Eva Restaurant's Anniversary Dinner
amuse bouche: geoduck - A porridge (or congee) with the long phallic saltwater clam with the funny name. Think it may have been the inspiration for a Pokemon creature. Anyways, nothing special. The porridge was mild, lacking any depth in flavor. The geoduck was tender and chewy at the same time. A strange way to start a meal.
1. yellow tail cerviche, watermelon, sun gold tomatoes, jalepeno (Walter Manzke) - Probably the last great tomatoes we'll be having this season. The yellow, red and orange sweet bits of fruit were fantastic. You never really realize how great tasting tomatoes are until you have a really good one. The hamachi was fresh and provided some nice weight to the dish. The addition of the watermelon was a nice tough, adding a welcomed sweetness. THIS is the right way to start a meal.
2. monterey red abalone, celtuce, meyer lemon, brown butter-abalone sauce (Josiah Citrin) - After the fantastic meal we had at Melisse, we were very excited to try another creation by Chef Citrin. However, all the anticipation was for not. This was an incredibly disappointing dish. Concept and execution were lacking. Neither the brown butter sauce nor the celtuce did anything to compliment the abalone. This second mollusk of the night wasn't any better than the first. Chewy and lacking in any real sophistication. A dish that really fell flat.
3. smoked artic char, smoked steelhead roe, braised buckwheat and dashi (Michael Cimarusti) - We've come to know Chef Ciramusti's reputation as a top notch handler of seafood. And it is dishes like this that continue to reinforce that fact. The artic char was cooked to near perfection. The flesh was warm and tender while the skin maintained an elegant crispiness. The synergy of the two form one of the best fish dishes we've had. The addition of the buckwheat and the roe added additional depths of flavor and texture. Our only wish was that the portion was larger.
4. prime beef, matsutake, potato, sesame (Mark Gold) - A dish that literally made us upset. Please allow me a few paragraphs to rant. The pacing of the meal up to this point had been incredibly slow. Perhaps 20-30 minutes between each dish. However, this course came very promptly after third course above. We believe the kitchen had made a mistake and sent this course out a second time to another table. Us, having just finished our artic char, was to receive this beef course next anyways, so the server dropped it off at our table. Not really an issue had the meat still been warm. However, having been walked from the kitchen around the restaurant to another table, to finally arrive at our table, gave the beef plenty of time to lose it's temperature. And cold beef is in no way tasty. We took a couple bites and notified the waiter that it was cold. We receive an apology and nothing else. Now, this is completely unacceptable at a $150 per person dinner. We should have received a replacement immediately, with no questions asked. With the exception of our dinner at Ikko, we have never been more upset over dinner.
5. surprise! (Sherry Yard) - Luckily, the final course helped temper our disappointment. We enjoyed Chef Yard's desserts at last year's Zagat-hosted Fall Harvest dinner at Spago and were looking forward to tasting her sweet creations again. The coffee ice cream was superb. All the great things about coffee and ice cream combined into one flavorful scoop. Don't really recall what the other two items were, but one had a sugar crisp and the other a slice of fig, but once they hit your mouth, both were delicious. A nice way to end a meal with some high highs and severe lows.
With teeny-weeny courses, including one which we didn't even finish, it wasn't a surprise that we were still hungry. So this is how we ended the night after dishing out $350 on dinner. Maybe we should have just stopped by the trusty Chick-Fil-Eezy before dinner and skipped Eva all together.
We've learned that going into these dinner events with high hopes usually result in disappointment. However, we don't feel that the let down this time around was directly a result of that. The service was painfully slow, food was served cold and not once were we offered some form of compensation to make up for that misstep. The tomato salad and artic char were shining examples of how great this dinner could have been. And we were right to be excited going in. Now, going forward, we'll be a little hesitant to revisit Eva or Melisse in the future.
It will be a memorable birthday for sure and that's what really counts.
Oh, and this is officially our 100th blogger post. Thank you for taking the time to check out our ramblings!!! And here's to another one hundred yummy posts!