Last month on a rainy Friday evening, I met a friend for what we hoped would be an enjoyable culinary adventure after a hyper-intense week of the Hopkins grind. Our original destination was France, but after a quick Internet search showed how pricey round-trip tickets to Paris are, we were convinced to pursue this adventure locally.
We settled on Brasserie Tatin, which is the closest French restaurant to Hopkins, a mere two blocks away from Homewood Field.
My first impression of the restaurant was, "Oh crap, we are severely underdressed." The large and spacious dining room was decorated with modern teals and oranges, glass-flecked black marble tables and large mirrors - a harsh contrast to the jeans and T-shirts our hectic week had driven us to.
Fortunately, we were not shunned and instead were seated and presented with a deliciously warm and toasty bread basket.
Unfortunately, baguette and butter was to be the highlight of the meal.
We started with the parfait de foies, which was described on the menu as "a creamy mousse of quail, duck and chicken served with warm brioche, grape and frisée salad." What we got were four slices of meat that were the same color as a dissected sheep brain. On the side there was a clump of pale green frisée with half slices of run-of-the-mill purple grapes.
Besides its unappetizing presentation, the flavors were also sub par - sweet cream flavor with essence of mystery meat. My companion for the evening swears he detected a hint of rubber band flavor.
The sweetness of the mousse was a poor pairing with the sweet toasted brioche on the side. On a positive note, the frisée salad garnish was enjoyably tangy.
Our taupe appetizer was followed by two entrees, each suffering from the same poor execution of promising ingredients and abysmal plating. We ordered the monkfish osso bucco and the venison special of the day.
The monkfish was the premier example of poor plating for night. It arrived as a cross section of fish, exposing white flesh, gray skin and a very prominent chunk of spine. Although this dish does traditionally call for an emphasis on the bone presentation, it was definitely more horror film than fine dining.
This lovely mass of fish and notochord was served on top of a pile of reconstituted, gritty mushrooms in an excessively sweet balsamic reduction. Presentation was abysmal - the brown, white and grey foods on the white plate were only mildly offset by a sprig of parsley.
The venison chop was large with prominent sear marks, yet perplexingly had none of the expected crispness. It was served with a tart blackberry sauce, spaetzle and several thick stalks of asparagus. None of the parts of the dish complemented another. They were just on the plate together.
We ordered a duck, caramelized onion and bleu cheese pizza to go for my roommate and passed on dessert, fearing another round of torment. The bill came and the damage was formidable.
With a total bill of over $95 dollars, perhaps that trip to Paris for dinner would have been a better value.
We begrudgingly paid and made our escape back into the dreary rain. Back at my apartment we unveiled the pizza to my roommate after telling of our evening. The pizza was unsightly, and served with awkwardly large rounds of duck meat. The pungent bleu cheese fragranced our apartment for a couple of days. In terms of taste, the pizza wasn't bad, in an over-salted, greasy sort of way.
After recovering from my traumatic dining experience, I went online to try and understand what had happened. What I found was a general sentiment of good will and favor towards Brasserie Tatin.
In fact, some reviews were extremely complimentary, which I found absolutely shocking and contrary to my entire experience.
Perhaps it was a craze of the full moon or an unfortunate aligning of the planets that night, but as far as I'm concerned, this restaurateur has no clothes.
