the scoop on what's going on.

Highly recommended. <a href="http://www.vinowinebars.com/vinology/index.html">Visit their website for more info.</a>

[tammylc]

Oh, a small notes I forgot in my original post. The wine list (or wine bible, as our server liked to call it) only has vintages listed for a very few of the wines. Odd, I thought, for someplace billing itself as a place for wine lovers. Equally oddly, they had a couple of cult California cabs on the list - but only in magnum - that seemed kinda odd...

[Elrushbo]

I have had lunch there twice, easily my favorite A2 restaurant now. They have gotten it all right, ambience is soothing, lots of woodtones and color that goes well, service at lunch is prompt but not too prompt...they don't rush you or bring entrees out while you still have appetizer plates out. I take my wife to lunch a lot, it's nice to have a pleasant, relaxing lunch without taking too long(waiting for waitstaff to bring the check, etc). The food...the lobster club sandwich is the best sandwich I have ever had, would love to get the recipie for the vanilla bean aioli! I also had asparagus soup...very rich asparagus flavor without a ton of salt, which made me like the flavors better.

I will definitely be trying Vinology for dinner, it's a very well run place and a welcome addition to Ann Arbor.

[annarborfoodie]

We had a very fun dinner here last night with friends from out of town. We had reservations for 8:00 and were seated right away, downstairs in the funky bubble room - which was cozy and had a good balance between hubub and being able to hear each other speak. The gentlemen shared a flight of pinots (which was one of their featured flights) and the ladies shared a flight of two chards and two sauvignon blancs. Our server wrote up the features of each wine on a mat, so we were able to compare and contrast easily. We decided to order a bunch of small plates, and very much enjoyed our meal. We started with a cheese plate - we wished it had a few more pieces of bread or crackers, but the cheeses were all good, and served at the right temperature. We then had the jumbo shrimp (my least favorite), calamari (very good with the accompanying slaw) a, mini burgers (all of the red-meat eaters' favorite) and the gnocchi, along with salads. I like the fact that the square plates fit on the table easily for sharing. We originally thought we would end up ordering a few more dishes after the first round, but ultimately decided we had enough and wanted to save room for our two-stage dessert. I had my eye on the warm beignets, so we had those (with the rhubarb sorbet, but the berries weren't sugared), and then moved down the street to La Dolce Vita because the guys wanted to get scotch and cigars (they both just finished their dissertations so this was a celebratory evening). We really enjoyed our dinner and will definitely be back.

Edited June 11, 2006 by annarborfoodie (log)

[sweintraub]

Sounds like a dinner candidate for the Heartland Gathering.

[tammylc]

Sounds like a dinner candidate for the Heartland Gathering.

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I had been thinking that as well, but it will really depend on how many we are. Which data I'll start collecting in about a month.

[tammylc]

Went to Vinology again last night, and I continue to be pleased. Our waiter was a little annoying and not particularly knowledgeable about wine, but he was reasonably attentive, so that was fine.

Two of us ordered 3 small plates then a split a main. We wanted the spoon hors d'ouevres, but they didn't have any yesterday. I was tempted to get the riccota gnocchi, because I liked it sooo much last time, but I thought I'd better try something new. We ended up with the calamari with green papaya slaw, ahi carpaccio, and a the house salad. The calamari was good - I liked the serrano ginger pesto it was served with - but occasionally a bit chewier than I expect good calamari to be. The ahi carpaccio continues to impress, but I'll admit it's probably just because of the foie gras - I'm an absolute sucker for the stuff. The house salad was tasty, but perhaps a little overdressed.

For our main, we split the hazelnut dusted scallops, served with polenta and greens, a honey drizzle and a citrus beurre blanc. Good, but we found the honey drizzle a little too generous, making the whole dish a little too sweet.

My hypocracy in the other thread about frequently changing menus was revealed, as I was saddened to discover that they'd changed the cookie being served with the ice cream sandwich. I'd absolutely adored the bittersweet chocolate pine nut cookie we were served last time. Informed that today's cookie was chocolate chocolate chip with cherries we decided to go for it anyway, but then our waiter came out to tell us that it had actually changed to chocolate coconut. Since my friend is not a coconut fan, we took a pass on dessert altogether and ate my homemade chocolate truffles instead.