Ana F.
Yelp
My husband made reservations for us to celebrate my birthday yesterday. We had both been pretty eager to check out Hanks, based on reviews and blog posts. The thing we kept reading was that the menu was limited, but that was because everything was outstanding. My husband made reservations a few weeks ago, looked to change them because we had something pop up, but there were no reservations to be found. No problem, we moved things around to make it work. When we got there, there were tons of open tables, so I was curious as to why reservations were needed, but I digress.
We started off with a margarita (hello national margarita day) and a Rye cocktail, that was reminiscent of an Old Fashioned. The Marg was admittedly too strong, but it was my birthday and, why not! The Rye drink was absolutely fabulous.
We ordered the buffalo cauliflower and clams to start. The cauliflower was delicious, I enjoyed every bite of it! The clams were fishy to me, but my husband loved them!
We followed up our order with the Fried Chicken (the waitress said that it was one of the best things on the menu), brisket tacos and fish tacos. This is where the meal fell apart for us. I am a good Southern Woman and absolutely love Fried Chicken, and it just wasn't good. The breading had no flavor whatsoever and the leg was really dry, which is just not what you would expect from a piece of dark meat. The polenta that was served on the side was uninspired, completely bland and wasn't worth the calories to eat it. I will say that the salad on the side was absolutely perfect - solid!
The brisket tacos were good, the brisket was cooked perfectly but had no flavor or depth to them. The "Hanks Sauce" was outstanding and pulled the taco together, so much so we ordered a side of it to drown the taco in. The fish taco was fairly generic and unmemorable. We did order a side of fries that were perfectly cooked and seasoned.
I really wanted to like Hanks. The decor is great, the atmosphere is lovely and the service was good (was a little disappointed that I wasn't wished a happy birthday upon sitting down, despite it being included in the reservation - but that sounds a bit petty). If the meal had come out to $75, we would have called it a wash, but it was close to $200 and it was just okay at best.
Maybe we went on a bad night, it was a Tuesday, but we would be hard pressed to give them another shot.