Roasted Chicken Dinner
Alter

Alter

223 Northwest 23rd Street, Miami, 33127, United States Of America, 33127-4308

Tea • Fish • Beer • American


"Don 't empty out your wallet at this restaurant. It exudes hipster vibe and is trying to be tres Brooklyn but the chef needs a lesson in careful use of ingredients and subtlety. His food gives umami a bad name. Essentially every dish needed to have a few discordant ingredients removed. There were many cheffy techniques at work but always at the same time. We read the menu with our cell phones because it was so dark we were not the only ones and then ate the 5 course tasting menu with suggested additions while listening to some godawful conversations around us. Tables too close. First 2 cold courses were tolerable and almost interesting. We then had the chef 's special egg dish which promised egg, scallops, truffles, and caviar perhaps a good brunch but not as prepared and perhaps truffles and caviar should never be paired. A poached egg, covered with a custard vaguely tasting of scallop with a layer of duxelles which could be tasted, and a very strong taste of 2,4 dithiapentane although we were assured there was locally made olive oil and truffles involved they certainly were minor ingredients and overwhelmed by the commercial synthetic truffle oil flavoring.It was topped with a bit of caviar. It was served with a house made soft brioche bread with onions on top and an umami butter with secret ingredients which were likely some variation of canned anchovies and parmesan. Natural sweet butter is so delicious and has its own umami this just destroyed the butter. The next course was overcooked tile fish with many more additional ingredients that fought with each other, followed by peking duck which was a 1/4 duck breast which seemed to have been prepared sous vide and then smoked because it was rare. The 5 spice powder which has never before been seen on a Peking duck, apparently allowed it to have that name. Dessert was attractive but tasteless and topped off with a gourmandise of chocolate avocado (veggie chic and dreadful)"

Trade Street Diner

Trade Street Diner

529 N Trade St, Winston Salem, NC 27101, Winston-Salem, United States

Soup • Kebab • Diners • Coffee


"We arrived early and were seated right away, which was nice, but we were seated in front of the door so every time it opened we got a cold breeze, which was not so nice. Our server was not enthusiastic to see us, to say the least. We had to ask him to repeat himself several times because he was talking so low. He did not give us any information about the specials nor ask if we wanted appetizers. He brought the menus and asked if we were ready to order right then. Um, no, we need to look at the menu. I ordered the schnitzel and grits. The grits and collard greens were OUTSTANDING. I could have eaten a bowl of them alone and been very happy. The schnitzel was disappointing. It was served with 'tomato bacon jam ' supposedly. In reality, it was served with large chunks of tomatoes in sugar water which sogged up the crust of the schnitzel to make it mushy and unappetizing. There was no taste to the 'jam ' other than sweet. Tomato jam and bacon jam are usually sweet, smokey, tangy, spreadable, and have a jam like consistency and are DELICIOUS. I don 't know what this stuff was but it was not tomato bacon jam and it totally wrecked the dish. My friend had shrimp in cajun cream sauce. I tasted it. Not spicy at all. She was disappointed with her dish for lack of spice and they left the shrimp tails on which made the dish messy to eat. My other friend ordered the scallops over risotto. She liked the dish but did say all she could taste were leeks. Our bill came before we were finished eating so I guess the chocolate pie for dessert was a 'no go '. Will I be back to Trade Street Diner? Probably not since there are so many great choices in Winston in which to spend my money."