My wife and I ate here, first date night in a LOOOONG time.
The decor is clean, modern, and lacks that gritty manufactured look that screams out to anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant. My wife and I were seated at the chef's bar(I think that's what it was called). You've got a seat next to the grill and a view of the line, about as "open" as a kitchen gets. It's a great place to scope out other menu items, my wife and I saw a giant plate of mussels that looked incredible being suffered over by two guys.
We got the Jac and Roqamole, which is corn chips, guac and cheese dip.
Pros:
The cheese in the guac is a bit cheating, but if its this delicious, there's no reason to play fair.
The Guac was clearly fresh.
The Cheese was a nice sharp cheddar, and had a nice jalapeno kick
Cons:
The apple was lost entirely in the cheese dip. Cheddar and apples is great, and the Jalapeno might have killed it, but I think the apple is just too small to hold up it's tartness
The Chips had a lot of seasoning on them, which is normally ok for dipping chips, but the lack of mineral content in the salt paired with the obvious amount of sugar meant the chips are somewhat insipid on their own.
Then the entrees were the Stuffed Pork Chop(maple glaze and sweet potato), and my wife had the Rigatoni.
The pork chops was cooked. PERFECTLY. I mean, a dead-on medium. The exterior was crusty and the interior was moist, and the meat on the bone was *just* cooked as much as the rest. The stuffing(wherein all apple flavor was again lost) tended to squeeze out when cutting through the crust, but maybe my knife standards are just too high. If you have a good pocket knife, use it--the filling is worth it. The sweet potatoes and maple were a nice, autumnal addition and I ate until I was as stuffed as the chop.
My wife's rigatoni was very well balanced, but something about it struck us as being very out-of-sync with the rest of the menu. I mean, it was delicious, but I would expect that from an Italian place, not one that starts with guacamole. I think this is a good thing--it shows a great deal of range, or at least experience, on the part of the cooks to lead their staff through each dish individually.
The chef brought us a dish of their Bison Mac and Cheese, just to be nice. Maybe because we waited a while, but I don't know why everyone was so upset about the wait, we were in and out in under 2 hours, and we were enjoying the kid-free date time. The Mac and Cheese threw me off, because I hate-hate-hate that process cheese flavor, and this had it(probably for nostalgia's sake). But there was a cayenne kind of lingering pungency that paired so well with the sauce and meat. I was skeptical that bison would be any good in it, since it is so lean, but it wasn't the chewy, flavorless mass I expected--tender and balanced. I ate about 80% of the stuff myself. Well done, to make a mac and cheese that I don't find repulsive, but rather addictive.
The dessert was not the high point--we had the Chocolate Jenga. It is pretty cool to have the different kinds of flavored chocolates in bars like that, but the spicy one didn't come through with any kind of class, and the almond bar needs to go for the roasted-almond-maillard-flavor angle--the obvious use of almond extract made it taste strangely similar to the cherry bar(since the flavors are so similar). The chocolate just wasn't amazing--kind of chalky and over sweet like old fudge. But then again, not everyone can be Dude, Sweet Chocolate. I won't get this dessert again, because I think it will delight plenty of people who want a sugar rush and aren't too picky about chocolate(or have just never had orange or chile chocolate). The other diner's desserts looked indulgent and perhaps a joyfully painful conclusion to a meal where more food probably should have been shared!
The wines were all good. I can't remember their names. I had a Chardonnay(which I usually find ditzy and uninspiring, but I was hoping to share with my wife who doesn't like bold wines), which had short roller coaster of sweet-sour-crisp-sweet from start to finish, very nice. Then Cabernet Sauvignon which I don't recall being remarkable, but probably because I had it with the distractingly delectable pork chop. And I finished with a Malbec that had a very long name, a varietal which I normally like, and this one was not just a beautiful color, but had a lingering richness that I found a nice way to round off the meal. I will likely be getting a bottle of that next time.
Had no time to linger at the bar, but really wished I could. On my list for next time.
All in all, it was a phenomenal date. I heard from the Chef that the flavors were bold, and he likes to play with contrasts, but I really didn't expect it to deliver in such an approachable way. Bring good company and lively conversation, because you'll be talking over some vibrant food. read more