Robert P
GLOBEX - taking over your world one country at a t
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2002
Prelude We had talked about eating here for the past 3 years. Even went so far as to check out the menu in front of the restaurant the last 2 years. After reading the consistently good reviews on these boards, and coupled with our soon expiring DDE card, we decided this was the trip to finally do it. The 5:45 ADR was as close to 6:00 as we could get, for our party of five, as I had called about 75 days out for this ADR.
Monday October 23, 2006
We arrived exactly at our 5:45 ADR time. We tried to get there a few minutes early, but our transpo choice moved slower than expected. We waited maybe 4 minutes to be seated. The restaurant was already over half full this early in the evening. Our party of 5 (3 adults, 2 children), were seated near the middle of the room, at a nice large round table for 6. (Note: I was after-the-fact impressed by this, as other places during the week would try to cram 5 of us together at a table for 4, which rarely works out well for anyone).
Jason was our server, and he was very good. He knew the menu well, was familiar with our DDE discount, was very well versed with the wine selections, and interacted great with the kids. For them, we ordered the grilled cheese, and the fish of the day option, which was a smaller portion of salmon, served with potatoes. The grilled cheese was good, but the salmon was a step above any kids menu item we could have expected. No slacking on presentation either, despite coming from the kids menu. I think that pink lemonade was the drink choice for this meal.
After looking over the menu, and seeing that they did not have calamari as an appetizer (my online menu had been outdated I guess), we ordered drinks and entrees. Our group ordered a glass of merlot, a creamsicle (sp) type martini, and I had a more traditional dirty martini. All of the drinks were good, and the martinis were shaken and served tableside, which was a nice touch.
For entrees, we got the pan-seared swordfish, the oak-grilled Atlantic salmon, and the potato-wrapped snapper. The swordfish was good. Moist, and not over-spiced. The salmon was very good, and very moist. The snapper, well, I cant say enough about it. I really didnt know what to expect when I ordered it. I had not seen pictures of it before, so I had a mental image of a whole fish being wrapped by a long string of potato, like on a Food Network challenge. When the dish came, I was surprised by the simple presentation, but only because of what I had expected to see. The roughly fist sized slab of fish filet was enveloped in a thin potato crust, which had been browned. It was superb! The creamy leek fondue base in the bowl was good, and well cooked enough not to detract from the snapper, but not so cooked that it lost all of its firmness and just became mush. And the red wine butter sauce, well, let me just say that finding a recipe for that has become my quest since we got back. Rich and concentrated flavor, but not greasy, and the sauce held together nicely. It was so good by itself that we all tried it with some of the bread that they serve with dinner, which was quite good as well.
Dessert was a no go, as we were all stuffed. I dont have the receipt, but I recall that the DDE discount was in the $28 range. The meal was so impressive, that we cancelled a reservation elsewhere for our second week, and visited again. That review will be coming later. All in all, an excellent dining experience.
Monday October 23, 2006
We arrived exactly at our 5:45 ADR time. We tried to get there a few minutes early, but our transpo choice moved slower than expected. We waited maybe 4 minutes to be seated. The restaurant was already over half full this early in the evening. Our party of 5 (3 adults, 2 children), were seated near the middle of the room, at a nice large round table for 6. (Note: I was after-the-fact impressed by this, as other places during the week would try to cram 5 of us together at a table for 4, which rarely works out well for anyone).
Jason was our server, and he was very good. He knew the menu well, was familiar with our DDE discount, was very well versed with the wine selections, and interacted great with the kids. For them, we ordered the grilled cheese, and the fish of the day option, which was a smaller portion of salmon, served with potatoes. The grilled cheese was good, but the salmon was a step above any kids menu item we could have expected. No slacking on presentation either, despite coming from the kids menu. I think that pink lemonade was the drink choice for this meal.
After looking over the menu, and seeing that they did not have calamari as an appetizer (my online menu had been outdated I guess), we ordered drinks and entrees. Our group ordered a glass of merlot, a creamsicle (sp) type martini, and I had a more traditional dirty martini. All of the drinks were good, and the martinis were shaken and served tableside, which was a nice touch.
For entrees, we got the pan-seared swordfish, the oak-grilled Atlantic salmon, and the potato-wrapped snapper. The swordfish was good. Moist, and not over-spiced. The salmon was very good, and very moist. The snapper, well, I cant say enough about it. I really didnt know what to expect when I ordered it. I had not seen pictures of it before, so I had a mental image of a whole fish being wrapped by a long string of potato, like on a Food Network challenge. When the dish came, I was surprised by the simple presentation, but only because of what I had expected to see. The roughly fist sized slab of fish filet was enveloped in a thin potato crust, which had been browned. It was superb! The creamy leek fondue base in the bowl was good, and well cooked enough not to detract from the snapper, but not so cooked that it lost all of its firmness and just became mush. And the red wine butter sauce, well, let me just say that finding a recipe for that has become my quest since we got back. Rich and concentrated flavor, but not greasy, and the sauce held together nicely. It was so good by itself that we all tried it with some of the bread that they serve with dinner, which was quite good as well.
Dessert was a no go, as we were all stuffed. I dont have the receipt, but I recall that the DDE discount was in the $28 range. The meal was so impressive, that we cancelled a reservation elsewhere for our second week, and visited again. That review will be coming later. All in all, an excellent dining experience.
