For ease of reviews, I will post the following grades:
Price: included in the post title, it will be for an approximate two-person check (including alcohol if it is available)
$ - $5 to $25
$$ - $30 to $75
$$$ - $80 to $145
$$$$ - $150 to $300
$$$$$ - $300 and above (we are not at this dining level yet... but I'm not excluding the possibility of it in the future)
Service, Food (includes presentation), Value, and Overall will be graded (with pluses and minuses) based on the following, completely subjective scale:
A - Write-home worthy. Exceeds expectations and could have me driving across several states to attain again.
B - Could become a dining staple. Fun on occasion.
C - May have redeeming qualities, but more likely not to return. Like in school and health inspections, average is not a good grade to get.
D - Deliver us from evil. Will avoid in the future.
F - Epic Fail. Will warn any person within earshot as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Please feel free to let me know if you feel I should add anything else to grading criteria!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Porterhouse Bistro - $$$
Ok, I believe we have established that I apparently fail as an Iron Chef Blogger. Admittedly, I have actually made two other recipes that I haven't gotten around to posting (Cranberry and Gorgonzola Tart and Bacon Pumpkin Pie). Three cheers for holiday procrastination overflowing into the new year! It seems that while I do occasionally get the desire to cook strange and occasionally elaborate meals, the weekly occurrence of cooking and blogging doesn't quite fit with everything else I try to cram in to my non-work time (school, eating out, spending time with friends, pestering the boyfriend, watching way too much Law & Order: SVU...). Last night, I came up with a new idea.
For the sake of narrative, I am going to introduce J-squared (and if anyone can tell me how to format superscript on Blogger, I'll love you forever). I, myself, am J-one. My darling, love-of-my-life, patience-of-Job boyfriend is J-two. He also gets the benefit of joining me for dinner pretty much every night. Every once in a while, our dinners include a guest appearance by the room mate, J-three (no joke!). Last night, however, it was just an outing for J-squared.
I helped a client at work recently with a big purchase. During our chatting we both raved over how much we love Groupon. (Disclaimer: I was not recruited to tout them but they do give a $10 credit for each new friend who signs up. I frankly just think they're awesome and we've had a lot of fun with their discounted products.) As a thank you for assistance with the purchase, my client passed on a Groupon that he had that was about to expire - it was good for a sizable portion of dinner at The Porterhouse Bistro. I'd never tried the restaurant before and I'm always game for a new experience!
I left a message with Porterhouse on Saturday to make reservations for 8 pm on Tuesday. They called me back and confirmed the reservation and we were good to go.
Tuesday arrives and I make the mad dash to get from Beverly Hills to Downtown, pick up J-two, get changed, and then trek back to Beverly Hills. We get to Porterhouse slightly early and, luck of luck! find street parking right out front. (Which is especially lucky because while I'm not sure what the valet situation is on the weekends - there is no valet during the week.) We're walking towards the front door, passing the windows into the dining room and it's looking lovely - wood, muted colors, mood lighting, linen table cloths... the works. Getting to the front door, we open and enter and are assailed by a wall of noise. Apparently, Porterhouse was having a corporate dinner that evening that took up the majority of the main dining room. Now, I know it's Los Angeles and sometimes corporate dinners are thrown together the day before they occur. But, I'm guessing the temporary wall set up to block off the main dining room meant that Porterhouse had a little advance notice. Gripe #1 - if a client is calling to make a reservation on a night that one assumes will be fairly dead and you have a large, noisy group scheduled to be in the restaurant, you should let the client know so she can decide if she wants to keep her reservation on that night or move it to another night.
So it goes.
We entered the restaurant and... had to search for the host/hostess stand? Admittedly, it wasn't that hard to find, but we did have to pass both the bar and the entrance to the dining room to reach the unmanned station. Where we stood. For seven minutes. (Ok, it was probably 5, but I'm not terribly forgiving of making people wait to have their presence acknowledged.) At one point, a man who ended up being our waiter showed up nearby at the bar to get drinks. "I'll have someone right with you." And then we were alone again. For a couple more minutes. Eventually, someone showed up to show us to seats. We were shuttled back into what is most likely their dining room that is normally reserved for private parties - the doors can close off to fully enclose the area and the decor is slightly different than the main dining room. It has the feeling of the cross between an upscale den and a wine cellar with significantly brighter lighting. But so far, so good. We're being seated... wait, by the kitchen?!? J-two was slightly appalled. I played the "Well, this is the only table for two they have set up in here and we are a party of two." But the restaurant refuted this theory when the next three couples all got tables originally designed for four people. In theory, save your worst table for the people who come late and without reservations. Better idea, don't have a table by the kitchen.
