Five Guys Review

      OK, I am sure you are saying, what's up with another fast food review. But since this is our first 5 guys in Vermont, I think some people would want to know what it's like, right? RIGHT? Maybe not, but here goes anyways. Five guys has won numerous awards for its hamburgers and that in a nutshell is what they are, a fast food hamburger chain.Now you may say a burger is a burger but a Five guys burger relates to a pink slime McD's burger as equally as a Democratic congressman relates to a Republican senator, in other words NOT AT ALL.

      Now in a moment I will clear up our only confusion with the 5 guys ordering procedure. Since the South Burlington location (on Shelburne road in the same strip mall as the Shaw's) is small and the chain appears to be EXTREMELY popular with Vermonters, I would suggest ordering online. Online ordering is simple, you pick from the menu, (not hard to do as the entire menu is hamburgers of various sorts, hot dogs and french fries). Once you pick out your burger, you get to pick from 18 different toppings at no extra charge, (bacon, cheese, b-bque sauce was mine), pick out which fries, we got two large fries, one regular,one Cajun.  BIG MISTAKE, this was enough fries for 10 people not 4, if your gonna order large, make sure you are having a party. After your done ordering, pay with a credit card and you will have about a 10-20 minute wait. So jump in the car and head over to Shelburne Road.

       Once you arrive, you realize ordering online to go was the right choice. This place is SMALL, and CROWDED. Now comes the one point of confusion, as you have ordered and paid you would assume you move to the end of the restaurant where orders are being processed, WRONG, make sure you check in at the counter and tell them you are there for a pick up or your order will sit on the heater and never get called, I speak from experience. Anyways, after figuring out the right way to get our food, we were off, and as Mike and Kris don't live so far away, we arrived in no time to hot and juicy burgers and fries.

      Now what the picture doesn't show well is that each burger is actually a DOUBLE burger. Again the website or menu doesn't really mention this, they do list a "baby" burger but who's to know that is really a standard burger, one patty. Anyways we were totally full and Kris and Mike had enough fries to last a week.

Food,                     4.0   Be aware that I am rating this on a fast food scale and not a fine dining scale.
Beer and Wine,    NO  No alcohol, so no rating.
Service,                 2.5  Again think fast food, employees not really helpful just there to take your order.

Ambiance,             2.0  Really, get it to go.
Price,                     4.0  Pricey compared to the clown and king but WAYYYYY better food.

Overall                  3.125  OK, I know it's a fast food joint, so really what counts is food and price. And in this case 5 Guys really shines. the food is very tasty and appears to be way more natural than its competitors. And while the pricing is a bit higher than those others, you really get alot for your dollar. Is it the best burger I have ever had, God No, is it the best fast food burger I have ever had, very likely. 

    

L'Amante Review

      For the dear wife's birthday and the fact I had been away to sunny, warm Florida for a business trip, I decided to go all out and take her to L'Amante. Despite it being around the Burlington scene for a while and despite many friends saying we must go and despite all the great reviews , we had never been to L'Amante. The room is elegant without being stuffy. And service was first rate. The menu looked very enticing but what won us over was the 3 course tasting menu. The particular night was the food of Veneto, (The Venice region). A three course dinner with three wines paired by the chef. We both decided to partake.

      The first thing you should know about L'amantes is it makes no pretense about being anything but a special occasion type of place. Anniversaries, Birthdays, all should be celebrated here. If you are going to come her on a regular basis, you better have deep pockets. Our meal was $58.00 each for a 3 course meal with wine, add dessert and tip and taxes and we were pushing $175.00. Was it worth it? Read on.

      First up some great bread served with hummus and a chicken liver pate. Man was that pate ever good, that sure woke up the taste buds. Our first course was white anchovies served over roasted red peppers with capers. And served with this a 2012 Pieropan Soave Classico. Wow talk about a grand opening, tons of different flavors with salty, and sweet, paired perfectly with a nice crisp white. This chef really knows how to pair wines , (as he should by being one the few Master Sommeliers in the world).

