I was excited to try this place after seeing an ad on Instagram and checking out their menu online.
Walking in I was a little underwhelmed. The design of the space is decent, but a bit sparse. I think this is because it's unfinished. There are spaces for art to hang but no art, that kind of thing.
Our table had a view of the kitchen which was just weird. It's not like a cool open plan kitchen so you can watch your foot being made by exciting chefs. It's a bright, white and hospital- esque space with lots of staff standing around, some eating some on their phones. Mostly you're just staring at their eye wash station.
They were out of 2 beers on their very bland beer menu and had no cocktail menu- a huge miss in my opinion.
It was also freezing inside, had to keep my jacket on for dinner which is awkward and annoying.
The one saving grace was the food. It wasn't incredible, but it was good. Our table had a wide variety of the dishes, and most were good.
We had the tuna poke cornettes- really good but very small portion. I expect this with tuna dishes, but for the price I expected a little more. We also had the croquettes which I thought were really good. Good flavor, bit of spice in it he sauce, nice crunchy outside.
For mains we had the short ribs. The short ribs themselves were excellent, great flavor. The potatoes were pretty good too. The slaw was so-so.
The pear prosciutto pizza was really good, as was the margarita. The edges of the pita-like crust were a bit burnt but besides that the flavor was good, very crispy and good topping distribution. The pear slices were too thick though- they were basically just raw crunchy pear pieces which through off the feel of the pizza.
The Mac and cheese was good, but the $4 bacon add-on was very disappointing. There was maybe 1 piece of bacon broken up and sprinkled on top, like 5-6 1cmx1cm pieces. For $1 maybe it would have been okay but for $4 I would expect bacon throughout, at least 2-3 pieces worth.
The chicken satay were good, but the rice balls (arancini) were flavourless.
The served was average.
I would say the worst thing was the view of the "kitchen" which was really just a view of staff ok their breaks eating.
Also disappointing is most of the food advertised is only on their lunch menu, like the tacos.
I am hoping to give Grain another try in a month or so when, hopefully, they've gotten a rhythm down. I will adjust my review accordingly once that happens.
EDIT:
As we were leaving we noticed another table being brought food items (tacos, burgers, sandwiches, etc) that weren't on the menu we were given. I asked a server about it and their response was that there are two menus and each server decides which menu to give out, so it's a crap shoot which one you get. This seems, frankly, ridiculous. Overall the experience hasn't left me with a great feeling so despite the relatively decent food, I won't likely be coming back. read more