Thursday, July 10, 2008

J Street Attempts to Thoroughly Review Cork


BUT ALAS! Is thwarted by evil co-owner! The plot thickens (insert dramatic organ music and castle thunder here).

Ok so I finally got to eat at Cork. I've tried a couple of times, but it's always been packed out the wazoo. This time we went on a rainy Sunday which apparently is enough in this city to thin the crowd at even the trendiest restaurants. This time we get there, and half the tables are empty. I'm thinking 'Sweet! We can sit down right away and can get something to munch on.' Um nope. Even though our reserved table was open (in addition to a handful of other tables) and 4 out of 5 people in our party were there, we couldn't be seated until everyone was there. Great lady. Thanks. So instead we had to stand at the bar for awhile since all the bar seats were taken while the hostess just stared at us standing and looking at our nice empty seats (see below). Major -1.

(Us standing.)

(Our empty table.)

Finally the hostess got off her high horse and let us sit down. Our waitress came up to tell us about the specials, but she couldn't really remember them. (According to her the stuffed quail was stuffed with stuffing. Yeaaaaa. Thanks, Shakespeare. You've got quite the way with words. -1 again.) Fortunately she did remember our orders correctly. All our food came out pretty fast, it was all correct, and it was freaking awesome. I loved everything I tried, especially the avocado bruschetta with pistachios. Aaaaaaaaaaaaa. So yummy. But the cold English pea soup was a really close second. Actually no the perfectly seasoned fries were the close second. They had some lemon zest or something. I don't even know. You just need to go and try them. Immediately. So I guess the soup was third, but really everything was second to the wine. The menu has great descriptions, and we all got wines we liked! (+5)


So I'm busy snapping pictures of all the pretty and delicious food which the co-owner is running to table until he says 'Um you can't do that.' Excuse, me I can't do what? 'You are not allowed to take pictures of the food.' What?! You're kidding me right? He wasn't. Apparently people could take pictures of the food and misrepresent it. Although I feel like a photo is actually a pretty accurate representation, Mr. Co-owner Man. I mean that's why they invented them, to capture reality. Aaaaanyways he could definitely tell that his no photo policy threw me for a loop because I made a half wtf face and a half you're breaking my heart here face. At this point I was about the write off the service at Cork as effing horrible, but the Mr. Co-owner dude managed to save the whole situation by bringing me a free glass of champagne (+ a million!!!!) So of course I forgave him for his silly photo rule. Plus, don't tell him, but I snapped a few pictures before he came over to chastise me!


(The delicious fries)


(The delicious soup)

So I guess long story short, Cork is a pretty great place to eat and drink, but just show up with your whole party to begin with. For your sake. And don't take pictures. And order the avocado bruschetta. And even if you don't understand you're meal (stuffed stuffing?), I promise it will be suuuuper good anyways. Just go. Ok?

2 comments:

Ms. Spinach said...

that is too funny. we had a similar experience -- made a reservation, two of us showed up (one got stuck in a rainstorm), and we just had to stand crammed at the bar looking at the empty table. after a few minutes, the waitress came over to ask my (very very pregnant) friend if she needed to sit, and i was like, "yes, that would be great if we could sit at our table" and she was all like, "um, no, but i could bring over a stool." how insane.

the food is seriously good though. the duck? the asparagus? those fries? yuuuuum.

The Search for J Street said...

it's interesting to know that the service issues were not just a one time thing! cork is still fairly new so maybe they will work their kinks out over time. i certainly hope so because it is fairly close to my apartment and the food is so darn good that i'd love to make it one of my neighborhood hang outs... that is if it ever stops being to ridiculously trendy and crowded!