Food

FOOD REVIEW: Tre Lounge

l3wis July 12, 2011 4Comments

Okay, I think I have reviewed Tre in the past, but someone recently asked if I would do it again.

I invited some dear friends to Tre tonight, they are recently retired and bought a home in Colorado and are leaving soon. Anyway, the main reason I invited them was because they have never ate there before, and I have always gotten good food there, so I knew it wouldn’t be a bad experience. Tre did not disappoint. I almost feel bad that I haven’t been there in a long time, because it was so good.

Our server was wonderful beyond belief, I didn’t catch her name, but she was bubbly, which usually annoys the fuck out of me, but it was a sincere happiness not intentional, so I will let it slide this time. She took my drink order promptly while I waited for my guests, and got it to me right away. Instant points with me. She was very attentive along with her fellow servers and food runners. In fact when the food runner dropped off our appetizer, he said to us instantly, ‘I will grab you silverware and plates right away’, noticing before us that we didn’t have any. I know this sounds like a small thing, but it is something that restaurants fail at, big time. Our food runner not only knew what his job was, but was polite and professional about it. It is something I have been battling at the place I work at for months. There is nothing more annoying then getting a salad or appetizer that looks incredible and you have no means of eating it.

FOOD

Like I have said in the past, the food at Tre has always been to spec. Tonight it was no different. My friends, who are not originally from SD have never tried chislic. I explained to them, that while it is traditionally lamb, sirloin will do. The only other place in town besides Tre that has great chislic is Minervas. I will give Minervas a better grade because their pieces are larger and they ask for temp while Tre does not. But Tre’s presentation is much better. They give you fresh lime slices to squeeze on the chislic and a bed of fresh cilantro and seasoning to dip in. Delicious twist on a classic. And even though the beef sirloin was well done, it was juicy and tender.

While the entire dinner menu looks very appetizing, we all decided on the shrimp tacos. Great choice. The only complaint I would have about the dish was there was really small portion ‘chunks’ of shrimp, but once you put the plate together, if really doesn’t matter. The shrimp was cooked in a tomato chutney with red onions (I absolutely love red onions!) and served with 3 tortilla, diced tomato basil, monterey jack cheese, sliced cabbage and an interesting spicy mayo. For $12 dollars the portion was huge. Even after making 3 tacos you still had fixins’ to spare. I liked the cabbage instead of lettuce twist. The only improvement on dish I would make besides more shrimp is including sliced cucumbers to the plate.

While Tre may lack some ambience, though comfortable (the entire place is painted grey with really bad Rothko knockoff paintings) the service and food is top notch.

Food Review; Crawford’s – DT Sioux Falls

l3wis April 19, 2011 11Comments

I’m not a ‘star’ kinda reviewer, but if there was a star shaped like a turd, I would give Crawford’s four of them.

I was skeptical about Crawford’s for awhile, because for one, the owner refused to tear down a shit hole empty hotel for years and almost got his liquor license denied for his new place because of it. AND I have also heard second hand critics tell me that they can’t cook a meal to save their life.

But, like most schmucks in this town, I wanted to try the new place.

INTERIOR

The interior is fantastic, and almost swanky with a girl touch. Local designer, Sarah Dewitt designed the place, and you can tell if you are familiar with her work. While I am not a huge fan, I do like Sarah’s middle eastern influence even though I made fun of the bedazzler wallpaper jewels and leather placemats.

SERVICE

I guess I could dress this up nicely, but I won’t. Slower then fuck. I know, I know, I guess when you go to a nice place that’s how it is, but I call bullshit on that concept. You should always have at least a 1 minute greet and a drink order. After five minutes a waitress finally brought us water, then ran away before I could order a drink. When we finally ordered a drink, that took a long time (5-10 minutes?) This is uncalled for. As I told someone once, I don’t care how much you fuck up after my drink order, you just better get it fast and right. Crawford’s: FAIL.

We also had a meal problem, that we will discuss later, but I was puzzled by the lack of management, not sure if there is a manager, they allowed the server to handle the situation. A server should NEVER deal with these situations. I eat out a lot, nice places, and not so nice places, and I have NEVER had a server handle a complaint. It’s sketchy and unprofessional.

I do think our server was good, even though I did not catch her name, but she needed to be faster, she also needed to stop sugar coating the problems. I understand, you don’t cook the food, don’t defend the cooks, throw them under bus as much as possible, gawd knows I do. The patrons will never see them and they don’t get tips, it does not matter.

