St John's - a newer post

[foodiesnorth]

I read the previous posts and note that they are getting a bit old (from the OP date). I am in SJ briefly and took in both Olivers and Biancas. My experiences:

Olivers for lunch. Had the lemon pepper pan fried cod with Greek salad. Cod seemed fresh, perfectly prepared, wee bit heavy on the lemon pepper. Over all very good. The Greek Salad, was, well, not Greek IMHO. I am fairly sure the dressing was bottled, but in any event the salda had lettuce (I know, I know, sometimes that is okay, but I think it is wrong!). The real problem was that it is was mostly lettuce...tiny bit of generic feta, a few kalamatas and a bit of sweet pepper. The oregano was in the dressing whereas I like fresh oregano. So, fish good, salad bad. They charge $2 something for the salad upgrade from green which given the cost of the cod was far too high to be reasonable.

Biancas for supper. The hostess was a bit pretentious in the sense of thinking the place are a bit more high end than they are (and she had not the skills to bluff her way through it...she knew nothing about the food that was not told to her). I sat at the kitchen bar (loved it). I honestly was not expecting much and the place was my third choice (after Basho -which said they had no tuna and no kobe style beef and were using ordinary beef - and one other place I forget). I read the posts about Biancas being past their prime. I was pleasantly surprised by what I ate. I had the duck confit appie which came wrapped in a smokey proscuitto and came with a bit of onion confiture and a celery cream. It was really good. I ordered the beef tenderloin (which, I was sad to hear was from an unknown origin...as was every other ingredient in the house). It came with a decent fois gras and some nicely cooked broccolini. There was some form of veal or beef reduction that was very tasty. I found that the beef, while a bit tough, was properly cooked to a medium rare. I really like finishing salt on my meat (personal preference, I know). It had none on it and none was available...a cardinal sin in my world. If the chef does not finish the seasoning properly, then let the patron do it! A small complaint in an otherwise wonderful and unexpectedly good meal. Finished it off with a nice white chocolate/raspberry jam desert. Yum!

The kitchen was will run (as an open kitchen needs to be to avoid Ramsay syndrome). I did not sense any deep culinary training in the place except for this Bulgarian chef/cook. This is a man was an artist...you could see it in his every movement. He either is a savant or he has solid training. He was above the others in the kitchen. I don't know the chef, he was not there.

I liked the menu, creative, but not crazy. The mix of flavours was not cutting edge, but not 1980's either. I think they are perfect for a city this size.

I was sad that they nothing but Taylors 10 for desert (they had a bottle of 20 for sale, but who the heck buys the stuff by the bottle in a restaurant!

I would go back....and if the Bulgarian guy opens his own place I would go there too!