      For round two the chef served us white polenta , served over a wild mushroom ragu. WOW is all I can say this was by far the star of the evening. The flavors in the mushrooms (and I don't really care for mushrooms), were incredible and paired with the white polenta, that had been crisped up into a cake form, was divine. Pair this with a 2003 Nicolas Testal and you have a match made in heaven.

      The third course is where things faltered a bit. It was the course I was most excited about, grilled boar sausage, and quail with radicchio trevisano. The sausage was superb, incredible flavors and both the wife and I wished there was more of it. The quail was good but definitely overcooked, to the point of the meat being a bit dry. And the radicchio was a total failure, WAY over charded, so all you could taste was burnt leaves. This left a flavor in your mouth that overpowered the boar and quail. All you could taste was burnt. For the price we were paying this left a bit of a bad taste in our mouth (literally HA).

      For dessert, we had a great chocolate cake with an incredible espresso cream on top. A great way to end the meal. So pretty much an excellent meal with one miscue, forgivable but NOT when you are paying $175.00 for two. At this price point every portion of the meal better be perfect.

Food,                      4.00  Excellent food , but for one miscue. Did it ruin the evening , of course not but for this price it shouldn't of happened.
Beer and Wine,     3.75  Incredible selection, very expensive
Service,                  3.50 Service was very professional, just not very warm.

Ambiance,             4.5   Beautiful ding room and charming bar, possibly the best in Burlington..
Price,                     3.0  VERY pricey, but the excellence in taste and presentation make up for it. Definitely a special occasion place. And slight miscues need to be taken care of.

Overall                  3.75  A really beautiful room, innovative and tasty food. A great wine list but some small miscues and that huge cloud , the price, makes this a once a year or so place to eat.

Sweetwaters Review

      Given my unbelievable skills at organization, we found ourselves with tickets to consecutive nights at the Flynn. Looking for a quick but rather inexpensive bite to eat, we settled on Sweetwaters.Located in a former bank building, Sweetwaters is a very impressive space, the main bar area has 20 ft high ceilings with a large mural at the back of the room. Lots of little nooks and crannies abound for those looking for a darker more romantic space. Also available are tables right on Church Street, (covered and heated, this time of the year).

      Sweetwaters seems to go through many up and down cycles, sometimes we have had really good food, sometimes really bad. Since we couldn't remember the last time we went, we decide to give it a try. You won't find innovative gastro pub food here, (see Bluebird review), but you also won't find $30+ entrees either. We started with drinks, (shocking I know), and they do have some creative drinks here. Wife started with a mix of Stella's beer and Woodchuck cider called a snakebite, ( a better one was a mix of woodchuck cider and blueberry beer called a Chuck Berry, HA). And I went with a new brew from Long trail to help the hurricane victims called Irene. Both were very good, with the wife's tasting alot like an apple beer, you decide if that is good or not,

     For supper we went rather simple, wife with a chicken and pear salad and me with the Bleu burger. The burger was HUGE and came with blue cheese and bacon on it, along with a very large helping of hand cut fries. The wife's salad was well done, crisp lettuces and nicely grilled chicken, though she wasn't a big fan of the poached pears that came with it. All in all a very satisfying meal with no big breakthroughs but also no big disappointments. And sometimes that is all you can ask for. I do have to comment on the service a bit, we ate at the bar, which is our usual and we got very spotty service. When the bartender was there, she was very friendly but she would disappear for large chunks of time. Seems the soda machine was broken and nobody else there could fix it?

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                 Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine,   Based on selection and pricing

Service,              Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing

 Price,                And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     3.5  Dependable and tasty classics.
Beer and Wine,    3.0  OK beer and wine selections, like the food, nothing really unusual.
Service,                 3.5  Great when she was there, not really her fault the soda machine broke, more of a management problem.

Ambiance,             4.0  Nice, old building with lots of areas for dining or socializing.
Price,                     3.5  Consistent with the food, fairly reasonable for downtown.

Overall                  3.5  Nothing jumps out at me as being really sensational but then again nothing jumps out as being really bad. And sometimes this is exactly what you need before a show or a concert. Just good dependable food and drinks.  



