Tag Archives: Fine Dining

August 7, 2021 · 5:39 AM

Earth, Wine and Fire Wine Dinner Review

Background

If you don’t have a Fleming’s in your town, or have just not had dinner at this restaurant chain before, bear with me. I will try to provide some reference. Fleming’s is a high-end steakhouse, similar in style to Ruth’s Chris, but not quite as expensive. They have been running a four course wine dinner special (branded as the title of this review) paired with Wagner Family wines (Caymus label) and my wife and I decided to give it a try. There were two options: Earth – vegetarian and Fire – meat. We selected Fire. Our overall experience was one step down from true gourmet, but very enjoyable. This is the full detail.

Salad Course

Dish: BURRATA WITH NORTH ATLANTIC LOBSTER

Wine: 2018 SEA SUN, CHARDONNAY 90 pts. (100 pt. system) or 16 pts. (20 pt. system)

Wine Note: Sweet citrus nose with lemon-lime mousse on the palate. High acidity and a fair amount of oak. If you like stainless chardonnay, this is not your wine. My wife and I prefer Old World style oaked chardonnay, so the very fruit forward profile was a little out of character. Nice mouthfeel. I would guess, the winemaker allowed some extended lees contact. Enjoyable chard for our palates and the acidity paired very well with the burrata. Some aging potential, if you like to lay down your wines.

If you have never had burrata, it is a soft cheese a little like mozzarella in flavor, but creamy and richer. Love the stuff and the fresher, the better. This burrata was excellent, but it was the other components that were a little disappointing. The lobster did not seem really fresh (we ARE in land-locked AZ, I suppose) and needed to be poached in butter. Lobster flavor was a little off and weak. The parmesan cheese crisp flavor (on top) almost over-powered the more delicate burrata below. Still… pretty enjoyable and an excellent pairing with the acidic Chardonnay.

2nd Course

Dish: COCONUT-CRUSTED PORK BELLY

Wine: NV RED SCHOONER, MALBEC 89 pts. (100 pt. system) or 15.5 pts. (20 pt. system)

Wine Note: Fruity nose with a little burn from the alcohol. Palate is filled with red and black fruit – black plum, blackberry and boysenberry. Medium acidity and medium minus tannins. A touch of residual sugar. Lighter, smooth mouthfeel. Very easy drinking red with a bit of structure. Successful for the style of wine it was meant to be. Drink now, don’t hold.

The pork belly was very tasty and the grits were fabulous! Our restaurant added goat cheese, instead of cheddar (on the website) – fantastic idea. The vegetable medley included (not shown below) was seasoned with spicy chiles. I pushed my veggies aside, in order to really enjoy the grits. The fruity, sweet wine was needed to pair with the leftover spiciness from the veggies. Turned out to be a pretty fair wine pairing with the fat from the pork belly and spice.

3rd Course

Dish: FILET MIGNON & BONE MARROW

Wine: 2019 CAYMUS VINEYARDS, CABERNET SAUVIGNON – NAPA VALLEY 87 pts. (100 pt. system) or 15 pts. (20 pt. system)

Wine Note: OK, you Caymus fans out there, I get it. Easy drinking Cali cab, but I just can’t do it. There is so much oak, as the joke goes, I could set the dang wine on fire. Fruity nose, but lacking freshness due to the over-powering oak. Blackberry and black currant on the palate, with some dark chocolate in the middle. Medium minus tannin and medium acidity. Simple wine flavor profile. I am sorry, neither my wife, or I could finish this wine. Just not a good match for our palates.

The filet was seasoned well and perfectly prepared. I have had better bone marrow. It needed to have more of the fat rendered out. Altho I will say, the filet with a bit of bone marrow on top was a pretty tasty bite.

Dessert Course

Dish: ORANGE OLIVE OIL CAKE

Wine: NV EMMOLO, SPARKLING – CALIFORNIA 89 pts. (100 pt. system) or 15.5 pts. (20 pt. system)

Wine Note: Citrus fruit on the nose. Palate of primarily lemon with a touch of tropical fruit. This is a cuvee style sparkling with a small amount of residual sugar. High acidity. Nice mouthfeel with a medium length finish to round it out. This could be more interesting with some bottle age. Has enough of a backbone to enjoy in 3-5 years.

If you have not had olive oil cake – no, it does not taste like olive oil, but it IS very moist. I have had the orange version before and this was quite good. The tart lemon coulis drizzled on the plate was a nice addition. The citrus flavor in the cake paired very nicely with the sparkling wine.

Dining Experience and Rating

In general, this was a serious white tablecloth experience. Great service from our waiter, she was friendly and engaging. One of the managers stopped by twice to check in on us. I felt like there was a genuine interest in making sure the experience was enjoyable. I felt a bit rushed tho. This is the kind of meal that takes time to work your way through. I understand they want to turn tables, but for this kind of bill, you expect the time to have an experience. I would score the experience at a 92/100, or a 2 of 3 star equivalent. The meal was very good (especially the steak), but could have been better and the service was really excellent.

