Restaurant Review: Pamplemousse

400 east Sahara avenue

Las Vegas

Nevada 89104

Old school Vegas charm paired with good food equals a unique dining experience. That's what I learned at Pamplemousse in Las Vegas. A waiter with more personality than you'll find just about anywhere added to the charm of this tiny, not so off the beaten path restaurant. My father who was in Las Vegas with me this week suggested it, as he had been there the year before with some relatives who live in the area. I absolutely love finding these types of places and without him we would have been at just another huge hotel restaurant with a big name and some celebrity chef.

We were seated in a side room that we were told was frequented by the rat pack, replete with striped curtains on the ceiling and outside, a bit of hastily strung-looking lights for ambiance along with what looked like a 3-tiered fountain built in to a wall that had long stopped running. I imagined the rat pack closing the striped curtains and smoking cigars and entertaining in this room many years ago. What an amazing quality of old Vegas this place has!

We were seated and greeted with a tremendous veggie basket and a long list of specials not on the menu, including frog legs, upon which we decided not to indulge. We chose lobster bisque and the special scallops for our appetizers. I’m told the bisque was the best part of the meal and a patron at the next table also agreed. As for my scallops, they were cooked properly but I prefer mine seared pretty well with a nice caramelized color to them. These were just barely seared.

We moved on to our main courses which consisted of lobster ravioli for me and the scallops as a main for my father. His scallops looked identical to my appetizer except just more of them. My ravioli had a very nice lobster cream sauce with it and was good but not life-changing by any means.

We both had also ordered the chocolate lava cakes for dessert which came with a homemade ice-cream on top along with a "dollop" of whipped cream. The dollop however was as big as the scoop of ice-cream and I think we can all agree that's not a bad thing.

Overall Pamplemousse was a terrific dining experience, mostly due to the décor and service, both incredible. The food was good, but nothing out of this world. I would definitely recommend a visit if you are in town just to experience the quaint charm and ambiance of old Las Vegas along with a good meal.

Woodfire Grill

I sure am glad I don't live in Atlanta. Aside from the appalling humidity, of which I am not a fan, I would spend all my money and evenings at the Woodfire Grill. Hidden behind overarching trees, it sits nestled near the end of a road in a...how do I put this politely...more "adult" area of town.

This is a fairly typical New American style restaurant boasting of fresh/local/organic style food sources. Seriously, there's a laundry list of food sources on the back of the menu and although I was not familiar with them, I firmly believe that telling customers where you get your food adds significant value.

The interior has an excellently styled interior, which can get a bit too loud for my tastes, but the smallish kitchen with the (yup you guessed it) wood-fired grill, is right there for all to see. As a side note, if you wish to use the restrooms, the Woodfire Grill logo upside down is for Men and right side up is for women. You'll get it when you see it. This is important to save the host/hostess the stress of chasing you down to send you to the correct door, which I'm sure happens daily.

We decided on the 7 course grand tasting menu as we had the time and an adventurous palate that evening. Looking back on the trip, it's likely one of the best decisions we made the entire week. Given it was a tasting menu, we were subjected to food at chef Kevin's whim. As it turns out, there are many, many worse ways one could spend an evening out. Our service was always prompt and friendly, and courses came out appropriately sized and at a very nice pace.

I can't say enough good things about the food here. I'm not going to go over each course in detail because it would take too long and it wouldn't help anyone because the menu changes constantly. However, nearly every course was perfectly balanced, in fact, my least favorite courses were the ones I would have normally thought I would have loved the most (i.e. meat).

The meat courses were merely very good, but the real action was that Kevin had me loving things I normally am not a huge fan of: eggplant, cooked carrots, and clams to name a few. The only issue with any of the dishes I could find was I had some beets that seemed to overpower my duo dish of venison and quail. They were simply too sweet for the rest of the dish.

Other than this tiny issue, every dish was exquisitely prepared and tasted incredible. The last time I found myself liking vegetarian dishes more than the carnivore dishes was when I ate at The French Laundry. So, there ya go Kevin, your favorable comparison to Thomas Keller from a semi-periodic food blogger is complete.

Incredible eats here! It would be a huge mistake to miss this place if you are in town.