However, we were having a night out with the majority comped by a fantastic client, so who were we to complain? (At least, too loudly ^.^) We sat down and perused the drool-worthy menu. (I also cringed over the horrible homonym confusion in the description of the "Ravioli of the Day" in the appetizers section.) The prix fixe menu grabbed us. We were oohing and ahh-ing over our choices and marveling in the fact that the meal would also include two drinks. Not too shabby! So we're looking around, trying to figure out when someone is going to come over and take our orders. Or, hey, could we at least get some drinks?
J-two randomly makes eye contact with a guy wearing a sweater vest and slacks. I figured he was one of the corporate guys coming through the dining room to use the restroom .(One-person-at-a-time style, the decor attempted to match the feel of the restaurant but failed miserably. The restroom of the 76 station on Wilshire just west of the Beverly Hilton is classier.) No, apparently the guys is the manager. Since our waiter isn't around, he can take our order.
"Okay, what is the soup of the day?"
"Um... let me go find out," and he scurries off to the kitchen.
...Really?!?
We had service issues throughout the evening which led to J-two's musing (and inspired this blog), "You know, we've had some great food in Los Angeles, but the service sucks!" The manager did come back with the soup of the day. We gave him our orders and he left before we could tell him what we wanted to drink. There were long waits in between courses (about 15-20 minutes between the end of our appetizers and the appearance of our entrees). J-two's glass was sitting empty for about 5-10 minutes after he finished his first cocktail before the waiter was close enough to our vicinity to flag down. I was amazed to see a bus boy bringing out four appetizers on a large tray, Denny's-style. To make it even better, two appetizers were for one table and two were for a separate table. The waiter, when clearing his table also would only remove two items at a time and stack them on the large tray before going back for more. Dear manager: your staff lack training in general food service and in client interaction. Toward the end of the meal, our waiter showed up with two complimentary glasses of dessert wine. Nice gesture, but it definitely fell into the "too little too late category". It was also the only time I noticed him attempt a smile the whole evening.
We ended up ordering the following:
For me:
House Pinot Noir- Acceptable wine. Not amazing. Not terrible. About as memorable as a glass of filtered water with a (thankfully) different taste.
Bread course - Presentation: spreads were nicely presented, bread was in a basket as per usual.
I don't think it's fair to claim a four-course meal when one of those "courses" is the bread that you're going to put on the table anyway. That said, the olive tapenade was pretty tasty (from a girl who doesn't care for olives), the roasted garlic made me smile (although it wasn't very pungent), and the bruschetta was very well executed. Even the butter provided was soft. Now if only they had warmed the bread...
Oysters on the half-shell - Presentation: classic on crushed ice, but nicely laid out.
An additional $8 on the prix fixe. The manager warned me that they are X variety, so they are very small. I interpret this as "you're paying a lot of money for very little food and most people are disappointed by this." I order it anyway. It is a lot of money for a little bit of food, but they were delicious.
I was left wondering though... they were served with two sauces - cocktail and a thin, clearish-red liquid with bits of finely chopped something floating in it that tasted a bit sweet. When the plate was brought to the table, it was set in front of me and then nothing. No "here are your oysters," no "this is cocktail sauce, this is Mystery Sauce of Doom!", nothing. But they were delicious all the same. Even if they did lack horseradish. The tiny bottle of Tabasco was still cute.
Rack of lamb - Presentation: beautiful - a ramekin was filled with the puff potatoes, the green beans were laid next to it in the center of the plate and the two cuts of the rack (two chops each) were tee-peed against the ramekin, sheltering the green beans. Au jus added color and completion to the plate.
This almost made me cry. Hands down, the best rack of lamb I've had. Ordered medium-rare, it was a little closer to medium, but the outside had a thin char while the interior was beautifully juicy. The texture was so smooth, it almost dissolved in my mouth. Served with sauteed green beans (note: I hate green beans and I ate almost every single one of these) and puff potatoes (Strange, risotto ball-looking things. I think they may have been balls of deep-fried mashed potatoes. Not bad, not worth ordering again.).