Cooking 101: Grilled Indian Tuna Salad

      Another very simple recipe, takes no time but is TOTALLY dependent on one ingredient. You must have Sashimi quality Tuna available in your area, (shockingly our local Costco has some fresh and beautiful steaks). Start by finding your favorite spice mixture. For this recipe I used an Indian rub I had in the spice drawer,( you do have a spice drawer correct?), hence the name.

      I like to add layers of flavor to a dish, so I started with some liquid Jamaican jerk sauce rubbed into the steaks, followed by a healthy tablespoon of spice rub  and lastly I toasted some sesame seeds, (toasting gives them another layer of flavor, all about layers) and thoroughly covered each steak with sesame seeds. Then I let them sit for a couple of hours in the fridge, to let the flavors sink in. Just a couple words of caution about toasting sesame seeds, A) sesame seeds go from toasty to burnt in a split second, B) As sesame seeds toast they pop and jump around alot, have something over the top of the pan, (I used a grease screen) and finally C) If you think your cool and can do the wrist flip to flip over the food in your pan, remember that sesame seeds ALL OVER the kitchen make a mess.

      While your tuna sits in the fridge, prepare your salad. In this case I had found a nice "bag a salad" at Costco. It was called Parisian salad and came with some mixed lettuces, candied almonds, dried cranberries, feta cheese with a white balsamic vinaigrette. Sounds weird, but there is alot going on in this salad, some sweet, some sour, some salty, all of it very good and the flavors mixed incredibly with the finished tuna. Speaking of, now would be a good time to get that grill heated up, crank it up to high because you want a good crust and not much else, as we shall see. Once the grill is red hot, drop in your steaks, this is critical DO NOT walkaway, you want just a minute or two on each side, yea, yea, I know you don't like rare fish, get over it. Believe me when I say this is a totally different meal if the fish is cooked well done or even medium. The tuna will take on a whole different consistency, not necessarily bad but different. When good tuna is rare it has the feel of butter, soft, melts in your melt, luscious. Medium or (shudder), god forbid, well done tuna taste and feels more like what you get in the can, and if that's what your after, WHY oh WHY, pay for these gorgeous steaks??

      As always, lets your steaks rest a bit and then slice into 1/3 to 1/2 inch wide slices, (no, you don't need a ruler).  Arrange around the salad, (yes, presentation counts, even at home) and enjoy.

      A word about wine. As most of you know from reading here, I do not always subscribe to the "white wine with fish" theory. Salmon goes incredibly well with an Oregon Pinot Noir and for Tuna Steaks you need a big hearty red, look at the picture, does that not remind you of a big juicy steak.  So for this meal I chose a wine from one of our favorite little wineries, Oso Libre, ( you may remember them from the Tiny Thai review). I chose their 2008 Carnal, this is big wine, a nice blend of six different grapes, the majority being Syrah at 51%, Mourvedre at 21% and Grenache at 22%. We once went to a great wine school and something the instructor told us always stayed with me, pair spice with spice. And while a Zinfandel would have more pepper notes, the Carnal has some great mocha spices going for it, not to mention some wonderful stone fruit on the nose, mainly cherries. This turned out to be a PERFECT pairing, the flavors of the salad, the tuna and the wine blended together in perfect harmony. Total Bliss, If you can't find Oso Libre, look for a nice California Zinfandel or Syrah, these will all match great.

Bluebird Tavern Review

      UPDATE; This review and visit occurred before Bluebird moved to their new downtown location. We have not had a chance to visit the new location but look forward to visiting soon.

      We have had a strange relationship with the Burlington areas very first gastropub. Our first experience was that we were seated and left for 25 minutes until we got up and walked out, (even then nobody said anything to us). After the owner heard, she was nice enough to comp us a $75.00 gift certificate and we tried again. Service was marginally better but the food was only so-so and unbelievably expensive (gift certificate didn't even cover half the bill and we left hungry). So we walked away from the Bluebird and waited for its eventual demise.

      But then we heard of a shake-up and that a new chef had taken over. Having eaten at the Daily Planet during his short stay there, I knew he could be innovative but still give you something recognizable to eat (really its nice you can cube chorizo to microscopic proportions but I actually like to TASTE my chorizo, thank you very much). So we mustered up our courage and went back, WOW, now this is what a gastropub should be like. Don't get me wrong  it was still ungodly expensive, but this time we both left full and very happy.