Bis on Main

Restaurant Name: Bis on Main
Location: 10213 Main St. Bellevue, WA 98004

Here we are at what appears to have been a Bellevue fixture for 10 or so years now, that we have somehow completely missed. I have to admit I wasn't expecting much despite the relatively decent 24 Zagat food rating. We pulled in to the "free" valet parking lot, which didn't really need to be valet, to see Jaguars, Mercedes, Hummers, BMW's, and Audi's. Obviously this restaurant was for the well-heeled that Bellevue tends to cater to. The question was, is the food any good?

The menu looked a bit pedestrian unfortunately. A lot of standard dishes you see at many restaurants, nothing too incredible but certainly a respectable selection. What I did notice was that prices seemed a bit high for what was on the menu, but given the cars I saw in the parking lot, and the amazing, truly beautiful decor, this was unsurprising.

Probably the best part of Bis on Main was the wines. The wine list is terrific, and even if you are ordering by the glass you are sure to get something that is quite yummy by anyone's standards. They were a bit on the higher priced side, but that was again, expected for the area and clientele, and they were actually worth the price. More than I can say for the food unfortunately.

I started my meal with what I thought was an easy hit, a caesar salad. I took the first bite and was amazed at the amount of garlic they were able to cram into the dressing. My throat quite literally was burning from the amount of garlic in the dressing by the time I was halfway through the salad. I have had LOTS of caesar salads so it's not that I'm just not accustomed to them. This doesn't even mention the nearly invisible tiny croutons. So the salad course was not all-together inspiring for me, although for a garlic lover perhaps it would be the best caesar they have ever had. Maybe the main course would be better?

My main course was a double pork chop entree. This was huge! Not just the double chop, but everything else on the plate as well. There was a little too much of everything as it all could have been half the size and been plenty of food. The pork itself was very good. Excellently cooked, not dry, and the sauce was quite awesome as well. Subtle flavors that all mingled well and really complimented the pork. I just needed about half the quantity.

For dessert my wife and I shared the chocolate souffle. It was decent, but the ice cream on top was pretty good. So the dessert was really, just OK. Nothing inspired, but good.

There is something of a disturbing theme so far in my reviewing of restaurants on the East side of Seattle. It seems like all of the restaurants are expecting you to order an entree and leave. Therefore the entrees are humongous portions, and typically pretty decent. Unfortunately the salads, appetizers, and desserts all suffer greatly as a result of this. So when one comes in thinking 3 course meal, one ends up stuffed to the gills. In sum total, Bis on Main garners a "good, but not inspired" rating from me. If you go and just get an entree and leave, that might up it to a "very good, but not inspired." You can go and get a decent meal, but it likely won't be too memorable.

Pearl Restaurant, Not Shiny Yet

PEARL
http://www.pearlbellevue.com/
Visited on 12/10/08
Location: Seattle - Eastside

There are precious few restaurant gems on the Eastside. So when I saw that Pearl had replaced the old Trader Vic's in Bellevue I was ready to find a new one. Fortunately for me, my wonderful wife was gracious enough to take care of our four and a half month old daughter so I could go out with a co-worker for some Christmas shopping and dinner.

As you walk into Pearl you are greeted with a bustling bar area and a very "happening" decor. Unfortunately, once seated we immediately noticed that it was nearly impossible to hear the waiter, or each other - perhaps a result of the arched bamboo ceiling that appears to be the last vestige of the previous tenant.

For appetizers, the foie gras was good, with a tayberry (blackberry and raspberry fruit hybrid) sauce, but I was not a fan of the croutons it was served with, as it ruined the whole flavor and texture for me. We also tried the calamari, which was also good. The accompanying sauce had a nice bite to it, but was not overpowering.

We had finished the foie gras and were halfway through the calamari when our main dishes suddenly showed up. That was a bit jarring, but OK. Why couldn't they have timed things a bit better? I had sablefish and it was terrific - cooked perfectly. The honey-miso marinade was a great accompaniment and it was ringed with mushroom caps and crab dumplings. My co-worker tried the Wagyu sirloin steak, which was good but a bit chewy. The beef came with a large mound of smashed potatoes that were bigger than the steak itself, and a generous portion of veggies. The entrees were so huge however, it makes ordering appetizers totally unnecessary. We did try one side of the truffle fries. However they were served in a lowball glass with too much truffle oil yielding terribly soggy fries as all the fries at the bottom of the glass suffered.