Creme brulee & dessert wine - Presentation: average. Served in ramekins that gave generous portion sizes. Mine could have easily fed both of us. My ramekin also apparently got tipped during caramelization as my "brulee" was actually sloping at about a 10-degree angle.
A restaurant staple, you can get a decent gauge of the skill level of the pastry chef and also get a feel for how daring the restaurant is as a whole. This was a solidly average brulee. The sugar was nicely caramelized about 1.5mm thick. It was thick enough that you got an audible crack, but not so thick that you had to hack away at it. The custard wasn't too sugary, but it may have been a little bland. I'm used to most creme brulee involving at least vanilla bean in the custard (my favorite used lavender essence), but this was just custard.
The wine was incredible sweet. The nose had me backing away with a, "Woah! That will mess with my blood sugar..." But it did go very well with the creme brulee. The wine itself was incredibly floral so while the custard was bland, the wine supplemented a bit of flavor.
J-two's dinner:
Rum & Coke - Heavy on the "Coke" which, upon sipping, turned out to be Pepsi.
Onion soup - Presentation: enchanting. An individual soup tureen with a puff pastry crust baked on top.
The soup was amazing. I couldn't quite place the alcohol they used in the broth, but I think it was sherry. It was a great compliment to the onions and the cheese (guessing provolone on that one). The tureen was large enough for an entree though. J-two ate his fill and I then helped myself until I realized that if I kept eating, I'd have no room for the main course. There was still half the tureen left after both of us were done.
20-ounce T-bone steak - Presentation: surprisingly rustic steak house-style on a semi-triangular speckled plate.
A $10 up-charge on the prix fixe, but definitely worth it. It's a beautiful steak with a rich body of flavor. Not quite as tender as the lamb, but we are dealing with different animals here. J-two ordered the garlic mashed potatoes. I found them acceptable, but not amazing. I also tacked on the side of Porterhouse fries as I'd promised my client that I'd try them. Now here's something interesting: the fries were not just fried... they were battered and fried. Definitely different. I could see craving those as a meal in their own right. It was a little much with all of the rest of the food we were plowing through.
Creme brulee & dessert wine - See rating above.
Overall verdict?
Service: D (The only thing keeping them from an F was the large party in the other room but that still shouldn't be an excuse for most of the service we experienced)
Food: A- (I vacillated between a B+ and an A-, but the lamb's amazingness pushed it up even if the menu itself isn't the most challenging)
Value: B
Overall grade: C+
The lamb itself is good enough to go back for...but I likely won't return simply because the service really was THAT HORRIBLE.
Dear restaurant managers of LA: While there should be no price minimum for good service, if I am shelling out at least $50 for dinner, I expect an experience. J-squared may indulge in gluttony, but we believe that an amazing meal is made all the better when the waitstaff are as talented as the kitchen staff. Porterhouse Bistro, you were found lacking.
For the sake of narrative, I am going to introduce J-squared (and if anyone can tell me how to format superscript on Blogger, I'll love you forever). I, myself, am J-one. My darling, love-of-my-life, patience-of-Job boyfriend is J-two. He also gets the benefit of joining me for dinner pretty much every night. Every once in a while, our dinners include a guest appearance by the room mate, J-three (no joke!). Last night, however, it was just an outing for J-squared.
I helped a client at work recently with a big purchase. During our chatting we both raved over how much we love Groupon. (Disclaimer: I was not recruited to tout them but they do give a $10 credit for each new friend who signs up. I frankly just think they're awesome and we've had a lot of fun with their discounted products.) As a thank you for assistance with the purchase, my client passed on a Groupon that he had that was about to expire - it was good for a sizable portion of dinner at The Porterhouse Bistro. I'd never tried the restaurant before and I'm always game for a new experience!
I left a message with Porterhouse on Saturday to make reservations for 8 pm on Tuesday. They called me back and confirmed the reservation and we were good to go.
