My friends Robert from Arkansas, housemate Leo, and I walked in precisely on time for our brunch reservation at The Grille at the Ritz-Carleton today, and we stood there in plain view, occasionally popping in to the dining room to look around more in quest of a host/hostess. Finally after we'd been there seven minutes, a waiter noticed us. After fumbling with the reservations book to find our name, he led us into the main dining room to seat us in a cozy alcove (had it previously been a coat closet??) with a table for three overlooking the dining room and with a view out the plate glass window wall onto the street.
We'd only been there a minute or two when an older manager-type came up and said they were going to have to get the dining room ready for a private party, so he was going to have to move us to another room—all with appropriate apologies, of course, but still, we were having to move after having just gotten settled.
The manager seated us at a very interesting granite-topped, rectangular table with a love seat along the long side and two chairs at either end, then presented us with menus he'd grabbed as we followed him to the other dining room. Rather than being Restaurant Week menus, though, they were regular breakfast menus. When our (different) waiter arrived to fill our water glasses, we had to ask him for the correct menus. As he took away the breakfast menus, he noticed that our table setting did not have napkins, so he brought the correct menus, then made an extra trip to bring napkins; he only brought two napkins, however, so he had to make yet another trip to bring the third.
And thus the meal went.
After bringing our drinks (a mimosa for Leo and an iced tea for me; Robert stuck with water), the waiter announced he was ready to take our orders. Then, he discovered he'd not brought a pad on which to write the orders, so he had to go get one and come back. The Restaurant Week menus were very limited. First course was either soup du jour or Caesar salad, main course was salmon or chicken breast, and dessert was cheesecake or a charlotte. Good thing I hadn't brought my father here, cause if it doesn't moo or oink, he won't eat it.
So far, no one had announced the specials of the day or stated the contents of the soup du jour, so when Leo started to order, the first thing he asked was "what is the soup du jour." Well, the waiter didn't know, so he had to go ask. When he returned, he said it was "pepper.....red pepper soup." None of the usual flowery adjectives to describe the wonderous deliciousness of the restaurant's offering. So, that's what Leo ordered. Robert and I both opted for the Caesar salads.
While we waited, we were brought a very interesting bread basket with a huge assortment of breads, breadsticks, cornbread, and lavosh crackers. One particularly interesting piece was cut open, spread with a pesto-looking substance and topped with a tomato slice, black olive, and cheese and then broiled to melt the cheese. Another interesting piece was a small whole wheat olive roll with a whole black olive baked into the edge.
Our Caesar salads were okay, but terribly ordinary. They used commercial croutons and there were disgusting little anchovy filets on top of the romaine. Yes, I know that there is anchovy in a proper Caesar dressing, but that's all smushed up and there's not that much fish. Robert ate his dead fish, but I gave mine to Leo, since he likes that sort of thing. Leo's soup was served in a flat, double-handled soup cup on a service plate, and the first thing I noticed is that when it was put down in front of him, the handles were not parallel to his body but were askew. He ate it without much comment. Once he was done, there was a tiny bit left in the cup, so I asked to taste a little bit. I dipped the tip of my (clean) butter spreader into the soup and sampled it. There was very little red pepper taste to the cream soup. What I did taste, however, was shellfish—crab or lobster.
Leo is allergic to crab and lobster.
So, I asked the waiter on his next pass to check with the kitchen to see if there was shellfish in the soup, since Leo has an allergy. He took his time about it, but eventually a different, younger manager-type came out and explained that there was a little bit of lobster in the soup. Oh, my God. Well, Leo was okay, apparently not having ingested enough lobster to get his rash/hives, and he also said that alcohol (as in his mimosa) helped counteract the allergy. He's lucky. I have another friend who, had he eaten a cup of shellfish soup, would have been critically ill and in the emergency room on the literal verge of death. One would think that a restaurant in a major, high end restaurant chain like the Ritz-Carleton would know that there are people with serious allergies to shellfish, peanuts, and wheat, and would disclose those ingredients in menus and menu descriptions!