FOOD

Here is where the problem lies at Crawford’s. You can have a swanky place, a good liquor and wine menu, but you can’t really skimp when it comes to food, especially since you are about 20% more expensive then Minerva’s and 10% more expensive then my favorite DT restaurant, Parker’s. See, if you were serving chopped steak and chili for $4 a plate, I would understand. But when you are asking $5 for a lettuce salad and $30 an entree, you needs to get the shit right! Let me say this again: you needs to get the shit right!

I will say this, the spinach dip was fantastic, it had paprika and sun dried tomatoes in it (I think) and the bread with it was nice and crisp on the outside and soft in the middle (I can’t stand Gardetto’s hard toast like bread w/spinach dip) The escargot was different, but tasty, it was prepared with the normal garlic butter but was wrapped in a puff pastry and had a balsamic glaze. Awesome. Balsamic is something that more chefs are using these days on meats to spice them up, and I like it.

Our entree presentation was good, but our food was overcooked. One of us ordered a hamburger, and it was the best thing at the table. I ordered Salmon, overcooked and dry. My asparagus (which I love) was cold and I substituted steak fries for my risotto, also undercooked and cold. One other person at the table ordered the pork wellington, which looked fantastic, but the chops were cooked to sandpaper dryness, I even tried them and could barely chew down the piece. We had to convince our waitress to show the chef how overcooked they were. But instead of taking them off the bill, even though my friend only had two bites, they made her pay for it and gave her a gift certificate (remember how I talked about the manager interaction).

How would I have handled it? Well, first off, the waitress admitted that the cook overcooked it after showing it to him. So why would we have to pay for it? I would have took it off the bill and offered a free dessert or drink. I am still baffled why my friend had to pay for a meal that was overcooked and she did not eat? And on top of it wasn’t even boxed up for her cat?

Crawford’s may be expensive and swanky but the entrees suck, unless you like overcooked, dry, cold food that takes forever to get, and hey, maybe that’s why it is overcooked :).

I would go back for a drink and an app, but I refuse to eat dinner there ever again.

E-Rae’s at Club David – YUMMY!

l3wis September 1, 2010 4Comments

David’s favorite sandwich? Cordon Bleu.

After reading Bryann Becker’s column in the Sunday Gargoyle Leader about E-Rae’s I was curious, because her food review reminded me of a Doug Chapman column (Chapman used to write the reviews years ago, but I think was fired because of his sarcasm in the reviews). So I got a group of friends together and we thought we would try the food last night. Trust me, we didn’t have high expectations, Club David is a bar, we were expecting bar food, which it was not, the service on the other hand . . . well let’s just say the bartenders at the Top Hat are more attentive. But we will get into that later.

We sat on the patio (apparently the only part of the club that is open during the week) which is fine. I used to frequent the patio a few summers ago when they first built it and had two-fers. It was a beautiful night, and I’m not even being sarcastic, so it was a perfect dining place.

We asked if food was available and the server said yes and handed us menus. We decided to start with an appetizer and ordered the nachos. We got the quesadilla instead. Being a server myself, I was concerned that maybe the food was supposed to go to another table, and when I asked our server insisted that it was ours, and we told him we ordered the nachos. He was going to fix it, but we thought, fuck it, we will eat it anyway, because it looked good. It was fantastic. The tortilla was more like a flatbread and really crispy and toasted. It was served with garden fresh jalapenos, sour cream, romaine and salsa (that I’m guessing was homemade).

For our dinner we all ordered something different, I ordered the Cordon Bleu sandwich (because like a dumb schmuck I order this sandwich everywhere I go thinking somebody will get it right – and nobody ever does). E-Rae got it right. It was on panni bread and the secret condiment seemed to me was cream cheese, but I could be wrong. I don’t usually finish pub fare, but this sandwich rocked. I ate it all.

One of my other companions tried the spinach wrap, and she liked it. But the funny part of was when my third friend tried to order, three of his first choices “were not available” which we all laughed about. He got the bacon cheeseburger and said it was great.

Trust me, E-Rae needs to work out some kinks, like availability and order accuracy. But for pub fare, it is pretty damn good.

Looks like the heart attack burgers are back

l3wis August 27, 2010 5Comments

I wondered how long it would take Z’Kota to figure out they didn’t have that many customers.