stlbites.com – st. louis food blog of bill burge

A Bit of Red

Oct 15, 2007 restaurants, reviews

In 1992 my Dad bought our first computer. It was a Packard Bell 486SX 25mhz with a giant 210mb hard drive and a 2400 baud modem. It was awesome. Knowing exactly what I had to do, I went out and bought Leisure Suit Larry and countless hours of game playing addiction ensued.

After who knows how many wasted hours of admittedly smut filled game playing, and the internet usage of a pubescent boy, it was permanently etched in my brain that a red district is the sinful, dirty district. I’ve never been able to shake that image, and anytime I’ve entered a countless number of swank bars covered head to toe with red, I can’t help but think of swingers in polyester suits and the thought that perhaps Mr. Laffer might come cruising through the door at any moment.

Having yet to hear anyone comment on Red, and finding myself downtown alone last Tuesday, I decided there was really only one logical choice. So, while restaurant critics tend not to visit new restaurants for a few weeks after opening, a practice that is undoubtedly fair, I am not a restaurant critic and with the online menu looking pretty darned interesting, off I went.

Upon entering, Red was going to have to work hard to overcome my prejudice. It was exactly the swank red filled space I’d expected for it to be. Particularly dark, what little light was offered was red tinted giving the room a definite club-like vibe that for me didn’t quite cry out cutting edge fusion of Eastern European and modern technique the way the blur of pre-opening press spoke of the food. Also, with three flat panel televisions gracing the walls, St. Louis was once again waving around its inability to remove itself from sports for a night of dining. It definitely detracted from the mood they were trying to set, and it’s unfortunate that there is probably a lot of truth to the fact that they felt they had to have them.

Sitting at the bar as I always do when dining alone, there are definitely elements of service I willingly cast aside. I do think it’s fair to expect simple things, however, like food arriving in courses. Mine did not as they brought all three items at once. Still, the bartender, while perhaps a bit under-seasoned for an establishment trying to set the bar so high from the onset, was very friendly and more than attentive.

I’ll chalk those up to not being open long and give them a pass. I can’t, however, offer a pass on the time it took for my food to arrive. At least 25 minutes went by before I saw anything, and with only about 6 other people actually eating at the time, there was really no solid excuse I could think of.

First I had Pastrami scented salmon, pickled apple-fennel, pumpernickel beurre blanc, mustard caviar. This is the item I was most looking forward to as Chef Rene Cruz had spoken of the mustard caviar in the Sauce Article above. When I envisioned the dish I had expected cured salmon, and that it would literally be a pastrami made with salmon. It was a nice surprise that it instead was a small fillet sitting sitting atop the apple-fennel slaw set into a small bowl of the pumpernickel beurre blanc and mustard caviar.

It looked beautiful, but sadly the taste of pastrami was lost on me do mostly to the salmon having been overcooked to the point that the albumin had noticeably surfaced. The pickled flavors of the apple-fennel slaw, along with the pumpernickel’s subtlety were overwhelmed by the the richness of the beurre blanc leaving them both virtually unnoticeable.

But the most crushing blow of all: there was apparently some sort of mustard caviar shortage last Tuesday as the only evidence of mustard in the dish was whole grain mustard mixed into the beurre blanc. My understanding was that it was going to be a sodium alginate molecular gastronomy slight of hand, and I guess the magician just wasn’t in.

Next I had Brasised short rib, red wine cabbage-kalamata olive, caraway mash . The short ribs ribs had a nice richness but they had just a touch of crispness signaling to me that they had either been reheated in a way that exposed to much surface to air, or sat in the window drying out before being delivered.

Perhaps, it’s just the places I worked had reheated braised meats wrong, but in my personal experience it was always done in a pot where we had heated the reserved braising liquid during service, or in the oven where we would heat it once again in its braising liquid, but covered.

The acidity of the cabbage with kalamata olives cut through the richness of the short ribs nicely and they were well seasoned, but it seemed more a side effect of the olives than an intentional dash of salt. I also question the doubling up of braised items in one dish, but that might just be my being nitpicky.

As for the caraway mash, it was more of a caraway potato salad. Had they called it that, it would be fine, but it was beyond lumpy making it difficult to look at it as mashed potatoes and another prime case study in underseasoned food.

Last I had the seared duck breast, apple-turnip-brussel sprout hash, pickled apricot puree. Sorry to say, but this is one of the single worst things I have ever eaten. It was a shame that the duck breast was seasoned so well. Tender and cooked perfectly, nothing was going to overcome the rest of this dish. The pickled apricot puree tasted almost exactly like the sweet and sour sauce you get in clear packets with the green writing. The hash, when only bites of apple and brussel sprouts were had was fine, but I had to precariously navigate around the turnips, because any time one of them entered the picture, it left in my mouth the most awful bitterness I have ever tasted making it virtually inedible.

To put it in perspective, I can only think of the old brushing your teeth and drinking orange juice analogy. I have to wonder if anyone tasted this. At best they didn’t. At worst, they did, and chose to serve it anyway.

Anyway, with Red having not been there long, I feel a little cruel saying everything I had was for the most part, not very good. After all, a real critic would go multiple times. With only one visit under my belt, and their menu being the absolute monster that it is listing 4 soups, 5 salads, 4 flatbread pizzas, 10 small plates, 6 large plates, and 6 desserts, there’s still a pretty lengthy list of things that just might dazzle my socks off.

Overall I think they’re doing themselves a diservice by opening with a menu so large. While it might impress some people to offer such an extensive list of choices, the reality is, do we really need things like four soup choices? They’d be better off starting with a smaller menu, cooking and seasoning those dishes correctly, and then as the comfort level and clientelle grows, adding additional items if they feel it could be pulled off comfortably.

If you’ve been, please sound off in the comments because I want to know if I was simply part of a fluke.

Disclaimer: Take this with a tremendous grain of salt remembering always that (a) they still haven’t been at it long and (b) I’m a notoriously tough SOB to please.

–oh…and cool picture right?