The place had a very modern look. They had a lot of mirrors which made it look real spacious but I found it a little weird because you look around and all you see is yourself from all different angles. It was pretty upscale, in the quiet proper rich people way. It was upscale enough that we felt weird taking our food porn shots and turned the flash off. Not weird enough to keep up from taking them, just weird enough to make it uncomfortable to take them. Service was good. One issue is that they are in the basement of a building so you have to go down the stairs to get to the restaurant. On the stairs there is a handrail. However, the supports for the hand rail go straight out the side of the hand rail rather than underneath which means if you actually use the hand rail you will smack your hand into the supports. Therefore the hand rails are just 'decorative' which i don't like.
The bathrooms kept with the simple modern look. The stalls were full rooms, floor to ceiling walls and door, which is so nice for the extra privacy when you are doing your business. The sinks were nice and stuck with the modern look. They had a mouthwash station, I guess in case you are on a first date or something and you are all worried about your breath. Can't say I care but whatever.
Now for the food. Appetizers were wild mushroom soup and big eye tuna and jumbo lump crab. The soup was pureed, with a red wine-truffle emulsion that gave it a bit of tartness and tiny little flecks of pancetta that gave you just a little salty bite, much better than the bacon in the braised cabbage at TenPenh. The big eye tuna was served raw and wrapped around the crab so it looked like a sushi roll. There was a $7 mark up for this dish. The big eye tuna was incredibly fresh and the pairing with the crab was great. It also had a sauce, the primary color came from avocado but I guess there was other stuff in it too and some sort of foam on top, can't so I know what that was either.
Entrees were the New York Strip Steak and Icelandic char. The icelandic char was good. Very light. It had the skin on and crisped nicely though I found the fat underneath it to be a bit much and took most of it off. There was bacon and shitake mushrooms on top that I thought went well with it though were pretty strong in flavor. The steak was a huge cut of good quality meat, well seared and all. Had some mushrooms and caramelized onions with it but it was really all about the steak. There was a $10 mark up on it.
Now for the best part, dessert. We had the Lemon Chess Pie ($4 mark up) and a chocolate panna cotta. The panna cotta was... firmer than expected. It had a real dark bitter chocolate, especially compared to the lemon chess tart that I had first. There were caramelized bananas, sliced real thin and they had been torched like a creme brulee. The only problem is the bananas were overripe so it tasted a bit off. They had vanilla bean whipped cream that had a perfect texture and not oversweetened. The lemon chess tart was amazing. I knew that was what I wanted from what they kept saying on Chowhound and it worked out wonderfully. It was nice and sweet and tart and smooth and ooh so good. It had the same whipped cream as they had with the panna cotta and a raspberry sauce on the side. There was also a berry compote that just seemed like finely diced strawberries. I can't say the compote did anything for me but the pie was so good it didn't matter. mmm that pie was good I could totally have more now.
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