Sunday, December 19, 2004

Sazerac and Tulio's

Ok, ok. After getting called on it Friday night, I'm finally going to post about a local restaurant. I eat at local places all of the time--at the very least, I end up going to a new place once a week thanks to my adventurous friends, and/or my Sunday night dinner group (from now on lovingly referred to as my Sunday Dinner Cult).

This week, my Sunday Dinner Cult met up for our Secret Santa exchange at Sazerac's. Sazerac appears to be a part of the Hotel Monaco near 4th and Spring. I was looking forward to going here since the menu online showed several Louisiana-themed entrees.

I'll say this now: overall, the food was fantastic. I don't recommend going there unless you are a) ordering out or b) have about 4 hours to kill.

My roommate and I got there around 7 PM, to meet up with 6 other people. On Sunday nights, this is in the middle of their happy hour ($4 drinks--if you order wells, reduced price menu). The others in our party were checking out the Sazerac (served in a smaller martini glass with rye whiskey), Cosmos, and the G-Spot. Most drinks appeared to be between $6.50 and $9. I ordered a B-52 coffee, since Erika seemed to be enjoying hers and lo, it was pretty damn good.

The waiter kept the drinks coming, but never stuck around long enough to take our order until we'd been sitting there for about 40 minutes. I ordered a Caesar, which was delicious and others ordered Lobster Bisque, Gumbo (pretty good, but I have high standards), some sort of tasty roasted veggie and potato appetizer, and various other salads. I heard zero complaints about the salads, and there were several different ones ordered at our table. These were served around 8:15. Thankfully, we had presents to unwrap after being served, so this killed some time.

Around 9, our waiter mentioned that our food would be out in 1 minute. He was off by about 6. I was irritable by this time because a) I felt we were ignored and b) he rarely came by to refill our water.

I'd ordered their Wild 'n Funky Pizza--every day the ingredients are different--Ian and two others ordered the catfish, one ordered the lambshank, one had chicken, one had steak, and Erika had the salmon. The salmon and catfish appeared to be the best choices in the end. My pizza, with chevre and kalamata olives, was just okay. Really, it was bland and boring compared to everything else.

Most of us finished our food around 9:30. The waiter heard us discussing dessert plans and suggested we head up to Tulio's and some other place I didn't catch. By this point, I was really getting pissed off because it was obvious he thought we were taking too long to leave, but...dude. We woulda been gone by 8:30 if we hadn't been sitting around waiting for food for FOREVER.

On Mary's dare, after she expressed a desire to annoy the waiter, I asked for dessert menus. The waiter impatiently hovered for the first time all evening...the chocolate cake looked intriguing, but we decided to head over to Tulio's where Ian, Erika and I split a tasty Limon Torta with walnuts and blood orange sauce, Ben had the tiramisu (sounded mushier than expected) and Juliet had some flan-like concoction. We sat in the bar area for dessert. I really enjoyed the Limon Torta, the speedy service, and the festive greenery and lights around the bar and the room. I'll probably be going back for dinner sometime in the future. The bar reminded me of visiting Harry's Bar in Venice, where the Bellini was invented.

And my favorite moment while receiving terrible service--an even better moment than the one where he noted there was a mandatory 18% tip already on the bill? When the waiter gave us his card and said we could request him the next time we dined at Sazerac.