Tuesday arrives and I make the mad dash to get from Beverly Hills to Downtown, pick up J-two, get changed, and then trek back to Beverly Hills. We get to Porterhouse slightly early and, luck of luck! find street parking right out front. (Which is especially lucky because while I'm not sure what the valet situation is on the weekends - there is no valet during the week.) We're walking towards the front door, passing the windows into the dining room and it's looking lovely - wood, muted colors, mood lighting, linen table cloths... the works. Getting to the front door, we open and enter and are assailed by a wall of noise. Apparently, Porterhouse was having a corporate dinner that evening that took up the majority of the main dining room. Now, I know it's Los Angeles and sometimes corporate dinners are thrown together the day before they occur. But, I'm guessing the temporary wall set up to block off the main dining room meant that Porterhouse had a little advance notice. Gripe #1 - if a client is calling to make a reservation on a night that one assumes will be fairly dead and you have a large, noisy group scheduled to be in the restaurant, you should let the client know so she can decide if she wants to keep her reservation on that night or move it to another night.
So it goes.
We entered the restaurant and... had to search for the host/hostess stand? Admittedly, it wasn't that hard to find, but we did have to pass both the bar and the entrance to the dining room to reach the unmanned station. Where we stood. For seven minutes. (Ok, it was probably 5, but I'm not terribly forgiving of making people wait to have their presence acknowledged.) At one point, a man who ended up being our waiter showed up nearby at the bar to get drinks. "I'll have someone right with you." And then we were alone again. For a couple more minutes. Eventually, someone showed up to show us to seats. We were shuttled back into what is most likely their dining room that is normally reserved for private parties - the doors can close off to fully enclose the area and the decor is slightly different than the main dining room. It has the feeling of the cross between an upscale den and a wine cellar with significantly brighter lighting. But so far, so good. We're being seated... wait, by the kitchen?!? J-two was slightly appalled. I played the "Well, this is the only table for two they have set up in here and we are a party of two." But the restaurant refuted this theory when the next three couples all got tables originally designed for four people. In theory, save your worst table for the people who come late and without reservations. Better idea, don't have a table by the kitchen.
However, we were having a night out with the majority comped by a fantastic client, so who were we to complain? (At least, too loudly ^.^) We sat down and perused the drool-worthy menu. (I also cringed over the horrible homonym confusion in the description of the "Ravioli of the Day" in the appetizers section.) The prix fixe menu grabbed us. We were oohing and ahh-ing over our choices and marveling in the fact that the meal would also include two drinks. Not too shabby! So we're looking around, trying to figure out when someone is going to come over and take our orders. Or, hey, could we at least get some drinks?
J-two randomly makes eye contact with a guy wearing a sweater vest and slacks. I figured he was one of the corporate guys coming through the dining room to use the restroom .(One-person-at-a-time style, the decor attempted to match the feel of the restaurant but failed miserably. The restroom of the 76 station on Wilshire just west of the Beverly Hilton is classier.) No, apparently the guys is the manager. Since our waiter isn't around, he can take our order.
"Okay, what is the soup of the day?"
"Um... let me go find out," and he scurries off to the kitchen.
...Really?!?
We had service issues throughout the evening which led to J-two's musing (and inspired this blog), "You know, we've had some great food in Los Angeles, but the service sucks!" The manager did come back with the soup of the day. We gave him our orders and he left before we could tell him what we wanted to drink. There were long waits in between courses (about 15-20 minutes between the end of our appetizers and the appearance of our entrees). J-two's glass was sitting empty for about 5-10 minutes after he finished his first cocktail before the waiter was close enough to our vicinity to flag down. I was amazed to see a bus boy bringing out four appetizers on a large tray, Denny's-style. To make it even better, two appetizers were for one table and two were for a separate table. The waiter, when clearing his table also would only remove two items at a time and stack them on the large tray before going back for more. Dear manager: your staff lack training in general food service and in client interaction. Toward the end of the meal, our waiter showed up with two complimentary glasses of dessert wine. Nice gesture, but it definitely fell into the "too little too late category". It was also the only time I noticed him attempt a smile the whole evening.
We ended up ordering the following:
For me:
House Pinot Noir- Acceptable wine. Not amazing. Not terrible. About as memorable as a glass of filtered water with a (thankfully) different taste.
Bread course - Presentation: spreads were nicely presented, bread was in a basket as per usual.
I don't think it's fair to claim a four-course meal when one of those "courses" is the bread that you're going to put on the table anyway. That said, the olive tapenade was pretty tasty (from a girl who doesn't care for olives), the roasted garlic made me smile (although it wasn't very pungent), and the bruschetta was very well executed. Even the butter provided was soft. Now if only they had warmed the bread...