There was one bit of amusement. The nice young manager who discussed the soup problem was nattily attired in his three-piece navy blue suit, but he missed one little bit of sartorial detail: his fly was fully unzipped. After he left the table, we had a bit of discussion about it. Then, Leo announced he was going to tell him. Robert and I both chimed in simultaneously, "No!" and we tried to explain to him that in American culture (Leo is from Hong Kong, remember), we don't tell strangers such things in public. Our main courses arrived, and who should bring out the three plates but that manager! After he set the plates down, Leo said, "Sir, I need to tell you something," and Robert and I both said "No!" again as the poor manager turned to Leo, expecting to hear a comment about how the food was so wonderful or something. Leo said across the table, "You need to zip up," and after that was met with a look of confusion, he continued, "Your pants." Robert and I were mortified.
We all had the same main course: Cajun spiced grilled salmon. I thought my salmon was quite good, even though I've never beeen a big fan of the Cajun or "blackened" spice craze of the '80s. A couple of peeled, steamed asparagus spears decorated the plate. The fish rested on a thick smear of what I thought might be grainy, thin mashed potatoes, but which Robert insisted was grits. We still aren't sure what it was.
The waiter lost service points because our entrees arrived before he had given us appropriate flatware. And, when we were all three done eating and had placed our knives and forks in the traditional "four o'clock position," he interrupted our conversation to ask if we were done and could he take the plates.
Both of the desserts were a visual surprise and quite unexpected. Leo had the vanilla bean cheesecake with banana chocolate sauce. As you can see, a light, fluffy cheesecake mixture had been put in a rounded mold, then set on a circle of pressed, molded cake and dusted with cocoa. The banana chocolate sauce included nuts of some kind, and that strip laying across the top of the cheesecake was a very thin, unsweetened cracker of some sort. Leo reported the cheesecake to have a very pronounced vanilla flavor (I could see vanilla bean seeds in the mix), and, since he prefers the heavy, dense, cheesy, New York style, it wasn't his favorite, though he said it was good.
Robert and I both had the strawberry charlotte. Now, a traditional charlotte is made by lining a charlotte mold (this is a traditional charlotte mold) with either lady fingers or slices of genoise (a type of cake), then filling the mold with alternating layers of filling, fruit, and cake. A typical strawberry charlotte would include fresh strawberry slices as garnish and there would be a strawberry puree to add to the layers, with the primary filling being strawberry puree folded in with whipped cream and stabilized with a bit of gelatin. Well, here at the Ritz-Carleton, they took the banquet caterers' route out, filling a big sheet cake pan with a thin layer of cake and using what tasted to me like strawberry Jello whipped with whipped cream and a very gelatinized strawberry puree, then cut the dessert into squares. The garnish was a raspberry, not a strawberry. On the plate you'll also see a smear of what we think was minted sour applesauce (though I thought I tasted a bit of grape) and an egg-shaped dollop of what Robert called "the most artfully presented Cool Whip I've ever seen." This dessert was tasty enough for what it was, but it certainly was not what I think of as a strawberry charlotte.
Having entered the restaurant from their on-street door, we opted to walk through the hotel's lobby on the way out. It was, as expected, quite luxe. We noted in the main lobby a huge round console table fully covered with containers cram-filled with expensive white and cream flowers, including a lot of long-stemmed white tulips, white roses, and white symbidium orchids.
So, what was our over all impression of The Grille? Well, the food was fine for a $20.06 prix fixe menu, though nothing special. Our waiter was attentive and nice, but poorly trained. There are some definite management service issues here. And, they are unwarrantedly very expensive—Leo's average sized flute of mimosa was $12 and my iced tea was $4.75! We'd also noted during our long wait to be greeted several flyers advertising future dinners, such as a Valentine's Day dinner for $95 per person and a Scotch and cigar dinner later this month for $125 per person, so this is not an economical place to eat.
I'm afraid that The Grille at the Ritz-Carleton falls into the category of the typical, severely over-priced, faux-elegant hotel restaurant. If you're on somebody else's expense account, it's okay enough food, but one should never equate priciness with gourmet dining.
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