Saminda Wijegunawardena
Google
Overall, we had a great dinner Sunday evening but the understaffing in the front of the house contributed to a lackluster service experience.
We started our meal with a few canapes:
Lobster (hollandaise, brown butter lobster bits)
Caramelized Onion (chive cream, fried shallot)
Short Rib (scallion sour cream, scallion)
All were excellent but the standout was the lobster, loved the brown butter x hollandaise flavored with the delicate chunks of lobster. Yum.
Also the fresh house-made rolls with a sublime green matcha butter was amazing. Well presented too.
For another appetizer, we shared the Corn Agnolotti (corn veloute, mascarpone, ricotta, saffron butter, chives). Each bite was creamy decadence, the creamy and sweet flavor of the corn shining through the subtle blends of the cheese. While a main dish and a bit robust, it's small enough to be enjoyed as an appetizer between a few people as they are 5 rich raviolis.
For our mains, we had the following:
Cowboy ribeye (14-day dry age, hoisin glaze, szechuan chili) - this was a solid and generous cut of ribeye, and atypical in that it was lathered in a sweet szechuan sauce. The flavor of the steak itself still broke though, though it competed somewhat with the heavy sauce.
Adobo (braised pork and chicken, coconut garlic rice, scallion) - while slightly oversalted, the adobo flavor was great and the dish was enjoyable with the accompanying garlic rice.
The CH Burger (double smashed wagyu, dijon aioli, bread and butter pickles, American cheese) - they were kind enough to pull a simplified single patty version of the cheeseburger from the bar menu for our daughter, along with some fries. She enjoyed it but our little foodie said it wasn't as good as the one from Marian's around the corner.
Dessert was underwhelming: a chocolate chip cookie dough, granola and vanilla ice cream dish sounded better than it tasted. The dominant taste and texture was the granola, you were left hunting for bits of cookie dough to try and balance out the abundance of granola, but the lasting taste was the prevailing granola.
Cocktails were solid if not amazing, and there were some missing ingredients which limited selection.
Our server was excellent in his energy, attitude, and effort but as mentioned initially, the service experience suffered from understaffing. Not fair to expect this single gentleman to be the server, bartender and host for over a dozen people on a weekend night, even on a Sunday. There were, as a result, some expected lapses and uneven pacing in the coursing and overall service attention.
Recommended if you go on a better staffed night, as the food was good enough to earn a second try from us.