Oysters on the half-shell - Presentation: classic on crushed ice, but nicely laid out.
An additional $8 on the prix fixe. The manager warned me that they are X variety, so they are very small. I interpret this as "you're paying a lot of money for very little food and most people are disappointed by this." I order it anyway. It is a lot of money for a little bit of food, but they were delicious.
I was left wondering though... they were served with two sauces - cocktail and a thin, clearish-red liquid with bits of finely chopped something floating in it that tasted a bit sweet. When the plate was brought to the table, it was set in front of me and then nothing. No "here are your oysters," no "this is cocktail sauce, this is Mystery Sauce of Doom!", nothing. But they were delicious all the same. Even if they did lack horseradish. The tiny bottle of Tabasco was still cute.
Rack of lamb - Presentation: beautiful - a ramekin was filled with the puff potatoes, the green beans were laid next to it in the center of the plate and the two cuts of the rack (two chops each) were tee-peed against the ramekin, sheltering the green beans. Au jus added color and completion to the plate.
This almost made me cry. Hands down, the best rack of lamb I've had. Ordered medium-rare, it was a little closer to medium, but the outside had a thin char while the interior was beautifully juicy. The texture was so smooth, it almost dissolved in my mouth. Served with sauteed green beans (note: I hate green beans and I ate almost every single one of these) and puff potatoes (Strange, risotto ball-looking things. I think they may have been balls of deep-fried mashed potatoes. Not bad, not worth ordering again.).
Creme brulee & dessert wine - Presentation: average. Served in ramekins that gave generous portion sizes. Mine could have easily fed both of us. My ramekin also apparently got tipped during caramelization as my "brulee" was actually sloping at about a 10-degree angle.
A restaurant staple, you can get a decent gauge of the skill level of the pastry chef and also get a feel for how daring the restaurant is as a whole. This was a solidly average brulee. The sugar was nicely caramelized about 1.5mm thick. It was thick enough that you got an audible crack, but not so thick that you had to hack away at it. The custard wasn't too sugary, but it may have been a little bland. I'm used to most creme brulee involving at least vanilla bean in the custard (my favorite used lavender essence), but this was just custard.
The wine was incredible sweet. The nose had me backing away with a, "Woah! That will mess with my blood sugar..." But it did go very well with the creme brulee. The wine itself was incredibly floral so while the custard was bland, the wine supplemented a bit of flavor.
J-two's dinner:
Rum & Coke - Heavy on the "Coke" which, upon sipping, turned out to be Pepsi.
Onion soup - Presentation: enchanting. An individual soup tureen with a puff pastry crust baked on top.
The soup was amazing. I couldn't quite place the alcohol they used in the broth, but I think it was sherry. It was a great compliment to the onions and the cheese (guessing provolone on that one). The tureen was large enough for an entree though. J-two ate his fill and I then helped myself until I realized that if I kept eating, I'd have no room for the main course. There was still half the tureen left after both of us were done.
20-ounce T-bone steak - Presentation: surprisingly rustic steak house-style on a semi-triangular speckled plate.
A $10 up-charge on the prix fixe, but definitely worth it. It's a beautiful steak with a rich body of flavor. Not quite as tender as the lamb, but we are dealing with different animals here. J-two ordered the garlic mashed potatoes. I found them acceptable, but not amazing. I also tacked on the side of Porterhouse fries as I'd promised my client that I'd try them. Now here's something interesting: the fries were not just fried... they were battered and fried. Definitely different. I could see craving those as a meal in their own right. It was a little much with all of the rest of the food we were plowing through.
Creme brulee & dessert wine - See rating above.
Overall verdict?
Service: D (The only thing keeping them from an F was the large party in the other room but that still shouldn't be an excuse for most of the service we experienced)
Food: A- (I vacillated between a B+ and an A-, but the lamb's amazingness pushed it up even if the menu itself isn't the most challenging)
Value: B
Overall grade: C+
The lamb itself is good enough to go back for...but I likely won't return simply because the service really was THAT HORRIBLE.
Dear restaurant managers of LA: While there should be no price minimum for good service, if I am shelling out at least $50 for dinner, I expect an experience. J-squared may indulge in gluttony, but we believe that an amazing meal is made all the better when the waitstaff are as talented as the kitchen staff. Porterhouse Bistro, you were found lacking.
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