Joshua B.
Yelp
Full disclosure/context: The last proper French meal we had was in Brasserie Prince in the grand Balmoral Hotel in the heart of Edinburgh in late August. Setting, service, food was 5 out of 5 from the moment we stepped in out of the rain. Fresh Scottish ingredients, French cooking = perfection. But how could that not be in the back of our minds as we entered Chez Rosa, which is not an inexpensive menu?
Food: Solid. Our table had a cheese board with chicken liver pate, gnocchi, orzo, steak frites. Everything was decent; no one was particularly impressed. My wife's gnocchi was impressively light, almost fluffy. Unfortunately, the delicata squash in the dish seemed to be pickled and was so strong that it overpowered everything; while a bit of acid/sharpness can enliven a mellow dish like gnocchi, it should not be so strong it becomes the sole flavor. My steak was cooked properly medium rare. Frites were quite crisp. Mayonnaise tasted out of jar/tub, not house-made. I watched other steak frites arrive at tables around me with a pat of herb butter on the steak (as noted on the menu). My steak arrived with none. The fault for this is also on the server, who should have noticed before serving. Which brings me to...
Service: Chaotic. Untrained servers for the supposed standard of restaurant they're working in; our server would have been much more at home at, say, Applebee's, from overall "vibe" and knowledge/ability to clothing and presentation. Front-of-house needs a lot of training and strong leadership.
Ambiance: Bright. Sterile. (This was in the extension off the main dining room.)
Verdict: The food was not so specular that it outshined/made up for the service. For our money, if we're driving over to the Kennebunks, we'll stick with 50 Local. Chez Rosa is in its aspirational phase: it wants to be more than it is capable of being.
Detail:
+ As we sat down and our water glasses were being filled, I said we'd like to start with the two cheeses and chicken liver pate board while we decided on our cocktails. My dining companions were starving and I wanted to get them some cheese and bread to go with the drinks. The waiter said "no," he couldn't do that because we had to order all our food at once. He'd be right back, he said, for our drink order. This set the tone for the quality of service.
+ Drink order: No locally made Roundturn Bimini Gin for my companion's gin and tonic. This is minor, I know, but also: Come on. (When the waiter repeated the order, he said, "Okay a tonic and gin." Odd, eh? Maybe it was his first night ever waiting tables?) I ordered a Sidecar. "What?" asked the waiter. I repeated myself and he wrote it down. "What's in that?" he asked. I said cognac and then...and then caught myself from listing the ingredients of a drink with three things in it that's been around for more than 100 years. "Your bartender should know," I said. "Okay," the waiter said, "I just need to know for when I enter it in," and pointed to the computer in the corner. What eventually arrived was easily the worst Sidecar I've ever had.
+ Cheese Board: Delivered with three plates and two cheese knives...and not a single word about what was on the board. If we'd asked for the menus to be returned, we could have read about the two cheeses ourselves. But there were also five other accoutrements on the board. One of my companions asked the server what one of the items was. "Ummmm," he replied, "I'll have to take that question up the ladder." He later returned and told us it was a kind of jellied honey; the flavor was subtle/interesting but the texture was like gelatin and left us wonderful: Why not just include some real local honey, which is abundant?
+ Mains: After our cocktails were finished, and the cheese board was cleared away, no one asked for our wine order. And then, bang, mains arrived. We then had to ask for wine, which arrived after we'd started our mains. No one ever asked if we'd like a second glass; so no one ordered one.
+ Dessert: We ordered the crème brûlée and the special, an odd butternut squash custard with some apples (I think) and oat streusel. And a decent tawny port. The desserts arrived. We then asked for silverware so we could eat it. Silverware was brought. The shell on the crème brûlée was solid, nicely caramelized, edging toward burnt, but not burnt. There was an apple compote of some sort at the bottom. If you are a "French restaurant" and you think you are going to "improve" on the classic crème brûlée by tweaking it, you'd better knock it out of the park because a very solid crème brûlée is a must/standard for any establishment claiming to be a French restaurant. This crème brûlée was meh. The special dessert, which a companion was "curious" about, was gross. I know it's autumn and everyone thinks they can do something edgy that's not just with apples or "pumpkin spice," but this butternut squash thing was ill conceived and ill executed.
