July 1, 2009 - Rat's Restaurant

Rat's Restaurant in Hamilton, NJ
http://www.ratsrestaurant.org/ - Yelp

So apparently the name for this restaurant came from The Wind in the Willows, because Rat was an amazing host. Just in case you thought the name was weird, which it is. Anyway, this is the restaurant at the Grounds for Sculpture, which is a huge sculpture park founded by one of the many Johnsons with too much money on their hands. Incidentally, the Grounds for Sculpture is a pretty fun way to spend a day, especially if you bring a camera and make it your goal to take the most ridiculous pictures possible.

But that's all besides the point. So this restaurant is supposed to have great decor, which it did, and also good food, which it did not.

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We came here for lunch with a friend after a hot morning of playing with the sculptures (not as sexy as it sounds). Rat's is situated in kind of a hidden spot, with a garden of flowers by the path that leads up to it. It's near a lake (which has a giant head statue that generates mist) and also has a replica of Monet's bridge in the background, which is ... an interesting contrast of art, I guess, if you're into that kind of thing. The main dining room kind of looks like a fancy old-style wooden cabin, but we were seated in the smaller, Arabian(?)-style room, probably because we were sweaty and wearing tank tops and flippy-floppies. Our room had a very cool atmosphere, including a kind of lounge with pillows on the floor that looked like a nice place to take a nap; the rest of the restaurant seemed a little bit stuffy and stuck-up to me considering it was a Wednesday afternoon, but not too bad.

I decided to order a soda that was described as having flavors of elderberry or some other weird fruit. It was definitely a good soda, but it basically tasted like ginger ale with a little bit of lemon or extra sourness to it. We ordered the poutine as an appetizer, which is apparently the fancy Quebec French way of saying disco fries, which is the ghetto New Jersey way of saying fries with cheese and gravy served in a greasy diner. Language barriers aside, the poutine dish was awesome. Not exactly a high-brow dish, but the fries were in that sort of Belgian style, as in more thick-cut and mildly impersonating a fancy version of a fry, if there is such a thing.

Moving on. We'd come with a friend and saw a bunch of good things on the menu, so we decided to order 3 entrees and split them. We got the moules et frites (mussels and fries), a soft-shell crab sandwich, and a dish of artisanal sausages.

The short story is that I didn't particularly like any of them. The mildly longer version involves me mostly talking about the mussels, because they were the most disappointing to me. I was excited about these because during my semester in New Zealand (unfair, I know) we'd frequented this cheap Belgian-style restaurant that served the same dish. The mussels were always huge and delicious (granted, New Zealand mussels are huge, so again, I know it's unfair), whereas here they were a bit small and wimpy without any stand-out taste. I mean, they were fine, but I was definitely expecting more. On the plus side, we got more of those awesome fries (I bet they hate when you don't call them frites) and they had mayonnaise to dip, along with the more normal ketchup and the way less normal vinegar.

The soft-shell crab sandwich kind of sucked. In fact, I mistyped it as "crap" originally and that strikes me as quite fitting, really. It had no sauce or other flavors to take away from or add to it being fried, and the bread was dry and hard. I was actually most impressed with the artisanal sausages, which I hadn't expected. Then again, there was nothing very special about them. The small mixed vegetables that came with the sausages were apparently doused in mustard, but as I don't really eat vegetables or mustard, I'll let Kuau comment on them if he'd like to.

We did end the meal with a pretty awesome dessert, which was chocolate mousse with a little cookie spoon inside a chocolate bowl. The sauce swirled on the outside was raspberry if I remember correctly. Obviously the dish was beautiful, and it tasted as awesome as any chocolate mousse ever could, though it wasn't particularly groundbreaking or anything.



So, all in all, awesome location, mediocre-at-best food, at least for lunch. I liked the decor also but I wouldn't even say much for the atmosphere, since I didn't really like the feeling I got in the place and wasn't very impressed with the service. It's certainly possible that the dinner menu is a little more refined, and they also offer a three-course menu for $38 on certain nights, as well as an opulent $39 Sunday brunch with a live band. I could be convinced to come back for the Sunday brunch, but I'd never go out of my way to get to this restaurant. Even if I came back to explore the Grounds for Sculpture, I'd probably opt for one of the picnic lunches that they sell at the Peacock Cafe instead of having another lunch here. Unless I needed the air conditioning.

