A good walk from the station, out of the way, they must be pretty good. Sunday noon and no waiting: were we lucky?
Minimalist decor and no photos on the menus: stylish?
The coffee: they had several varieties. I asked the waitress if any of them were dark or light--we really can't stand anything less than dark roast Italian or French. The waitress looked at me confused (my Japanese was fine--we suspected she might not be Japanese, though she was...just incompetent). She consulted with the other staff and came back to report that it was coffee--apparently unaware that there were different kinds. OK, that wasn't a good sign. I had a safe glass of ice tea while my wife suffered a weak, office break-room cup of coffee.
I ordered the signature Egg Rothko. We weren't clear what their Chicken Hash was and the staff wasn't able to elaborate over the vague menu description, and the manager couldn't find a single photo of it on his iPad. Not a good sign, either--shockingly incompetent for such a pricey place.
Lots of idle staff just standing around in the back, too.
When the food finally came, the portions were dishearteningly meager--about what you'd expect for a cheap, family restaurant.
Happily, the food itself was quite good. The sauteed kale was very tasty. The chicken hash was flavorful and well-seasoned.
Candied Bacon was good, too. I'll try making it sometime.
But the Egg Rothko was essentially an open-faced croque monsieur--cheese on egg on toast, and when I cut off a bite all the cheese ran together at the cut and congealed in a big blob on the plate.
But ironically the one thing that really impressed me was the grits. Best I'd ever tasted--I could really taste the hominy in them. They barely needed any seasoning at all. So on the way out I thought I'd talk a little with the manager about his grits. I wish I hadn't. He didn't even know what hominy was--it was all prepared and shipped from South Carolina. He knew it had something to do with corn but that was about it.
Incompetent, ignorant, ambivalent staff (though nice) and preposterous prices--we left feeling royally burned.
We're foodies, we take chances, we're always eager to try new places, so naturally we're going to get burned on occasion. We've been very lucky lately, so I guess it was just a build-up of avoided bombs multiplied by the false sense of security into which we'd allowed ourselves to get lulled from all the great restaurants we'd found recently, that would account for how badly we got burned on this joint. If money is no object, then I can recommend this place. We take the occasional burn so you won't have to -- you're welcome.
