Once again it is Seattle Restaurant Week. I think they have these twice a year but sometimes it feels like the "One Day Only" sale at Macy's... you know, the one that is only Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... at which point does that sale become the "every day sale"? That's how I feel about restaurant week.
This time The Critic and I each picked 4 restaurants we were interested in. From there, I copied their menu plan for the restaurant week website and removed the names (and any incriminating evidence like, oh, say, the Ten Mercer salad). From there, we made our decision. And Ten Mercer it was!
First up was the menu perusal. As usual for me, I opted to NOT do the restaurant week menu choice and instead go my own route. I do this nearly every restaurant week -- they lure me in with their $30 3-course (which used to be $24 as I recall) and then I realize that for about the same cost I can get two courses that I'd prefer to eat, usually scallops, and have a bite or two of The Critic's dessert since I rarely want a whole dessert and would rather have my "dessert" in the way of side dishes. My Ten Mercer experience is the poster child for this particular scenario.
The wild boar ribs were one of the things that intrigued us most and they ended up not being listed on the Restaurant Week menu, so I ordered them as an appetizer anyway. Pretty funny that what got us in the door was the only low-spot of the night. They were really tough. The dry rub was really sweet which was odd and most of them were lucky to deliver a sliver of meat. Also they weren't cut individually, which made them nearly impossible to eat since they were nearly impossible to cut. We, like McKayla, were not impressed. They came on top of some form of starch that I didn't note so it must not have been that great either. But something in my memory makes me think it was at least better than the ribs -- not hard to do that. In retrospect, we should have gone with the pancetta wrapped prawn and asparagus we had been considering. Even saw it on the table next to us and it looked delicious.
Next up... The Critic's Potato Leek Soup. It was fine... nothing stands out. It is about as memorable as a potato and leek soup ever is.
For my main dish, I had the scallops. I know! I'm as shocked as you are. They were cooked perfectly and served on a parsnip puree that was quite tasty. Had these tasty friccos that made The Critic say "Fa-REEK-o!" every few minutes that were fun as well. It was a good dish.
The Critic ordered a steak. No one ever asked how he wanted it cooked yet it was done perfectly -- fried onions on top, a red wine demi glace as well. Even some blue cheese crumbles. Very traditional steak house flavors with a bit of a modern twist. It was also a good dish.
Also ordered were two side dishes. This was a bit daunting for me because I have found my ideal recipes for these two dishes and have since found them done REALLY well and REALLY badly... Polenta and spatzle are like a box of chocolates. So I asked and was assured they were done well. So I ordered both simply because I couldn't decide which one to try.
The polenta was good, though it had some flaws. It had too much rosemary for both of us and too much pepper for The Critic -- I found it was fine as long as I added salt, which it needed. In the end it was finished, so it couldn't have been too bad. The spatzle was the best thing on the table this night. I'm sure a lot of that had to do it being fried in bacon fat. Let's just say it hardly fits on the 1200 calorie eating plan but was worth it in droves. Still, its one fault was again lack of salt. It's okay -- lack of salt I can correct! I would go back to this restaurant just for that side dish.
Finally, dessert. It was chocolatey and caramely and good (though we think we might have been missing one or two elements based on other tables around us).
The only other thing we remember about the restaurant was that it was COLD which is kind of unusual for the warmth that our fall has brought this year.
Ah, Ten Mercer. I think we earned our snob status at this particular place. The chances aren't great that we will return any time soon. But I'm glad we got to see you strut your stuff! Until (approximately) next week, Seattle Restaurant week.
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