Cuvee has got romantic low lit decor, exposed brick walls and, despite the kitchy chandeliers built around upside down champagne Jeroboams, presents a sophisticated dining space. 
Unfortunately the next best thing about my dinner was the cheese! The service was somewhat abrupt, generally courteous but no match for some of its' competition. We came with high expectations and ordered an appetiser of lobster bisque ($9)
which was very good and duck foie gras ($24)
which was not impressive. It came with a sweet custard with crunchy Granny Smith apple, and foie gras somewhere, and a mean serve of foie gras which had been over cooked. This needs to be handled with great care to get the best out of it and it failed badly here. For mains the duck ($34)
was very reasonable and had with it a better piece of foie gras than the appetizer. My seared yellow fin tuna was a disaster
- over cooked, over seasoned and with a fishy taste foreign to any tuna I've ever eaten. It lay on a thin bed of something that tasted approximately like pure fat, though it did look pretty, and some cooked vegetables. I explained to the waiter that it was inedible and ordered another appetizer - veal sweetbreads ($13).
Two lumps of bland heavily breaded sweetbread sat atop a sharp crisp salad which totally overwhelmed the sweetbread and some grapefruit on a bed of pastrami. This unbalanced dish carried its' own internal inconsistency. A sad mismatch. A cheese plate ($14)
was very tasty, served with the chef's accoutrement's
- crisp bread, sliced pear and sweet chutney. Apple tartin ($11)
for dessert was accompanied by a slightly burnt caramel ice cream. The tart had lots of very sweet sliced apple on a pastry base but it was far from the classical tart. Unfortunately, though they knew we were sharing, both the cheese and the tart arrived at the same time which led to the ice cream mostly melting before we finished the cheese. They did extend a courtesy to me removing the tuna from the bill.
Wine: Reasonably priced, they were happy to let us have a small taste of several of their wines by the glass, which was just as well as I tried three before finding one acceptable.
Price: At the upper range . They have a five course degustation ($58) which might be better but I am 'degutastioned' out!
Comments: A far from exquisite experience
Score: 13.5/20
Unfortunately the next best thing about my dinner was the cheese! The service was somewhat abrupt, generally courteous but no match for some of its' competition. We came with high expectations and ordered an appetiser of lobster bisque ($9)
which was very good and duck foie gras ($24)
which was not impressive. It came with a sweet custard with crunchy Granny Smith apple, and foie gras somewhere, and a mean serve of foie gras which had been over cooked. This needs to be handled with great care to get the best out of it and it failed badly here. For mains the duck ($34)
was very reasonable and had with it a better piece of foie gras than the appetizer. My seared yellow fin tuna was a disaster
- over cooked, over seasoned and with a fishy taste foreign to any tuna I've ever eaten. It lay on a thin bed of something that tasted approximately like pure fat, though it did look pretty, and some cooked vegetables. I explained to the waiter that it was inedible and ordered another appetizer - veal sweetbreads ($13).
Two lumps of bland heavily breaded sweetbread sat atop a sharp crisp salad which totally overwhelmed the sweetbread and some grapefruit on a bed of pastrami. This unbalanced dish carried its' own internal inconsistency. A sad mismatch. A cheese plate ($14)
was very tasty, served with the chef's accoutrement's
- crisp bread, sliced pear and sweet chutney. Apple tartin ($11)
for dessert was accompanied by a slightly burnt caramel ice cream. The tart had lots of very sweet sliced apple on a pastry base but it was far from the classical tart. Unfortunately, though they knew we were sharing, both the cheese and the tart arrived at the same time which led to the ice cream mostly melting before we finished the cheese. They did extend a courtesy to me removing the tuna from the bill.
Wine: Reasonably priced, they were happy to let us have a small taste of several of their wines by the glass, which was just as well as I tried three before finding one acceptable.
Price: At the upper range . They have a five course degustation ($58) which might be better but I am 'degutastioned' out!
Comments: A far from exquisite experience
Score: 13.5/20
No comments:
Post a Comment