      So for my birthday, I was asked where I wanted to go and since the new menu at Bluebird featured bone marrow (OK, I may be obsessed with this and you just don't find it on very many menus), I said let's go back and see what's new. We had a 6pm reservation and they weren't quite ready for us so we had a seat at the bar and I had that oh-oh moment of, was this a mistake. The bartender gave us a drink menu and then forgot us for about 10 minutes. She finally came back to us and really wasn't the friendliest person in the world, though she did answer my questions about the different Hill Farmstead beers. Quick aside, I don't believe you can buy Hill Farmstead, (brewed in Greensboro), anywhere but Vermont, but if you ever see it in your local bar, BUY SOME. Just delicious.

      Once we received our drinks we were summoned by the hostess that our table was ready. And oh-oh moment number two. First the tables at Bluebird are VERY close together and the couple seated next to us did not seem to be having a good time. I found out later that they thought this was still the old Mexican place when they came in, well DUH one look at the menu should of cleared that up, Anyways he hated the burger he ordered and walked out leaving his poor wife to finish her meal by herself. There are serious jerks everywhere. Now at this point I must say that the oh-oh moments stopped and life became great. Our server was wonderful, the menu looked incredible and the beer ..oooohhh the beer. Hill Farmstead, I started with the Abner, (all their beers are named after relatives), an Imperial IPA, which was incredible and then with my meal had a George, an American brown ale, both beers were just superb and went well with my meal. The dear wife had a couple of glasses of wine, the first, on special, was a Leo Hillinger Zweigelt, what a great and unusual choice, full of full of great cherry and chocolate flavors, and the 2nd glass, Le Pinot Noir from France,,matched perfectly with her salmon.

      And on to the meals, I started with the aforementioned bone marrow, served with shrimp stuffing over the top and sitting in a deep pool of roasted garlic sauce with chunks of garlic, leek and carrot. An incredible melding of flavors and our server was sweet enough to rush over another helping of grilled bread, as this sauce could NOT be wasted.  Wifey went with the butternut squash bisque, laced with an herbed oil and cocoa nibs, YUM, and I am not even a fan of squash, hearty and delicious.

      For our entrees, I went with stuff stuffed with stuff, specifically pork belly and quail, stuffed with a stuffing made of pork, quail and mushrooms , served over french fries with an incredible gravy. GOD this was good , like the most unreal Poutine ever, (Canadian dish of french fries, cheese and gravy for you non-Quebecois). For her entree, the wife went with wild salmon over chestnut risotto and fried strips of parsnip and this also was just incredible (or so she says, as I was only allowed a very little taste). We both were extremely satisfied and also STUFFED, so an over all great meal.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing

 Price,                And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4.8  Totally inspired, ridiculously good. One tiny quibble, stuffing was a bit dry
Beer and Wine,    4.5  Nice beer and wine selections, list is small but well thought out and highly unusual.
Service,                 3.5  I knocked it down by .5 for the poor service by the bartender,everyone else was superb

Ambiance,             3.5  Nice exposed brick but tables for two are packed in way to close to each other.Bar area is nice but its COLD back there.
Price,                     3.5  VERY pricey, but the excellence in taste and presentation make up for it. Definitely a special occasion place

Overall                  3.96  I have to say this is probably my favorite special occasion place in Burlington. You are guaranteed to have a superb meal with expertly prepared ingredients. There just seems to always be one little thing that stops me from giving Bluebird all 5's, and it seems to always be something in the service. This is probably the last time we get to go to Bluebird at its current location, as they will be moving to downtown very soon and a new barbecue place is going to spring up here. Downtown is much more inconvenient for us but we will certainly check out the new space and we will try the new barbecue place once it reopens. Stay tune for more updates and please if you love innovative, unusual and well prepared foods, don't hesitate to visit.

Madeleine's Bakery Review

      We have a new bakery in Milton, Madeleine's. Located in the same building as the new Ace Hardware on Route 7. At first glance its hard to get a feel for this bakery, the outside door and storefront are very plain, looking like nothing more than another entrance to Ace. But step inside and be prepared to be amazed. As you step in, you see cases of goodies right in front of you, but what's even more amazing is look past the cases though an open window and see the actual working part of the bakery, and it is HUGE. it stretches back what must be 50-60 feet and filled with all kinds of cool equipment, (I love baking equipment).

