Dinner at Patina last night with the amazing Barry Robison.
It was an odd meal. We were, admittedly, an odd-looking bunch ourselves. I was in a pair of jeans, button down shirt and a cashmere sweater. Barry was wearing jeans and a short sleeved shirt that did nothing to hide the huge honking tattoos all up and down his right arm.
Despite our scruffy looks, they sat us. The restaurant was, at most, a quarter full, leading me to wonder why the reservationist offered Barry 7:45 or 8:15 when he called for an 8PM reservation.
We both ordered five course tasting menus, with matching wine flights. I ordered the “ocean” menu, Barry got the “market” menu. The food started out good and worked its way down to OK. The really weird thing, though, was the service. The runner would bring our food, some of which clearly needed some explanation, then we would wait, sometimes for minutes, before someone from the waitstaff could come over and give us some detail. Even more baffling, on two occasions the server poured the wine, then disappeared with “I’ll be right back!” only to reappear five or ten minutes later to tell us what we were eating and drinking.
Tonight, Taiko in Irvine with my sister-in-law.
Posted by pmk at May 6, 2003 9:42 AM | TrackBack