Grace 5-year anniversary menu wasn’t “all that”

[soniabegonia]

We went to Grace for its 5-year anniversary tasting menu with much anticipation. We were disappointed. Here’s the menu we had:

1st - crab salad with citrus supremes
2nd - scallop with goat cheese risotto and chanterelle mushrooms
3rd - black sea bass, fingerling potatoes & roasted artichokes & cauliflower
4th - pork belly
5th - butterscotch beignets with ice cream

A mound of crab salad in the shape of a tuna can was presented with lime, lemon & grapefruit supremes. The salad itself lacked flavor and I got a piece of crab shell in mine. There weren’t enough citrus slices to accompany the amount of salad and the crab just tasted flat. A bit more acid would have been desirable. I also found it a bit undersalted. The crab itself tasted like it had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days.

The scallop was boring and didn’t have enough sear on it for texture. The chanterelles were underseasoned. By contrast, the risotto was quite tasty and cooked perfectly al dente.

When the sea bass was placed before me, I immediately dipped my fork into the sauce for a taste. It was barely warm, not hot, and tasted like it was made from a seasoning packet. It just had that manufactured, canned mushroom soup flavor. I would be willing to bet a small sum that it was made from a packet of Schillings seasoning. The fish, once again, did not have a proper crust, though an attempt was clearly made. The accompanying veggies were fine. Not counting the sauce, this was probably the best dish of the evening. I ate around the sauce.

Three slices of pork belly arrived next. Though the lighting was dim, it was clear that the slices were entirely fat. We had tried the pork belly appetizer on a previous occasion and loved it - tender, flavorful, porky heaven. Yes, pork belly is fatty, but isn’t it supposed to have layers of meat and fat? This was three layers of 100% fat of varying densities. I took a few bites, and luckily they had put a little crust on the fat slabs, and somehow it wasn’t quite as offensive as expected. I considered sending it back but by this point, I just wanted the whole experience to be over. The restaurant clearly was trying to salvage a bad cut of meat, which really belonged in the trash. Oh, I know, we'll put it on the *cheap*menu.

The donuts arrived next and I was excited. Grace has the donut tasting menu, after all, they must know what they’re doing. Alas, they were cold and undercooked. The butterscotch filling had the texture of pudding. I guess I was expecting something more like molten chocolate and found the texture off-putting. I came across a bit of cream-colored goo, and thought, maybe this is also part of the filling, maybe vanilla flavored. Nope, it was dough. I’m not talking slightly undercooked moistness around the filling. It was undercooked dough, raw, floury, yeasty in flavor.

The presentation of each plate was drab and unimaginative. There wasn’t a whole lot of variations in color & texture. The scallop was mounted on green risotto, chanterelles placed alongside, with no other flourish. The sea bass course was just so… beige… I suppose the crab salad had the most color on it with the different colored citrus. My gripe over presentation is minor compared to that over the food, but compared to other high end restaurants, these were really lackluster.

Service was professional if oddly paced. We waited about 15-20 minutes for the first course. Then they must have realized that we didn’t have any bread and brought that out. It was another 20 minutes between 1st & 2nd, and 2nd & 3rd. Then the last 2 courses were served within 5 minutes of the one previous. Odd.

The first and only other time I tried Grace, I thought the food was hearty and comforting, if not terribly inspired or *pretty*. I remember thinking, this chef likes to feed people. At $55, we thought a 5 course tasting menu was a great deal, but we would have preferred 2 or 3 well executed courses rather than these obviously second rate ones. I felt ripped off paying $55pp for mediocre, lukewarm food. There was no love in this food. The restaurant is obviously trying to cut corners to make the $55 deal profitable, but I believe it would serve them (and diners) better to cut it back to 3 courses, or simply raise the price. A restaurant of this caliber should not be serving food like this. It saddens me to have to be so harsh, but as much as I enjoyed my first experience, I hated my second.

[cant talk...eating]

Ouch. Fine review. Though a gimmick, $55 is a really low price for that restaurant (I'd expect to pay twice that). The one time I went I was just underwhelmed - not really disappointed, but it just seemed like it was trying to be "the fanciest restaurant in (insert small city here)", rather than doing anything imaginative or memorable given the competition in the area. Not, of course, that that's a terrible thing - as you mentioned, there's comfort in comfort food - more that it just seemed sort behind the curve food-wise given the ultra-chic setting. Then that donut sampler came, which kind of sealed the feel of mediocrity.