Don't bother with dessert either. We tried the white chocolate banana cream dessert which was fine. However, the triple chocolate dessert was a total mess. It was described as essentially a warm chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream. The ice cream was fine, but the cake... oh my! I tried to use my spoon to eat some and couldn't even get through the outside. I could barely crack the outside with a fork. The inside was totally dry, very hard, not warm, and basically inedible. I have to say it's the worst dessert I have ever been served as it seemed overcooked and at least a day old. I have had better McDonald's apple pies and the prepackaged desserts at the cafe at work that were better. I couldn't eat a bite of the cake it was so bad.

Overall Pearl has some good things going for it. The main dishes showed promise, the decor is very well done, wine list substantial and Northwest, but in general Pearl seems to be just another average American restaurant trying to masquerade as fine dining by offering the same foods. It has some glaring problems, including the noise, too large entrees, slightly overpriced dishes, and the dessert situation. Currently the only way to eat here is to order entrees only, you will get generally well prepared food and plenty of it. Unfortunately that formula is all to common among many popular American restaurants causing Pearl to lose some polish.

Boat Street Cafe, pickle me this...

Restaurant Name: Boat Street Cafe
Location: Seattle, Washington

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If there was ever a place to go in Seattle if you have a hankering for pickled fruits and veggies, Boat Street Café would be it. Even when not specifically interested in pickled fruits or vegetables you won’t be avoiding them. This is a great thing as you get to experience things
you typically won’t anywhere else, pickled fennel anyone? I am not the biggest pickling fan being the supertaster that I am. It adds a bit too much pickling flavor to the ingredient for my tastes, I don’t even like bleu cheeses because the taste is way too overpowering for my palette, but even I could appreciate the new flavors of the pickled veggies.

But pickled fruits and veggies is just the start at Boat Street Café. If you like, nay love, smoky bacon you need to try the bistro salad for your appetizer. Seriously, this bacon was so smoky that even I couldn’t finish all the bacon on the plate, and I love bacon! Continuing the pork theme, the pork belly is wonderfully oozy on the inside with alternating layers of meat and fat, with a superb crispy layer on top lending itself to the wonderful pork belly experience you might be expecting. Although I wasn’t so excited about the potatoes it was paired with. They weren’t bad or anything, they just weren’t anything amazing, unlike my wife’s entrée that night, the wild Alaskan True Cod. I almost wish I had ordered the True Cod, if I didn’t love pork so much. Wow, was that cod dish ever good. To round out the decadent dinner at Boat Street you really do need to treat yourself to the bread pudding for dessert, it’s tremendous.

The atmosphere at Boat Street is very interesting. I’m not sure how the Asian-inspired ceiling hangings blend with the French style bistro décor, but so be it, the food that come out of the kitchen is well worth your time. If you are familiar with another local French bistro Cremant, the décor is similar in many ways. Although Cremant lacks the very chic, window into the kitchen that was in the back at Boat Street.

The wine list is appropriately French as when we were there, they had an entire table in the corner stacked with enough Chateau Neuf de Pape to sink a battleship. I just had a glass of Beujolais to pair with my pork and it was wonderful. It was properly priced for a glass of wine and a nice balanced flavor to it.

I love that many restaurants nowadays are including the sources of their ingredients and Boat Street continues this trend for most of its dishes. If you’re looking for a restaurant with solid French bistro style offerings, you could easily do a lot worse than Boat Street Café.

In the interest of a quick lookup of the quality and value of a restaurant I am introducing the wine scale for my reviews. It’s basically a 5 wine glasses instead of stars review system with 5 wine glasses being perfect. Combining overall value for Boat Street Café I give it overall 4 wine glasses out of 5. Keep in mind, that there will be very few restaurants that get 5 wine glasses from me. After all, what is perfect?

Spring Hill

Restaurant Name: Spring Hill
Location: Seattle

Sometimes it’s hard to find good food. Spring Hill is certainly hard to find, but once you get there, you don’t need to look any further to find the good food. No large signs outside proclaiming great food inside, just an innocuous dining room in West Seattle. The rewards for finding it are tremendous. Inside this cozy den of yumminess you’ll find a terrifically open kitchen to spy on the goings-on and friendly staff there to lead you on your tour of Mark’s cuisine.

