wrong entrees?

An interesting question pondered by Frank Bruni is The Diner's Journal today:
"What’s the protocol when the restaurant prepares the wrong entree for one of the diners? Everyone else at table has been served what they ordered; one person has been served the wrong and unacceptable dish".

I liked the comments more than the 'solution'. Other than food allergies and vegetarianism, I find it hard to believe that substitutes are so unpalatable.

Link.

Sushi downgrade

Niwano'hana' sushi definitely gets a downgrade and I'm not sure it merits another visit.
Earlier visits to Hana sushi had made it one of my favorites for sushi in Richmond. I guess I should have written up on some of the positives earlier but procrastination appears to have its rewards. A recent visit after a gap of a few months had such negative results that those +ves are all history quite literally.
This once favored location is on the avoid list till I get intimation from some other poor soul that it might be safe to venture there again.
The sushi was not fresh at all, the rice was terribly packed and had an after taste. A yellowtail handroll had the texture of rubber. The tuna roll was gritty. The sashimi tasted like catch from another month and a rainbow roll that should have been oh so good was terrible not just to look at but taste. The only kind of "non-traditional" roll that we had was a jalapeno roll and that made my stomach queasy. It was telling that we actually ended up not eating half of our sushi - an experience that was definitely a first for me. More often than not, we're wondering what more to order after the first round. What a colossal waste. The check came to over $60 including tax and tip. Trust me, you are better off anywhere else. I've had grocery store sushi (and we're not talking Whole Foods here) that was of better quality .

To add to the incredulity (along the lines of Hana sushi- that used to be so good), our waitress was completely oblivious to any discomfort on our part. On being asked "um....are you guys having an off day" AND "...did you guys change suppliers"....she cheerfully replied "NO" and walked away. Realizing that subtlety was not her forte, we even ventured to suggest that the sushi was subpar when she came to collect the check. "hmmm" was the response. THATS IT !! And they werent even busy. How can you be so out of tune with your customers ?
On the plus side, she was cheerful in her "NO".

Meanwhile, Akida continues to rule the roost (I hope and pray :)). A recent trip to Moshi Moshi definitely showed some potential there.

Café Gutenberg

The one bright spot for us in Richmond has easily been Café Gutenberg. Conveniently located for us, CG has not only a great atmosphere but fresh and surprisingly good food. We’ve been there several times now for brunch, lunch and dinner and all the menus have quite some gems.
You really cant go wrong with most items at Gutenberg. One of my favorites on the brunch menu is the 17th Street scramble (go easy on the crème fraiche). Not so the rather tasteless vegan biscuits and sausage gravy. The crepes, omelets and paninis are very good too. While a great place for brunch and lunch, we found that the dinner menu was also quite surprisingly good. We haven’t tried the steak here (a bit incongruous perhaps) but the tortellini with mushrooms stood out.
With casual seating, shelves of books, a nice selection of magazines and free internet, one can easily spend hours here. A decent selection of around a dozen or so beers (all bottles) including a couple of my favorite weissbiers and about an equal number of wines, almost all available by the glass make this a great place to contemplate life in solitude or in the company of others.
With the exception of Sunday brunches, the “seat yourself” policy works out quite well and the wait staff generally leaves you alone to surf the internet or read or just sit and people watch, which is great !! The downside of course, is that the wait staff can leave you alone.....waiting......waiting.....
With most entrees under $10 (dinner entrees are between $10 and $20), the food here is moderately priced (dare I say cheap?). The beers and wines are all under $10 (I believe they have a half-off day but havent been).

One of the most amusing things about Café Gutenberg is how seriously (sic) they take their Euro-tude. Not that I'm reading them but, copies of le Monde or Der Spiegel or whatever, so prominently on display are a few months out of date. Ditto the many magazines dotting the shelves. I thumbed through a couple of Wine Spectators that were from way back when the dollar was actually worth something in euros.

Bottomline: B-/B
Cafe Gutenberg, 1700 E Main St Richmond, VA 23223 Google Maps

richmond gastronomy

another hiatus....not for want of trying new places !!
I run the risk of sounding horribly pretentious but....well...its more or less official for me now. After quite a nagging suspicion (manifested in many a tepid review) that richmond isnt quite the gastronomic paradise or even close, i've had my view "(af/con)firmed" on several recent dinners with out of towners with far more refined palates than my own. We've tended to agree that many places are indeed horribly pretentious.
The common complaint of course, appeared to be the complete lack of imagination and excitement in the menus. This coupled with what was perceived to be very overpriced food (especially considering the quality) and rather pedestrian environs, made for some disappointing meals.

