Oh, i wanted to like this place. I wanted to LOVE this place: we've been waiting for a good restaurant, any restaurant, in Germantown for years. I heard good things after they opened, then less-good things, then good things again. We finally decided to give it a try, despite the sparse and uninspired menu posted online (tomato salad is fantastic, but in August in Columbia County, you're eating local organic tomatoes every meal- thanks, not what I want to pay someone else to 'make')- a friend told us that there were plenty of specials, and we counted on those to broaden the range of choices.
It's a pretty room, though as several others have mentioned, deafeningly loud. It might have been a really nice room ten years ago, but now it looks like every other place that serves local, thoughtful, etc. Grey walls, bare bulbs, wood stuff, marble, yadda yadda. I love the booths.
We were given menus, informed of the one special (rabbit something- there was another rabbit dish on the menu). Vegetarian options seemed punitive- pasta with tomato and corn or some kind of grain/chickpea thing. (note to all restaurants: a meat-free pasta dish does not count as a vegetarian offering- if that is the best you can come up with, you are only demonstrating the limited abilities of your kitchen, and your contempt for people who choose, for a meal or a lifetime, to not eat meat.) Only one seafood offering- mussels and clams.
Water is served- the first thing i taste and it's weirdly flat, almost soapy tasting. Husband thinks it's just soft water, but if so they should get it treated, or chill it at least...it's terrible, and had i been offered bottled i probably would have ordered it. But it wasn't offered, and i order a cocktail. it's green, and delicious, but the tequila it allegedly contains is nowhere in evidence. One app comes out, wildly over-salted. The second, a caesar salad, is also far too salty, and monotonous beyond understanding. The combination of kale and romaine sounds good on paper, but in reality proves disastrous. The romaine is in giant hunks that need extensive cutting, the kale in thin strips: submerged under too much dressing the kale looks like nothing so much as rotten bits of lettuce. It takes half the salad before i lose the impulse to pull out the 'wilted' pieces.
Mac and cheese is pretty good, if waaaay too rich, and the other entree i was told was 'thoroughly ok'. I was too discouraged to try it. Our main courses were down on the table for about 5 minutes, plates still heaped with food, when our server asked 'Do you want me to box any of this up for you?' She then tried a second time to bus our table before we had finished- someone needs to tell staff that this isn't fast food...as much as one might want it to be (and as much as the sodium content might suggest it is).
Server(s) were all very cool-looking but clearly too cool to serve- completely unfamiliar with basics of service (like, don't pick your nose on the floor)- nobody asked if we wanted a second drink (yes, i did) and nobody offered us dessert or coffee when we finally let them take our plates (while i was still eating the last bites of one of the dishes). The only thing i REALLY wanted off that forlorn menu was the polenta cake, but i was too tired and thirsty and dispirited to be bothered breaking into the waitress' trance/glass of rose to ask for it. it's funny watching your server drinking a lovely cold glass of wine and wishing you could have one yourself- kind of the opposite of every thing i've ever been taught about service.
What should have been at least a pleasant interlude instead left me feeling both rushed and neglected. Paradoxical, i know...like the fact that i wanted more from this place- more drinks, more water, more food, more time- and i wanted to spend more money, even though they did such a lousy job with what i did get. If only they were more on top of things... read more