Prospect Looks Grim

December 24, 2010 at 9:36 pm | 1 Comment »

Rich and I have been wanting to try the newish Prospect for several months. We’re huge fans of chef Nancy Oakes’ other restaurant Boulevard. So when I realized that they had tables available for tonight, Christmas Eve, we jumped at the chance. Seemed like a special way to kick off the holiday.

My highpoint of the evening was at the very beginning. I found a nice Tablas Creek Roussanne blend half bottle on the list and had a pleasant exchange with the sommelier. Then the food started arriving and things went rapidly down hill. I started with the Dungeness crab and gold beets. It was okay if a bit bland. The main course was the true disappointment. A rock cod with chanterelles, celery root and sunchoke puree. While the vegetables and sauce were great, the fish wasn’t. In fact, the dish would have been improved the if cod had been left in the kitchen. It had no discernible seasoning and tasted primarily of overcooked butter. I left half of it uneaten.

Then we moved onto dessert, mostly because I was still hungry, hoping it would salvage the evening. I even made a point of asking the waiter for a recommendation. He said that the Black and Tan was the best. Since it had been my leading choice based on the description, I went with it. Wish I hadn’t. Not that it was bad. Chocolate, caramel and salt are pretty surefire ingredients. However, the plate left me unmoved. I would have preferred a scoop of Bi-Rite Salted Caramel ice cream and a couple of Recchiuti truffles.

Needless to say, we’re not going to be rushing back to Prospect. It wasn’t bad, except for my fish, but it wasn’t a wow evening either. Maybe I just expected too much. In the end though, I realized that I’ve had better tasting food at 35,000 feet.

And that says everything.

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