July 10th, 2009 - Chef Vola's

Chef Vola's in Atlantic City, NJ
http://www.chefvolas.com/ - Yelp

I went to Chef Vola's in Atlantic City with some friends over the weekend. Rumor has it that this Italian restaurant set in the basement of an old 1930's Boardwalk style house is the place to eat in Atlantic City. It's also supposed to be the restaurant to go for people watching in AC. For what it's worth, Atlantic City seems to be trying to reinvigorate its image so it's possible that one of the new casinos has a more hip and trendy restaurant for people watching now. But chances are, Chef Vola's will be more popular than that place in 10 years, because it clearly has persevered through many different generations and changes to Atlantic City.

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The second that I stepped into this place, I had high hopes. The decor gets a whopping 10 in Zagat, and that was pretty generous (as most NJ Zagat ratings are), so for a place that looks like it does, the food must be amazing.

The waiters all basically memorize the entire menu. Actually, that's an understatement. They hand you this small menu with four different ways to cook fish, chicken, and veal. Then they proceed to explain the 20 or so specials that aren't on the menu. Some of these specials appeared to be detailed descriptions of items that were on the menu, but it was very impressive.

We started by getting a seafood salad for the table. The seafood was mostly very fresh, although the fresh calamari seemed a bit overcooked, or it was cheap frozen calamari to begin with. It had a very mild dressing, that really seemed like more of a spritzed water dressing than anything with flavor. Since the emphasis was on the seafood, it was acceptable, but certainly not extraordinary. It also came with four large lemon wedges, so once this was added, the salad had a better flavor in my opinion.

My favorite thing about the salad was probably the "vegetables" that were added to it. Vola cut peppers, celery, and a couple of other mysterious vegetables into little squares that were probably two millimeters cubed (okay, not squared because we live in a three dimensional (at least) world, not including time).

I ordered the Chilean sea bass with a sauce that I believe had a tequila type reduction and also was encrusted in macadamia nuts. In reality, the sauce was like a honey flavoring with crushed nuts added in towards the end. This was then poured on top of huge slice of sea bass. It was probably close to 1.5 lbs of fish. The sauce was a bit sweet for me, and the nuts mixed with the sauce focused too much of my palate on the wrong thing.

The fish was generous and well cooked, but it just came on a plate with sauce on top. No sides, no garnish, no rice, no nothing. I actually would have been more satisfied if the meal was the same price, the fish was less than half the size, and it came with a small pasta side, or even just served on a bed of spinach or something. This was a rare case where I think the value would have been better if the amount of food was lessened.

Cait ordered the red snapper which had a pretty good sauce on it. This was going to be my first choice, but she claimed it first. It was better than mine due to the sauce, but it still suffered from being entirely too big. Aaron ordered a veal with prosciutto and provolone (or was it a parmesan) and a tomato sauce, and it also suffered from the same disease as the fish meals. To be fair, it was hard to tell if I was biting into cheese or veal because it was so tender, but that also meant that the flavor was overwhelmed by cheese and sauce.

All in all, I think Chef Vola's was a great learning experience, and certainly worth going to. I would advise going extremely hungry and basically just splitting an appetizer and an entree. And also be prepared to only taste two different things, and sides aren't really included. You might be able to get away with adding a vegetable or pasta side, but that may be overdoing it.

So they used high quality ingredients and provided massive amounts of food, but I was a bit put off by the lack of variety and the feeling of over eating. This was even more extreme than at Elements, although we definitely ate more at Elements.

I did learn why I put Coi above Nicholas though. Although the food was equal at both restaurants, Coi basically charged $40 for creative displays like encasing milk into a little ball or hiding an oyster behind a "glass wall" and for an entirely inappropriate level of service. But looking back on it, that $40 may have been a bit over the top, but it did make it stand out above a restaurant with equally prepared and flavored food. So thanks for that, Chef Vola.