Jordan H.
Yelp
Overall:
BATA is definitely trying to be a fine dining establishment, but is incredibly unbalanced between quantity, quality, and cost. If you're charging a 5 star cost for tiny dishes, they need to be 5 star quality. To be fair, none of the dishes were "bad". But I shouldn't be paying 5 star prices for mediocre food with really small portions. Most of the food we had was 1 dimensional or completely unbalanced in flavor profile. Almost every dish on the menu was the same texture: purees, aiolis, gravy, porridge, mushrooms, scallops, crudo, tartare. I'm so disappointed in this meal I came out of food review retirement just to post this.
Bottomline: BATA is committing robbery with their mediocre food, ridiculous pricing, and small portions
Service: 5/5 - server did a great job, super attentive, very helpful. Food came out promptly without a long wait.
Ambiance: 5/5 - definitely a cool spot, the open kitchen concept is always nice.
Food: 2.5/5 -
We tried 5 dishes.
Flamed Oyster w/ lemon basil, pork fat, charred onion powder, kanzuri oil , Caviar - solid bite, you get a big hit of the citrus with a little char to follow through. $12 (1 oyster)
Beef Tartare - this one had the most flavor out of all of our dishes. The beef was slightly cooked. Overall it was seasoned well, the oak aioli and chile oil really shined. The wheat tortilla was a weird addition that felt like took away from the dish. Both the tortilla and the tartare were really good by themselves. $18 (3 spoonfuls worth)
coal seared tuna crudo w/ lime leaf, grilled peach broth, egg yolk sauce - This dish just didn't make any sense. The whole dish was just completely taken over by the lime leaf. The egg yolk sauce and peach broth combination didn't mesh. The dish just came out flat. $18 (4 pieces of tuna)
Mixed Summer Squash w/ chickpea tamari butter, kimchi curry sauce - Fresh squash with a curry sauce. Unsure where the kimchi came in as the curry was overpowering. The tamari butter was barely noticeable on some of the squash pieces that wasn't touching the curry. Overall, just 1 dimensional. Just squash with curry. $14 (7 small pieces of squash)
Chile-butter poached halibut w/ AZ grain porridge, salsa verde, smoked butter sabayon - Easily the most disappointing dish we had. Sabayon overpowered most of the dish until you finished it. The grain porridge and salsa verde underneath were solid, but theme of the night, everything just weirdly felt flat. $44 (1 serving of halibut maybe 6 ounces?)
Side note: The table next to us ordered the $42 grilled chicken breast with blackened squash sauce and pickled okra. It was literally 1 grilled sliced chicken breast with 2 pickled okra...