The restaurant is small and really only a bar area (with table seating around it) and one small back room. We were seated near the front door and caught the cold air each time the door was opened (which seemed to be often). We had been placed at a high-top table and asked to move to a regular table (I hate high-top bar tables...sitting at them hurts my hip after awhile). So, because we moved once we didn't want to ask to move again.
One thing about this restaurant is they do "flights" of wines. 3 half glasses were $18-22. We saw several people who were here on dates. They were all in their 20's-30's and they were doing the wine flight thing. It is a nice way to try 3 kinds of wine, but I think that price is too steep.
Our waiter was nice and explained the menu well. They have a large wine list (the Jax Y3 Taureau was nowhere on it!!). I was bummed because I hadn't done my research as that was the wine I was planning on getting. We ended up ordering a bottle of an Italian super Tuscan called Barbaspinosa by Morisfarms. It was good, not great (and considerably more than $22). Our waiter explained that the menu is meant to be like a tapas menu. He said everything is in tasting portions, even the entrees. This started OK, then it got weird.
We started with a meat and cheese plate. It was fine...but it was no Annie Gunn's. It had 2 meats (salami and dried beef) and two cheeses. One of the cheeses was a horseradish cheese with mustard seeds in it that had been soaked in some kind of beer. That is a whole lot of big tastes going on and I don't like the taste of mustard or beer. So, I was going to let Mike eat that whole one, but when he told me that he couldn't taste the mustard or the beer, I tried it. It was just a whole lot of horseradish. It was not bad...just strong. The meat and cheese tray was fine...just a little lacking in variety. We should have just stopped there.
The next section of the menu was "entrees," which I found odd if this was tapas style. These were legit entrees with sides, just small portions (for normal entree prices). I ordered the scallops and Mike ordered the sirloin. Neither of us ended up liking our entree.My scallops were a bunch of tiny bay scallops cooked with some tomato, sliced garlic (that was way too strong for the mild taste of scallops) and onions over some squid ink pasta. I actually usually like squid ink pasta. I had it several times in Italy and really like it in Venice. This was not tasty. The whole dish was just kind of blah and I didn't finish it.
Mike had sirloin (it was about 4 cross slices from the steak) with a side of mashed sweet potatoes and what we have decided was broccoflower (a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower). Mike likes both broccoli and cauliflower and didn't like this. He said the seasoning seemed to be all wrong on the plate. The meat just tasted like salt. They had heavily salted the outside of the meat before grilling and it was overpowering. You don't need to do that to a good steak, but this wasn't a truly good steak. Mike said it was a cheap sirloin with gristle lines running through it and they were trying to pass it off as good steak. The vegetables actually needed salt and pepper. Never a good sign. Dessert was fine. We tried the "dessert flight." It had a dense flourless brownie, a peanut butter chocolate mousse mini pie, and a salted caramel pot du creme. The brownie was meh, the peanut butter chocolate pie was good, but the pot du creme was REALLY good.
Take away from this place...nice selection of wine but do research before you go. The meat and cheese trays are fine and the desserts are worth it, but punt the entrees...not worth it.
I was hoping this would be a place we'd go back to...it isn't. So, we'll keep trying new places...
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