More research is in order. But I suspect that the blogennui will continue......

Si update

After devoting 2 posts to Si, I was recently quite disappointed to hear that the chef left and that the quality had plummeted. Despite the sky-high prices, it was a bit of a bright spot in the rather sparse small plate options here.
Too bad !

pomegranate

A recent second visit to Pomegranate now allows me to write a review of the place. My previous visit left me with a lingering sense of disappointment. I have ranted about this before and Pomegranate is exhibit A in the category of Richmond restaurants that price themselves to a category where they do not belong. I didnt mind the food but the check left me wondering if perhaps I'd missed out on something that made this place "special". A second trip confirmed that I hadnt.
The decor of the restaurant is quite inviting. It is dimly lit and with the yellow light from the street lights streaming in through the windows, the setting is quite romantic and cozy. A wall in the back with empty frames, framing the brick interior is a nice touch. It is not very large and oddly, a saturday night visit was emptier than a weekday dinner.
Pomegranate is apparently a Euro Bistro but I thought the menu was more modern American. The menu certainly looked appetizing and they had a few decent wines. I wont go into specifics but there were a fair number of rather good looking salads. We tried a couple of the salads and they ranged from rather bland to good. The pumpkin soup with the truffle oil was too sweet for my palate and the white bean soup was apparently too dry. The entrees were also pretty good and ranged from a pork ragout with gnocchi (dull) to tuna (good) to veal (also decent).
Dessert was easily the most disappointing part of the dinner. From a rather pedestrian list, we settled on a chocolate "soup". This was "finished" with a few ladyfingers that almost appeared to be tossed in as an afterthought. In fact, a jar of these ladyfingers can be seen on the counter at the back of the restaurant and I wonder if they're added to all desserts.. The soup was a bit too rich and sweet and hard to finish.
The service was very efficient and our waitress was knowledgeable and easily handled the tables. The portion sizes were perfect, (none of the those overloaded plates with insipid food) and well presented.
Bottomline: C+ to B-. The food at Pomegranate is not bad. However, the quality of the food, originality, taste and the usual fine dining parameters are definitely not worth the prices. The entrees are all over $25 and most of the appetizers are around $10. A dinner for two comes to way over $100 with taxes and tips. Add drinks and you're looking at a pretty steep check. They did make a mean Pomegranate martini though !!

Pomegranate: 1209 E Cary Street, Richmond VA. Google Maps

sushi

I'm going to write about a couple of sushi experiences over the last couple of months in one post. Probably unfair since I did devote an entire post to the fairly mediocre - Nara sushi (a place I recommended for lunch not dinner and which, for some reason isnt serving lunch anymore! Correction - As of June 2008, Nara is serving lunch again). A few visits to each of these have helped form a decent opinion on where each, at least this quartet, stands on the RVA sushi pantheon (apparently by no means complete).
And the honor roll (pun intended of course) goes along the lines - Akida, Niwano'hana', Sticky Rice and Sumo San. Disposing off the bottom two:
SumoSan - Rather empty on a couple of visits (including, what has become fairly common - a Saturday night). There were just a few other tables occupied. In fact this place was empty on both visits. Sushi quality - passable. They did try a few of the "innovative" rolls but faltered on taste. Even the edamame was a bit disappointing. The service was slow despite the empty place (no water refills for eg). The check came to around $40-$45 and we thought it was quite more than the quality merited. C- (the plus being its walking distance proximity for me)

Sticky Rice - It was nice to see the restaurant buzzing even on a wet and late night on one of our visits. The foggy (weather-related) windows and bulb-lit interiors looked rather inviting. The place befits a college-age hangout place and the crowd reflects that. SR was slightly drafty on a couple of our winter visits (not a problem in summer of course). While the quality of the sushi is definitely not superb, it was decent and they did get moderately innovative (GI Joe sushi?). The downside of Sticky Rice is the fact that people smoke at the bar and the ventilation isnt great (more below). Our table was near some strange odor that kept wafting up every so often.
The check came to $20-$40. Cheap and decent option and quite obviously the college meetup place. Not worth the wait if actually looking for good sushi. C

One (small) reason why both these places rate low - The proximity of the bar (ie cigarette smoke) made for an unimpressive score on the decor front. I do not see why these places allow cigarette smoke. I havent been to Japan, but given its smoking friendly nature, I'd be very curious to see the melding of smoke and sushi but as far as Richmond is concerned, it was not very pleasant.

