Disaster at Park Ave

Friday, June 8, 2007

This was a "wine & food" dinner at Park Ave restaurant in Stanton. The wines being poured were from King Wine Co. , in Los Alamitos. I have tasted these wines before and was interested in seeing how they paired with food. There were 7 of us at our table for dinner tonight

Dinner was scheduled for 7:00 pm. We were seated at 7:10. Had to wait for at least 10 minutes before the Hor's D'oeuvres portion of the meal was served. Crudites (celery,carrots and radishes) are not what I would pair with a Chardonnay or any other wine. They did have a nice bread basket with and herb butter, but for a table of 7 they had one portion of herb butter that was about 1 tablespoon in volume. They did bring additional when asked but it seems that with a large table they should have had at least two plates with the butter on it. Around 7:30 the Oysters Rockefeller & the stuffed mushrooms were served. The oysters were ok and the mushrooms mediocre. The 05 King Chardonany went well with the food.

Next course came at 8:00 - smoked salmon with capers on thin sourdough . There is not much you can do to this dish to make it bad, but it also was not anything to write home about. They served this with a 06 Viognier which absolutely overwhelmed it with its sweetness. The Chardonnay turned out to be a much better pairing.

At 8:40 we got our Caesar salad. No anchovies so it was not a true Caesar. This for some insane reason they paired it with the 04 Cabernet Savignon. I have no other comment.

The main course was "surf & turf". Filet with lobster tail. OK ,what can you do to this to screw it up ? Filet was tender, tail was cooked well. Served with Bernaise & butter sauce. But for another insane idea this was served with a 04 Petite Syrah. The Cabernet might have paired with it because it was lighter, but the petite was so big that the beef & lobster were lost. I had a hard time believing that anyone could such a poor job of wine pairing.

The "creme de la creme" was the dessert. Strawberries Romanoff (vanilla ice cream, strawberries and some kind of sauce in it) paired with a chocolate port. Absolute disaster. A hunk of chocolate or a blue cheese with nuts, almost anything except what we got.

Consensus: Wines were not paired well with food to show off the quality of the wines. The food was mediocre. Service from the kitchen was unbearably slow. The acoustics were ear deafening. They had some type of live entertainment but the noise level was high that you just wished that the singer would shut up. His singing was lost in the constant unrelenting noise. The air-conditioning was finally turned on after a couple of hours. People were going outside between courses for fresh air. (you had a lot of time to do this). The wait staff was very friendly and accommodating. They were generous with the wine pours

The chef came out and worked the room. When he came to our table I asked who did the pairing and he replied that he (the chef) did. When we started to talk about the pairings it was obvious that I did not agree (and the rest of the table also) with his choices. He then left our table never to return. I cannot believe that he tasted the food with the wine before he paired them.

The wine dinner was held in a back room of the restaurant, not the main dining area (which did look nice). Perhaps they were overwhelmed with having to cover both areas, but that is their business to be able to do this. If they cannot , then they should not overbook themselves.

I doubt that I would ever return to this establishment. Mediocre food. Very unorganized. Slow, Slow, Slow. Overpriced for what you got. And the noise level was stomach churning. I usually give an establishment a couple of tries before I write them off but I'm not sure if I would do that here. I might have been able to handle the slow pace of food service if I wasn't so anxious to get myself removed from the deafening noise.

I had heard that this place had good food. My question is "by who's standards". There are too many good restaurants around to have to put up with "ordinary at high prices".

The winemaker, Gary King, was very accommodating. Pours were generous. We also got to taste 3 additional wines. A Zin, Cab Franc and a Merlot. He did not have any input into the food and wine pairing so this should not reflect on him or his wines. This was strictly a restaurant breakdown

Just think "I could have had a V8" and saved $83.