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June 25, 2021 · 10:14 AM

Scoring and Rating Restaurants

The Need for a Methodology

I have spent the last ten years scoring thousands of wines. I am also a serious Foodie, but as a trained Somm, I have looked at that experience through the lens of wine pairing. My wine training courses and evaluation took place at The Art Institute in conjunction with a chef training program, so I have always viewed the two pieces of food and beverage service as a whole. My perspective has broadened since visiting Italy and being exposed to the Slow Foods culinary movement. Recently, I decided to begin including fine dining in my evaluation, as I realized… it is rare for me to enjoy a bottle of wine apart from food. After starting the journey down this path I realized, if I am going to start evaluating food/food service, I needed to apply a methodology (like the 20 pt. UC Davis wine scoring system) to be fair and score with consistency. I went looking and found Department of Health score cards and forms for evaluating internal restaurant processes, but could not find consumer judging, or scoring sheets. If anyone reading this knows of a restaurant scoring template, please share…

Developing a Restaurant Scoring Method

I had to build a list of the factors that had the biggest impact on my dining experience and arrived at the following categories: location, ambiance, cleanliness, server disposition, timeliness of service, menu selection, flavors, balanced/complimentary composition, fresh/light/heavy food character, properly seasoned food and overall quality. I would hope this list is similar for you Foodies out there? Then, I had to select a scale and weight the individual categories. I used the wine scoring systems as a guideline and realized the UC Davis 20 pt. system was too compressed and I needed a 100 pt. system to properly judge the restaurant experience. This is my view of how to weight these categories: Location – 4/100, Ambiance – 8/100, Cleanliness – 8/100, Servers – 16/100, Service – 8/100, Menu – 12/100, Flavors – 16/100, Balance – 8/100, Fresh/Greasy – 4/100, Seasoning – 8/100, Overall Quality – 8/100. Cleanliness should probably be weighted more like 50/100, but that approach would favor mediocre establishments, so I made a compromise. I built common descriptors into each category and loaded this all into a spreadsheet template.

Dining Expense Categories

Then… I realized, not everyone wants to spend $50/pp on a meal, so I went about building a price scale. Scoring info was all over the web on this issue, but I did make a few personal decisions, to base the price categories on: a TWO course meal, include the cost of tax (5%), tip (15%) and exclude beverage and dessert. I concluded, not everyone is eating dessert today and it made sense to throw in an average tax/tip amount to provide a full price picture.

Scoring vs. Rating

It then occurred to me, it was important in fine dining evaluation to have both a scoring system AND a rating system. So, I developed a separate rating system incorporating the scoring system described above (see below). Here is my effort to complete comprehensive rating charts:

Wine

97 – 100Exceptional
92 – 96Excellent
89 – 91Enjoyable
85 – 88Passable
80 – 84Barely Acceptable
74 – 79Choke it Down
50 – 73Flawed

Restaurant / Food

97 – 100Exceptional3 Star Equivalent
92 – 96Excellent2 Star Equivalent
88 – 91Enjoyable1 Star Equivalent
82 – 87PassableDiner Quality
77 – 81Barely AcceptablePoor Diner Quality
72 – 76DumpDive
50 – 71Should CloseNuf Said
Does not include fast food, or take-out restaurants. Sit down only.
$$20 and under
$$$20 to $30
$$$$30 – $50
$$$$$50 and over
The dollar signs represent cost of a two-course dinner/pp, taxes and a 15% tip (no drinks or dessert).

I hope you found my process of some interest. I enjoyed putting this system together and will be using it religiously moving forward. Let me know if you have a different viewpoint on this topic, think I should be tweaking a few areas, or believe I am totally out of my mind (entirely possible).

BON APPETIT!

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January 12, 2018 · 2:56 PM

Restaurant Review: Veritas Gateway to Food and Wine, St. Louis Metro, MO

RESTAURANT REVIEW:

Veritas Gateway to Food and Wine

St. Louis Metro, Missouri

A comfortable venue. The layout offers an interactive experience with the chef preparing food directly in front at the bar. The menu changes weekly per the executive chef and availability of best sources.

Service was a bit weak for a fine dining experience, but acceptable. Was a little put-off when I ordered a Vouvray (Chenin Blanc) white wine from their list and received a very grassy Sauv Blanc. The server made it right and offered a taste of two other whites of which I chose the:

Fattori Soave –  http://www.fattoriwines.com/en/our-wines/white-wines/danieli/  Bright, tart lemon curd softness… paired beautifully with the champagne vinegar, butter and hatch chile pan sauce from the chicken dish I ordered.

Finished with a glass of:

Moulin Tricot Margaux – https://madrose.com/bordeaux/medoc/chateau-moulin-de-tricot/  A reasonably priced, typically soft enjoyable Margaux origin red wine.

The cook staff was friendly, talkative and interactive. An aspect of the dining experience I particularly enjoyed. This was a quality foodie experience, but if you visit, you will want to know your mind to match that same quality to the wine. Overall, I enjoyed the evening in a warm spot when the outdoors was running about 18 deg F 

 

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