For my birthday last night, we went to home, Richard Blais’s restaurant in Atlanta. The space has been a few different restaurants in the past couple of years (first Seeger’s, then Posh). Home is a good name because it’s an adequate description of the building. It really is a small house on West Paces.
The hostess had a note that it was my birthday and we were seated immediately. Our waiter was very friendly (he told me that my dress was his favorite one he had seen all week) and he was knowledgeable about the menu. As I said before, I’m a big believer in asking your waiter/waitress what they recommend or what’s popular. I used to be a waitress and we serve food all day long. We know what sells and what doesn’t.
If I were opening a restaurant, I’d never have colored water glasses because it’s too hard to tell when the water needs to be refilled. They had a phenomenal wine list, but I had to go with an old favorite, Sonoma Cutrer Russian River Ranches (they stopped making this one for a while and it’s really hard to find. The Sonoma Coast isn’t as good, imo). After our wine was delivered, Richard Blais stopped by to say hi and wish me a happy birthday. He stayed to chat for a minute, and was sincere and charming. He was wearing his signature crocs :).
We started with crab cake and bone marrow appetizers. The crab cake was one of the best I’ve ever had. It was insanely tender and had a great sauce with it. The bone marrow wasn’t something I’d ordinarily try, but our waiter gave it a great description. It comes with oxtail and bbq brisket as well as pieces of toast. Our waiter told us how it came to be on the menu: Richard was playing around in the kitchen making sandwiches and decided it’d be a fun menu item.
The bone marrow was like butter, completely silky. George and I piled it on the toast pieces with some brisket and it was an unbelievably rich mini-bbq sandwich. We were also served homemade biscuits with our appetizer. Butter was offered as well as a jalapeno jelly. This might be a good time to discuss the service. We didn’t get our appetizers until 40 minutes after we arrived. That’s simply unacceptable. Our waiter was distracted and slow throughout the entire evening. The meal as a whole took over 2 hours. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the kitchen because other tables with different waiters were in and out before we’d finished our entrees.
But, back to the delightful food. For our entrees we decided on scallops with broccoli and cheddar puree (my mom), halibut with morels (me) and tuna steak frites (George). The portions were fairly large, so we all passed around our plates to avoid any ennui.
The scallops had been harvested by hand and they were beautiful. Smooth and silky in the middle with a seared exterior.
My halibut was tender and crispy and came with a generous amount of morel mushrooms on the side.
George had a giant piece of rare tuna steak, prepared like a fillet with fresh cracked pepper on top. It came with delicious herb french fries, which George said tasted like Arby’s fries, but more gourmet.
I had read that the desserts were weak, and when I asked our waiter for a recommendation he didn’t lie, which I appreciate. He said they weren’t very good, except for the cornbread cake, which was delightful. We ordered that to share, and it lived up to expectations with coffee ice cream and berries on the side. George said he thought it would be great on its own.
All in all, a good experience, but our waiter kept it from being a great one. Seriously, so bad that I didn’t even leave 15%, and I usually give 20%.
food-27
decor-18
service-7
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