Drew A.
Yelp
My fiancee and I went to this restaurant yesterday evening, as we had been anticipating going out for Valentine's Day all week. Unfortunately, we could not go out on the actual day since both of us work in medical and our hours are crazy.
To say that the meal was a disappointment was an understatement. She and I don't go out to eat often, because I cook well at home. We go out to eat for the experience and to prevent the need to clean afterward. When we happen to go out, we expect a certain type of experience from what is expected from a restaurant of the caliber for which it stands. For example, if we were to go out to eat at Olive Garden (seldomly happens, just on a random night when both of us are exhausted and just need to get dinner somewhere), we understand that we will get food at said place and the service will be par or sub-par. However, when you go out to a place like Back Burner which has had amazing reviews for years in Macon, you expect a certain level of food quality and service. Unfortunately, The Back Burner just didn't hit the mark.
My fiancee got crab cakes, and I must say that the chef knows how to prepare them because they are amazing. Fresh lump crab meat, pan-seared appropriately and served with an excellent sauce, the appetizer was the highlight of the meal. I got the duck breast appetizer which was ok, however, the chef needs to learn how to put an appropriate sear on the duck before slicing and serving to enhance the flavor of the meat. It seemed as though they may have sent it through a salamander to heat the meat, but this dish requires a sear. Lastly, the duck was served in a sweet and spicy chili that I get from my local Asian grocer. For a restaurant of this caliber, I expect a sauce to be prepared from scratch.
My fiancee ordered the Chilean Sea bass Nicoise. This caliber of fish is amazing, however, the chef found a way to prepare it like you would get from a middle-of-the-road chain restaurant. Food can speak for itself, but if a chef is incapable of elevating the food to the stature it deserves, the dish falls flat no matter how much an attempt to elevate the fish is dressed with an amazing sauce. Sea bass should flake as soon as it is touched with a fork. A knife ought not to be required. It's a shame this poor fish died to be prepared tough.
I ordered the Black Angus New York Strip au Poivre, which should have been prepared over a wood-fired grill, or at the very least seared on a flat top. I had it cooked rare to mid-rare, as a steak of this caliber deserves to be put together. When the food comes out to the table, both meals are to be prepared appropriately so sendbacks are unnecessary. Unfortunately, I had to send mine back because the steak was tough to cut into with a steak knife, which revealed the steak was cooked medium to medium-well. Anytime this happens in food service to a restaurant with a lofty reputation (not to mention a price point to match), the meal needs to be comped. They attempted to recook my dinner, as I sat watching my fiancee eat her dinner, only for the dish to come out cooked inappropriately again. My steak came out a second time and fired to the right temperature, but the steak was tough to cut into with a steak knife. I'm not sure if they microwaved it or if the steak came from an inferior source, but it didn't seem like it was seared at all. The au Poivre was ok, however, it was smothered all over the steak as though to hide the lack of meat quality. They also used ginger at some point, and ginger doesn't go into au Poivre.
Justin was very nice, he just needs some re-education on service. I can understand restaurants get busy, but to serve wine to my fiancee by presenting her wine glass over her shoulder from the back side of the booth because it is convenient rather than coming to the front of the table to present the wine glass according to proper steps of food service is inappropriate. Rather than recognizing issues that needed to be addressed, he was more concerned with cleverly checking that the 2 one hundred dollar bills I used to pay for my dinner were real and returning with a dessert that "we needed to try" and never ordered. It seemed like a good-faith gesture, but I've been around once or twice, and his insistence on us "staying for just a sec" to return with a dessert that they were going to throw away at the end of the night didn't fool me. If the same effort was put into making things right so the restaurant would produce return guests, the business may be able to thrive. Overall, the server was a nice guy and needed a job to take care of his family. Unfortunately, the quality of the establishment he works for is slowly slipping away. I would have left one star, but Justin brought the level up to 2 stars because he was as accommodating as he could be considering the business for which he works.
I'll keep my ear to the ground to see if they improve. Til then I'll just visit Natalia's or Downtown Grill.