      As I mentioned earlier, the first thing you see is two nice cases devoted to "normal" bakery type items. Doughnuts, bearclaws, cookies, croissants and many other items of the same ilk. To the left against the wall is another rack devoted to breads and rolls. This rack was rather sparse on the day I was there but I was assured many more bread items were coming. I did buy a loaf of white sandwich bread and it was good. There was a very good selection of dinner rolls.

      Off to the right hand side were two other cases, these are filled with more elegant desserts. napoleons, cakes, pies, really yummy looking stuff.  I will make one suggestion, DO NOT enter here on a hungry stomach. In the interest of a proper review, I felt I needed to test a number of products. HA, if you believe that I have some swamp land to sell you. Anyways here is what I ended up going home with;

      Let's go over the goodies one at a time. First plate, (starting at the top and in a clockwise rotation), cinnamon roll, nice and sweet, great cinnamon flavor, strawberries and cream croissant, point for using whole strawberries, point off for not enough cream cheese, maple walnut scone, only clunker of the bunch, dry with not alot of maple flavor in the scone, frosting was good, and finally bearclaw, great flavor but a little on the small side, must of been a baby bear.

      Second plate, cookies were both very good, chocolate chip and ginger. Donuts we ate the next day so they were a bit dry, but great flavors on the frosting, not cloyingly sweet. and finally the bread, not extraordinary but then again nothing bad. just a good old white bread. All in all a great addition to our little town.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing

 Price,                And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4      Really good , fresh made goodies. Scones are dry.
Beer and Wine,    no   Its a bakery people, though I did just read about a dessert and wine bar (next business idea).
Service,                 4.5    Excellent, I was waited on right away and the person was very helpful.

Ambiance,             no    Strictly take out, no tables inside.
Price,                     3.5  A bit pricey but excellent selection and overall everything tasted great.

Overall                  4.0  This is great addition to Milton. now if we could only get a DECENT restaurant we would be in heaven !!.  

The joy of home repair !

   Sorry about the scattered postings, work and holidays have interfered with writing. New Years resolution is to have one new post every week, starting today. Coming soon, more reviews, more recipes, but for now a look at our home repair project, (gutters are done but no pics before the snow AND we put on snow guards to prevent an untimely death by snow !!).

   How I spent my summer. After almost 30 years, our little house was in need of some sprucing up. Several windows had lost there ability to hold out the cold, and the wood siding was looking a little long in the tooth. It was decided (OK truth be told wifey decided, I was fine with moving to a warmer climate), we would put in 6 new windows, all new vinyl siding, fascia, soffit, shutters and rain gutters. Once the decision was made and a color was chosen, (Spruce Green), all that was left was to choose a contractor and sit back and watch it happen, HA, NOT !!

      Not many know this about me, but I can NOT buy anything at first quote. I absolutely have to research it to death and get multiple quotes, until I am sure I have the best possible price. So after multiple quotes, from this contractor and that contractor and this giant home improvement store and that giant lumber yard, it came down to buying the ingredients myself locally, having our retired neighbor act as general contractor, having bro-in law Steve buy the windows at his work place and install them and finally have an old co-worker from NY come in and do the gutters WHEW. Let the games begin.

      We were fortunate that the old siding was not rotted, so we were able to put the new siding right over the top. And in a total fit of pure genius, I decided to have Vic start on the house the EXACT same weekend we flew to Wisconsin, AND the exact same weekend Hurricane Irene decided to come roaring through. Needless to say, I spent many an hour wondering if all his hard work (wrapping the house in body wrap, J channel, starter strip, etc., etc.) was now being ripped off by said Irene. Talk about shocked when we arrived home Monday night at 10:30 pm to a GREEN house. WOO HOO, Vic and his lovely assistant (his wonderful wife), had finished the entire front and most of both sides, YEA. Here are some before and after pics;

      The very next weekend was let's finish the house day. So a whole host of helpers turned out, (Thank You, Mike, Chris, Steve and Casey), and we proceeded to get the entire back done and some of the front facia. A few days later, Vic came over to finish the peaks and the facia and soffits and about a week later, (after my discovering that YES, rubber soled work shoes and a wet metal roof are in fact VERY slippery), Vic came back over and helped me finish the last piece of soffit and facia between the garage and house.