Sí redux

A recent visit to Sí was just as satisfying as the previous. I qualify that by saying it was culinarily satisfying and since I promised (not that anyone is keeping count :)) of any updates here goes:
With the rather "cozy" confines, an early Saturday evening visit saw the dining room quickly fill up and by about 6, there was very little maneuver room in the restaurant. With the exception of probably 1 of our choices, all the tapas we picked were very good and came out with a regularity that there wasnt a pause in the dining. Good.
Some of the dishes that we ordered (echoing what I said earlier about a lot of usual suspects) - duck breast with cocoa nibs and kumquats, squid with crispy rice cooked in squid ink, sauteed mushrooms with lentils and almonds, lamb meatballs with harissa, calamari with aioli, jumbo prawns, tuna carpaccio (a very tiny dish it must be warned). The carpaccio vanished in 3 quick gulps!

While we had to keep asking for bread, it must be noted that the bread (apparently from Billy Bread) is excellent. If choosing a dish with some sauce-like component, do not hesitate to ask for more as the mop up is one of the most satisfying way to fully enjoy the dish.
The desserts were excellent. We shared the poached pear with caramel and sorbet and a chocolate lava cake with icecream. They provided quite a punctuation to the entire meal.
Service was great. No empty glasses, no dawdling around waiting for food etc.
All in all, an excellent dinner. And definitely not a contrarian experience that I was half-fearing.

However, I must record that I think (as was also the consensus opinion) that Sí is definitely overpriced. A dinner for 3 with a single alcoholic drink and shared dessert (all $8) came to something in the range of $130 (with tip). Almost all the tapa were over $10 and quite small (yes of course by definition). A trio with a reasonably healthy appetite would easily gobble up around 7-9 dishes and still have room for dessert. When one tacks on the ridiculous 11% tax and tip, you are easily looking at quite a large check.

Bottomline: B

Can Can Brasserie

A longer review of Can Can will be appended but the one thing I wanted to write about was the desserts. After lamenting the lack of quality desserts in most restaurants here, a fact that presumably has to do with a missing pastry chef, we found the desserts at Can Can quite delectable.

Central Michel Richard

yes, the backlog et al. and this restaurant is not even in the RVA area and hence doesnt rightfully belong here. But another visit to the city up north reminded me of why my search for good food in Richmond has a ways to go.
Lacking the PP to go to Citronelle, I have been waiting to visit Michel Richard's other baby - Central for a while now. 2 reservations earlier had to be cancelled and finally my much anticipated trip to Central came to fruition.
The food was very good. Not sublime or terrific but very good. Echoing my earlier rant about price ranges and the food quality in those brackets, this place delivered. Unlike Citronelle, Central has a rather hmmm....interesting menu. Hints to its French pedigree abound although the food is best described as modern American. Who'd think of a Michel Richard restaurant with hamburger, lobster burger, rotisserie chicken etc on the menu?
The decor was, oddly enough, like something out of the 80s. Rather sparse and very "orange". It was like looking at the world through yellow glasses (which is quite literally true of the partitions). Visible kitchen - love 'em.

For the appetizer, we ended up getting the charcuterie tower which is indeed a 3-tiered tower of salami, proscuitto, duck rilettes, faux gras terrine (with the faux gras atypically from a chicken) and a delicious salad with marinated pearl onions and cherry tomatoes. A terrific start to the dinner although there was definitely more than could be eaten by two people. It is quite an appropriate starter for 3-4 people. We ended up getting almost half of the "tower" to go (which our waitress very efficiently packed in separate containers for each element. Good).
For the entrees, I felt I should have tried the pied de cochon (pig's feet) but I wasnt feeling that adventurous. Or even the burgers. Next time....
Instead we ended up getting (rather traditionally I'm afraid) a wonderful braised rabbit with spaetzle and sauteed scallops with tagliatelle. Halfway through the meal, we decided that each of our choices suited the other one's palate and switched. I simply loved the tagliatelle with its little beans and tomatoes. The sauce for the rabbit was rich. Portions initially looked quite large but turned out to be just right.
The desert of pear tart with marzipan and sorbet wrapped up the meal quite well. It must be said that the desert menu was also a bit "standard" - kit kat bar, fruit plate, sorbet assortment and the like.
Service was decent. No dawdling around empty glasses of water for one ! The check came to a little over $100 (no drinks). Money well spent.
Bottomline: B+