What did you eat last night for dinner?

Originally Posted by dhc905

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haha, I know nothing about food. I figured that with glowing reviews by the likes of Kwil, this place was worth the mobs of hipster-adulators it has. My reasoning for the middling title is because imo, it was no better than a 17/30 on the service, food, atmosphere scale. You're totally right that it's SUPPOSED to be just a country take on the neighborhood restaurant, except I found the entire place dissonant on what it was trying to be (country take on the neighborhood restaurant):

1. See comment about bread. WTF. $4 means nothing, it's the fact that they have the audacity to charge for that. This is America, land of the free (bread).

2. Service was bad.

I have no doubt that you probably got some ****** service. But I also think you need to step inside most mid level restaurants in the US to really find out what a middling restaurant is.

You obviously had a very rude waiter, and should honestly let them know. But I also think that the ****** service probably made you expect to be blown away by food. That often happens at hot spots, and often to people that aren't more experienced diners, as you say you aren't. In order to know what's good, you need context. Still though, a person with no dining experience should be able to enjoy the food if the place is good.

I think your negative feelings are a mixture of the above reasons. And you know what? Sometimes pretty decent places but with massive expectations (given popularity and exclusivity) end up letting you down because of artificial factors. I agree that I'd rather eat at Avec, although Avec isn't the most comfortable place to go. But I also think that Avec, besides The Bristol, is one of the best reasonably priced places to eat in the country. You're in pretty difficult company there.

But there's never any excuse for poor service. The waiter was trying to hustle you or something with the number of dishes. You order however much you want. Obviously if you tie up a 2 top with like, $20 of orders, they will get pissed.

Also, the free bread service isn't entirely true. Many restaurants now charge for it because you're not getting just regular bread in the classic sense. They bring accompaniments with it that some customers may not like, and therefore they charge for it. Like the monkey bread at the Bristol, which it would be a shame to not try if you go there.

I made some penne with steamed mussels and white beans last night. Heavy on the mussels, light on the pasta, lots of garlic also tossed in most of the liquid released from the shellfish. Topped with chopped parsley. No pictures unfortunately but it was tasty.

ate some ****** Iraqi food tonight because the regular place was closed on Mondays and I didn't know. Gave us ******* mayonnaise instead of a yogurt based spread and it was gross as hell.

Ate an egg salad and cucumber sandwich my girlfriend made, no crusts, perfect squares, and then had weird flashbacks to my childhood.

****** day for food. I think I am gonna go eat Burger King tomorrow when I wake up or something.

All very true and I think you hit the nail on the head regarding expectations. My issue is that basically every restaurant is middling unless it is amazing or terrible, and those are few and far between. While I've only been to probably 10 restaurants I'd consider amazing, I've also probably only been to 10 that I'd consider absolutely terrible. I just like good food, good service, and a good atmosphere. If you can perform on 1 or 2/3, you're middling. 0/3 terrible. 3/3 amazing.

Originally Posted by SField

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I have no doubt that you probably got some ****** service. But I also think you need to step inside most mid level restaurants in the US to really find out what a middling restaurant is.

You obviously had a very rude waiter, and should honestly let them know. But I also think that the ****** service probably made you expect to be blown away by food. That often happens at hot spots, and often to people that aren't more experienced diners, as you say you aren't. In order to know what's good, you need context. Still though, a person with no dining experience should be able to enjoy the food if the place is good.

I think your negative feelings are a mixture of the above reasons. And you know what? Sometimes pretty decent places but with massive expectations (given popularity and exclusivity) end up letting you down because of artificial factors. I agree that I'd rather eat at Avec, although Avec isn't the most comfortable place to go. But I also think that Avec, besides The Bristol, is one of the best reasonably priced places to eat in the country. You're in pretty difficult company there.

But there's never any excuse for poor service. The waiter was trying to hustle you or something with the number of dishes. You order however much you want. Obviously if you tie up a 2 top with like, $20 of orders, they will get pissed.

Also, the free bread service isn't entirely true. Many restaurants now charge for it because you're not getting just regular bread in the classic sense. They bring accompaniments with it that some customers may not like, and therefore they charge for it. Like the monkey bread at the Bristol, which it would be a shame to not try if you go there.

What city are you in that serves Iraqi food? Also the BK by me has a 3.99 8 piece chicken nugget meal. Awesome.

Originally Posted by impolyt_one

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ate some ****** Iraqi food tonight because the regular place was closed on Mondays and I didn't know. Gave us ******* mayonnaise instead of a yogurt based spread and it was gross as hell.

Originally Posted by SField

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Seriously dude, are you the critic from Ratatouille?
QFH (quoted for hilarity)

Living near a US Army base in Seoul makes every Iraqi or Iranian restaurant owner grill you about where you come from. They are serving some **** ass food for what they charge here though, won't even warm up the bread that you pay for. People used to think Indian food was overpriced....

What is Iraqui food? Just a lot of kebabs?

Sorry you weren't impressed with G&TG, dhc. I think it's a lovely place. The food is good in my opinion, and I've had several of the dishes that you had tonight, so perhaps it was just an incredibly off night. There's no excuse for poor service, but that also strikes me as odd because every time I've been there, it was the kind of service that SField would hate. You know, where the server is actually nice and willing to talk to you. But yeah, I think it's important to think of it more along the lines of an upscale bistro, a la The Bristol, than it is to think of it as some gastronomic temple.

Kefta tagine. Felt like some comfort food tonight. I had some good crusty bread to scoop it all up.

That looks delicious. I have no idea what it is but I still want some.

It's basically beef and lamb meatballs, tomato sauce and eggs with a big dollop of harissa on top.

An experiment, with mixed results: steak with asparagus purà e and polenta fries. The steak turned out great and the polenta fries were a pleasant surprise. But, as you can see, the asparagus purà e left a lot to be desired.

My first mistake was not waiting for the polenta fries to finish toasting. I plated the rest thinking they were almost done...10 minutes later the purà e spread out and started to separate a bit and the fries were just finishing. I guess I could have started a new plate since I had plenty of extrea purà e, but I was ready to eat.

I gotta say, the polenta fries were quite nice, a tasty change from potato fries and easy to do at home. Yesterday I read some other thread here talking about polenta, so I picked some Golden Pheasant at Whole Foods and tried the "just bake and stir" method paired with sautà ed mushrooms (via foodguy). Of course I still had a bucket of polenta left over, so I spread it on a wide plate and put it in the fridge. Today, I just cut it into strips then halved for fry-size and then broiled until crispy. Delicious.

Any suggestions/ideas for the asparagus -- other than a lot less of it? Would adding some spinach or something deepen the green and add some texture? Maybe mixing some chopped parsley into the purà e for the visual texture. And I probably wouldn't center the plate with it again, but maybe an arc around the edge of the steak, assuming the purà e is thick enough to hold a shape. Then again, I don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm more or less throwing darts blindfolded here.

Ditching the asparagus all together and doing a more traditional butter, jous and red wine reduction sauce for the steak would probably make me very happy. But w/o any vegetable, something would be lacking. Or maybe punt on a veggie with the steak and just do a cold asparagus soup as a first course? Now, I'm cooking just for me, so I'm trying to keep is pretty simple.

The answer for better color isn't less asparagus--- it's more asparagus, relative to the other ingredients. If you blanch the asparagus and get them in ice immediately, they should be beautifully bright green.

Steak looks perfect though. The food looks yummy.