      On another fine weekend, bro-in-law Steve came over and put in the first 5 windows. What I imagined to be a very long and painful day, turned out to be done in 2 1/2 hours. This man is a genius when it comes to installing windows.

      I will post a few more pictures when we are completely done. Currently, our to-do list is down to , cladding the windows with metal, gutters and shutters. Stay tune, more pics to come. Oh, and lest I forget, we removed a huge pine tree from the edge of the driveway.  Nothing wrong with the tree so much, other than a constant drip of sap on my car (wifey gets the one car garage). And the 2-3 ft of pine needles every fall and spring we have to clean up. So one sunny Monday , off with her top. here are the before and after pics;

      One last set of pics before I sign off on this column. Bro-in -Law came over to clad the windows and what a great job he did. I can't believe how great they now look and dad came over to help me last weekend and we put up the shutters. All done, except the gutters. Here are the last of the pics;

Cooking 101: Carribean Pork Sliders

      Sometimes simple is best, especially when you are talking about making supper on a week night, when one partner is coming home from a hard days work and the other partner leaves for work at 11PM. Those are the nights that simple works best, and if you can throw something in the slow cooker (crockpot for those of us born a LONG time ago), first thing in the morning, and have a hot flavorful supper when you get home, Life is Good !! This meal starts with a pork loin and a marinade I wish I could remember where I bought, most likely Costco's as it's a big honkin bottle. The marinade is;

       Add pork loin (or loins if feeding a crowd or you want leftovers and you WILL want leftovers) to the slow cooker. Add enough marinade and chicken stock, ( I went 50/50) to cover the loins. An optional step, if you are so inclined, would be to get your grill red hot and sear the pork on all sides, this will add an extra dimension of flavor to the dish, but if your in a hurry just chuck em into the cooker. Throw in a few pineapple slices, attach the lid, set on low and walk away. Just a quick aside, if you have the time to sear, I would encourage it, I did this recipe both ways and the nice brown crunchy bits add alot of flavor and texture when you shred the pork. One other tip, they make slow cooker liners, and these have been a GODSEND for all these recipes, they make clean up a breeze, well worth the investment.

      Set your cooker on low and let it go for 3-6 hours. At this point you will have very flavorful pork and some incredible sauce. Remove the pork and start shredding, it will be so tender it shreds easily. Pour the liquid into a heavy duty saucepan and start boiling, keep your eye on it though cuz if it boils too long it will end up being a very thick syrup (we almost made that mistake). Here is a plate of deliciousness;

      And to serve with this delight, well a Tropical Mango smoothie of course. I found some smoothie mixes in the freezer of our local grocery store, one of which became this great drink with the addition of some mango and coconut rums and a bit of mango juice;

      And now to put it all together, you saved some pineapple slices right? Grill the slices and some rolls topped with butter until both form a nice crust. Top the shredded pork with the sauce you reduced and assemble, one roll, one pineapple slice and a big helping of shredded pork. We baked some fries in the oven and VOILA;

      Once again, a relatively easy prep makes a great evening supper. And to top it off this pork is incredible the next day, so PLEASE make extra.

Douzo Japanese Steakhouse Review

      After our first choice fell through, (who knew Bobcat Cafe was so popular), we decided to have a meal at this new Japanese/Thai/Steakhouse restaurant. Located near Tafts corner, where the old Orchid restaurant used to be. The first thing you notice when walking in is how big the place is. Then you notice there is nobody around, that's because instead of stopping at the bar or what should be the hostess station, you need to walk all the way into the first dining room. Cavernous doesn't even begin to describe the place and this is a problem as I will point out later.

