Never on a Monday
Go out for a good dinner, that is.
Monday is the traditional night off for the chef. That may not matter if you’re eating at Denny’s, but a real restaurant has a real chef, and when he’s not there the quality has been known to suffer.
We made our mistake at Metro, usually one of our favorite places. They have changed chefs at least twice in the last year, so perhaps the problem is with whoever is wearing the toque these days, but I’m sticking with my Monday theory for now.
We started with the English Pea soup, which was excellent. Not at all like the usual heavy, ham laden soup I expected, this one was much lighter and fresher than you would think when you hear “pea soup”. Metro should keep this one on the menu.
I ordered the asparagus. How hard can that be? Too hard, so it seems. We got a half dozen spears of overcooked asparagii, with a glob of some kind of molten cheese and a strip of prosciutto. The cheese, rapidly congealing around the vegetables, was neither attractive nor appetizing.
The meatballs we ordered were just tasteless. The tomato sauce they were swimming in was decent, but there was really nothing exciting about this dish.
Gail liked the brussels sprouts about as much as Mike would have–remember that Mike won’t eat the little green things. She thought they were seriously overcooked (not unlike the asparagus above).
Lastly, we had the duck spring rolls, which were uninspired at best and not even a little bit up to the standard I’ve come to expect from Metro.
Service was fine, since the chef has nothing to do with it. We were very pleased to get the table right in front of the fireplace (which I had called in advance to reserve) even though the threesome at the adjoining table seemed excessively loud and the acoustics in that facility are dreadful.
I’ll certainly give Metro at least one more try, but it won’t be on a Monday.
Totally Unauthorized 