Kevin R.
Yelp
I have waited for years to have an opportunity to try this restaurant as we don't live in the area. I drove past the old restaurant for years before I moved away never giving it much thought until I saw it on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. Having gone to more than 150 DDD locations across the US and never really been disappointed, I had high expectations for the visit. First impressions when walking in were good - the building is beautiful - they clearly have invested into their business. However that is where we started to go down hill. It was 8:45pm on a Saturday night, which is close to their stated kitchen time of 9:00pm. I asked the hostess if the kitchen was still open and she said "yes, but you need to order in the next 10 minutes" which I understood. I had already skimmed the menu and we pretty much knew what we wanted.
The restaurant was pretty empty by this point with a vast number of open tables. It took her a few minutes to decide where she wanted us and then sat us at a high top in the bar. When the waitress came over, I asked her a few questions about some items we were interested in, but unfortunately she had never tried the items. We rolled the dice and hurriedly ordered so we could make their kitchen cutoff. I ordered their goat cheese wontons as an appetizer, which she warned me would come out at the same time as the meal - I was fine with that. We also ordered the dry aged 8oz sirloin steak dinner, the apple brandy pork shank dinner, and a quesadilla as a meal. For the sides on the dinners, we selected the tomato basil soup, the side salad, the fries, and the mashed potatoes. She scurried off to the kitchen without even asking us for a drink order. In fact, she never once asked us if we wanted anything to drink so we just drank the water on the table.
The food came out quickly, even too quickly since it came before the wontons and the salad. Then I asked about the soup - the server told us the kitchen had already put it away for the night so she offered a salad instead. I really didn't care, so that was fine. But the 2nd salad didn't come out until the end of the meal. The salads were heavy on frisee and the dressings (ranch and blue cheese) were food service grade, and didn't have much flavor. They did bring us 3 pieces of white bread prior to the meal.
The steak was incredibly bland, under-seasoned and very tough. Sirloin doesn't have a ton a flavor anyways, but still when you pay $29 for a 8oz steak it shouldn't be that tough. Honestly, if it weren't the end of the night and we were starving, we would have sent it back. The fries with the steak were seriously overcooked - probably the last of the fries sitting in the warmer. The wontons ($14) were okay, but they are honestly nothing special. They basically are a wad of goat cheese, placed in a wrapper, fried, and then dressed with a Thai chili sauce. They are very "one note" and entirely forgettable.
The quesadilla ($12) was a joke - it was served cold and it was very small. The salsa tasted like bottled salsa, ang the guacamole wasn't much better. The pork shank ($30) was also quite forgettable too. It was smothered in a overly sweet brandy sauce with a handful of small brussel sprouts. Nothing unique, and honestly the pork was probably the toughest "braised" meat I have ever had - definitely not fork tender. They ate like undercooked pork ribs and were pretty small for the price. The side of mashed potatoes where okay but a bit gummy. I touch of cream or butter would have done wonders, and they were also under seasoned.
So the bottom line: Service was OK at best, food was underwhelming, prices were somewhat higher than you'd expect for the portion sizes. Overall, not impressed. None of the three of us liked it, and all said "we don't need to return." Too bad - this is the first DDD restaurant that I have EVER felt that way about.