      Once you walk in, someone will guide you to a table. We were taken into yet another room, and this one was very nice, great decor, sushi bar, giant live tree, bubbling fountains and deep purple walls, This is a really nice spot and feels good too, as there are more people in here, so it feels like the restaurant isn't empty. We were handed two menus, one for drinks and one for supper. Beer and wine choices are limited, as is normal for most Asian restaurants, though I did see some unusual wine choices, must be for the steakhouse offerings. One of the specialties here is martinis, lots and lots of martinis. We ordered drinks, beers for the guys, one Thai and one Chinese and martinis for the ladies, (HA, if you read this blog you saw that one coming). Monkey Business for the wife and Lemon Drop for Chris, and hence the funniest line of the evening from the dear wife, "Do you want a picture of my monkey business before I drink" HAHAHA!!!

      The drinks were quite good, though the Lemon drop was very strong, and at $9.00 each, they should be. The beers OK, the Thai beer, Singhai, better than my Chinese beer which was merely cold, but then again you really don't want a beer too flavorful as this will fight with the flavors of the food.  We started our meal with two sushi rolls, the shrimp tempura and the spicy tuna;

      Both were good, though I thought the tuna was the better of the two, not too spicy but very fresh with a great flavored sauce. The shrimp was OK but I found it to be a bit tough and lacking in shrimp, (plus I am not crazy about asparagus in my rolls). A quick word about the menus, first they are huge, with MANY options, ranging from exotic to steak and chicken (cooked on a hibachi at your table, though I didn't see one in use). But the menus are the plastic laminated style with pictures of the food that you usually see in really inexpensive Chinese joints, NOT what you'd expect from such a high end place (and it IS high end, as we will soon see). Plus my plastic laminated menu was really sticky.

      For our entrees we went all over the place. Mike went with spicy salmon, Chris with sweet and sour shrimp and scallop, wife with sea bass and tamarind sauce and I went with spicy duck and scallop. Mike had the only two chili pepper dish of the bunch. Everything was quite good, though the sauce on wife's bass was WAY too sweet, (my sauce, while a bit spicy, was quite sweet also). So unfortunately for her, she didn't touch her rice, and as we all know white Thai rice has to be dunked in a sauce to be good. That said it wasn't that the fish wasn't cooked properly, just the sauce didn't agree with her. And that can be a problem when faced with so many choices, it's very difficult to pick the winners and the losers on a menu this size. My food was good, though I thought the duck was rather skimpy for the pricing, more bones than duck. The scallops were good though.

      Douzo seems to be a tale of two restaurants. On the one hand it wants to be a high end Asian restaurant ,ala San Sai. and it does do several things correct. The martini menu is large and fun, sushi is fresh and well prepared, and the menu is large and diverse. On the other hand, the space is overwhelmingly large and can feel empty, service can be cloying, too many people constantly asking if everything is alright and finally some of the items (menus, chopsticks, glassware) make it feel like your in a fast food Chinese spot. I guess for me what it always comes down to, is it better than Tiny Thai. I would say yes, by a tiny margin (HA), the variety is much better, the food about the same or maybe just a bit less and you can order alcohol, though at a price. BUT and this is a HUGE BUT, is it worth more than two times the cost and this is a BIG NO.

      If I am going to pay twice as much for something, then it needs to be twice as good. And while Douzo was quite good, it certainly wasn't twice as good as Tiny Thai. Plus the ambiance is more warehouse than homey.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing

 Price,                And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     3.5   For the most part the food was excellent, sushi was fresh. Alot of the sauces are very sweet.
Beer and Wine,    3.   Limited beer and wine selections,lots of martinis. Some unusual wine selections (for the steakhouse side I guess).
Service,                 3    Can service be too good? We seemed to have someone at the table all the time.

Ambiance,             3    This is a tough one,where we sat was nice but the other room not so much.
Price,                     3    Very pricey, is it too pricey? That is up to you but I felt it was.

Overall                  3.1  I like that you can get Sushi, Thai, Chinese, Japanese and steak selections all in one place. Also that you can get a drink, without having to remember to bring your own. But the problem here is maybe the menu is too ambitious, the space is way too large and the pricing much too high. If we have a crowd where everyone wants something different, maybe we will be back. Otherwise, I'll stick to Tiny Thai. Still my champion for Thai food.