Not only has it been a crap couple of months as far as cooking and baking goes, but the same goes for eating. Seriously, the last couple of big dinners I have eaten out just haven’t been worth leaving the warm, toasty apartment for. From surprise raw vegan dinners (how many foods can YOU squeeze the word “vitality” into?) to unbearably long and cold waits for delicious hot dogs (I spent two hours in 20F weather for Hot Doug’s…You make a killer dog, Doug, but it ain’t worth two hours and a bad frost bite on my toes!), I have been royally screwed up the ass by the culinary gods when it comes to eating lately. Which is sad. Food makes me happy. Or at least, it used to. Wow. Who is a Debbie Downer today? THIS LADY. May Street Market is an American contemporary restaurant that I’ve had my eye on for a while now. I have heard nothing but good reviews about it and was thoroughly excited to dine there. And then the f-ers messed up my chicken liver pate ($7 USD). Which is sad for several reasons. 1. I fricking LOVE chicken liver pate! 2. Because usually that is the sort of thing made in advance, when the restaurant is not busy. If you can’t pay attention when there is plenty of time to, um, why bother? And 3. I love me some pate. The pate came ice cold and was pretty flavorless and grainy. The brioche toast points were cold and soggy…it was just a sad sight to behold. Especially after you’ve eaten a beauty like the pate from Hot Chocolate. Hot Damn. Now there is some pate that makes me happy. After that not so good start to the meal, I was dubious about the rest of the meal.
Adam’s taffy apple salad with pork belly ($13 USD) was interesting and delicious when eaten together with the pork belly, but there was so little pork belly and so much salad, this dish left much to be desired. I started to get excited again when my main came to the table, which was a stuffed duck breast roulade with foie gras, butternut squash ?risotto?, duck confit and cocoa nib salad, valrhona chocolate and cardamom sauce ($30 USD).
I just had bad luck with liver this day, I guess. You couldn’t taste the delicate foie stuffed inside of the duck breast because the sauce was so sticky sweet, it overwhelmed any other flavors on the plate. Essentially, it was an expensive hot mess on a plate. Sigh. Others were a bit more lucky. Adam loved special of the day, a veal chop.
There was even a delicious pork dish, probably my favorite dish of night….
it was lightly smokey, the perfect balance of sweet, savory, salty and smokey. And I totally botched the photo of it. The one good dish of the evening. RAR! Even dessert was lackluster. Adam had the trio of ice cream ($6 USD), and I remember that one was brown sugar and another was sweet potato.
It was good, if not a bit heavy end to the meal. My flight of cupcakes ($6 USD) were not any lighter, and sadly, the server had knocked over my plate while bringing it to me, and she didn’t not even fix it.
The carrot cake, chocolate peanut butter and vanilla lavendar cupcakes were ok, but really rich for such tiny little things. I enjoy a nice rich dessert as much as the next person, but this was a bit over the top. All in all, I was sadly disappointed, and more so than I have been in a restaurant in a long time. I would love to give May Street Market another go, as this was my first visit to the restaurant, but in a city full of over 3000 restaurants, it is really hard to give second chances. Especially when there is such a high price tag. Here’s to hoping for more successful eats next week! ~LTG!