When you deal with a restaurant like Spring Hill, you are not dealing with good or bad food. Instead, it’s the difference between good and great food. If you are a clam chowder fan, do yourself a favor and order the clam chowder. The chowder has a very unique presentation for a soup and the flavors are incredible, so much so that one taste of it had one of our party asking for a bowl of her own when she previously had nothing! The other small plates are also divine, you really can’t go wrong with them unless you are squeamish about sweetbreads of course. There are plenty of “normal” things on the menu for a less adventurous eater to choose from, while still allowing the more adventurous diner to have fun with their meal as well.

One area of slight concern with Spring Hill is the wine list seems a bit sparse and a tad pricey. If you are with a group of foodies this isn’t an issue typically as you will order a bottle and be fine. But when ordering by the glass, the evening we went there was one option for Pinot Noir and it was $12. There were plenty of bottles but I find there are many times when I just need a glass and don’t want a whole bottle. I would like to see at least a couple of choices for different varietals here. That said, the wines were solid Northwest picks, and you can’t go wrong with them. I’m also not sure why the bread and butter is charged for, I’m sure Mark has his reasons though. I have not had it, and perhaps it is the best bread and butter in the city. But $3 for bread and butter for some reason just rubbed me wrong.

Overall, we left for just about $50 per person with a small plate, entrée, and various drinks all around. Really this was quite the value for how amazing the food really was. Everything is made in-house at Spring Hill and it shows. Between the amazing and varied seafood, creative presentation and delicious flavors, Spring Hill is an up and comer worth checking out next time you are out.

Preservation Kitchen

Restaurant Name: Preservation Kitchen
Location: Seattle


Restaurant Name: Preservation Kitchen
Location: Bothell, Washington

While shopping at our local Yakima Fruit Market one day with Steve, our resident foodie, we ran across chef Ivan. When he told us that he was opening a new restaurant next door at the ex-Villa Cosenza restaurant, the old Kaysner home, I was really excited. He described his style as Midwest country meets northern Italian trattoria. I thought that sounded pretty good, but as they say, the proof is in the proverbial pudding right?

Amy and I finally got a chance to go when her parents said they would babysit for us. Our first outing since the birth of our new baby! I must say it was much appreciated by us to get to go out for the first time in a while, and to a new place like Preservation Kitchen, what a treat!

We were greeted by quite friendly staff and as we were walked to our table I definitely noticed that new restaurant feel. New carpet and a remodeled interior were all evident and pleasantly refined, contributing to the quality feel of the restaurant. However, as we sat down I was assaulted by probably my biggest complaint of the night. From where I was sitting I could constantly see the TV in the bar out of the corner of my eye. It was very distracting and took away from the pleasant atmosphere they worked so hard to create in the dining room. The dining room should be partitioned from the bar area if you are going to have the TV on.

On to the food! I must start by saying the ingredients were all very fresh and tasted great. We started with some shared appetizers, polenta tots and crab stuffed calamari. The polenta tots were excellent when paired with the aioli and the calamari was excellent, I recommend both of these appetizers to anyone. For my salad I chose the semi-traditional caprese. It was plated very creatively; however I prefer my caprese more normal I guess. That is, no onions or crusty bread, but I still give Ivan points for doing something creative with an old standard.

I had a really difficult time choosing my main course. There were just too many good things to choose from on the menu. I really wanted the halibut cheeks as those were highly recommended, but they couldn’t get them at the time for some reason and if it’s not fresh they don’t serve it. So I opted for the seared duck breast. I am glad I did too, what a whimsical dish! Anyone who can take the ingredients and plate them like a smiley-face and still have a quality air about the food gets my vote. The duck was cooked perfectly and the stone fruits paired nicely. This dish was a lot of food; I would only order this if you’re definitely hungry. This paired wonderfully with a Henry Estate Pinot from their sufficient, but not overwhelming northwest wine list.

For dessert I, of course, ordered the chocolate custard cake. It was a good dessert, although I know he can do better. At this point in the meal though, I couldn’t eat another bite, as you can see it was quite a full meal so it didn't bother me too much.

My overall impression of Preservation Kitchen is a very good one. The attentive service, decent atmosphere (turn off the TV!), quality ingredients, and solid preparation make for a great place to eat. I’ll even tell you a secret, the prices are definitely lower than they could be. The level chef Ivan is cooking at, combined with the quality of ingredients he is using could easily demand a higher price. You would be doing yourself a favor to go try preservation kitchen before Chef Ivan figures that out.