Joshua M.
Yelp
Where to begin? We had a table reserved for the Perfect Pair Valentines special, and were fairly excited, as neither of us had ever been to The Revival.
Upon arrival, we were seated at a cocktail table. Not a dining table. A cocktail table. With a wicker-ass chair and low facing bench, where the banana leaves hung in my girlfriends face. Not a great start.
Our server, Terrick (sp?), was the one bright spot in the whole evening. He was a doll and moved us to a more suitable spot.
Once we were settled, we were finally able to take in the ambience; a combination of Sublime and Drake carried the airwaves, which suited the tacky, tiki-chic décor, complete with a young lady that had her friend/assistant taking duckface selfies with their Cannon. Charming.
I ordered an Old Fashioned, which arrived in a plastic cup... just... come on...
As for dinner? Well, someone lied on their resume in order to get the Chef de Cuisine position , because the 'fine dinning' experience that rolled out was a culinary abortion.
To begin, they mis-categorized the Amuse, simply adding it to the course list. So in reality, we had a 3 course 'meal'.
The amuse itself was billed as a 'vegan' ceviche, with no actual explanation of the fish substitute. When it came out, it was just sort of slid across the table by someone who wasn't our waiter. The plating was presentable enough, resting on an endive leaf. However, the flavor wasn't subtle; it was nothing but a burst of cilantro and lime, which just gushed around in our mouths, and was truly off putting.
The next course was actually decent. A goat cheese and orange Frisee salad with toasted pecans and beets (the latter of which didn't actually make it onto her plate somehow). Anyway, it was fresh and well balanced, and we both enjoyed it, which only gave us false hope.
The main is where things really went off the rails. Hers was an 'American style' Kobe fillet with mashed potatoes and asparagus. It was decently cooked at medium rare (though she asked for medium), but the asparagus was woody with the ends left on, and was garnished with whole peppercorn. Like seriously, big ol' peppercorn boulders. Who does that?
My main was a Porcini mushroom ravioli with a beet Beurre Blanc, artichoke hearts, pomegranate seeds, and pepitos. Which sounds lovely! But what came out looked like lukewarm cat puke. Everything was just blobbed into a small bowl, drowned in the Beurre Blanc, and had the garnishes sloppily thrown atop. The flavor was bland, and I didn't finish it.
Dessert wasn't better. To start, the rock hard Nutella garnish (and what we think was a single M&M?) was slopped down next to a lemon tart that was 90% crust and 10% lemon filling with dollops of untoasted merengue (which is made of raw egg and shouldn't be served as such).
The other dessert was a crème brulee cheesecake, but the crème wasn't really bruleed; or perhaps it was the night before, but by the time it hit the table it was a soft, wet glaze covered with thin slices of mushy strawberry. The crust was so full of cinnamon, it made our mouths numb.
They did bring out a what I can only describe as a vat of Dow's 10 year tawny port in a white wine glass for me to knock back while we spooned through the above sugar pile though, so I guess that was nice?
We've had many delightful Michelin star experience here in Sacramento; this was simply a pedestrian shadow of a fine dinning experience, and we kept joking that it was really someone's 7 year old child in the back 'making mommy and daddy dinner'. At least that would have been cute.
In the end the bill was ~$250, which was about ~$150 more than this meal was worth. And that, was not cute.
