Justin Wine Dinner at Arte Cafe

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Justin wines out of Paso Robles was the featured wine tonight at Arte Cafe in Cerritos.   Not expecting their hi end wines as the dinner is only $49.  The restaurant was packed on the inside and a lot of full tables on the outside patio area.  I think way to many people. I think that when the winery hosts have to go in and out two different areas to give their spiel it distracts.  Food service takes longer, the wines being poured are delayed. Arte had three additional servers tonight but it wasn't enough to have a good flow.  And the noise level was deafening. 

The kitchen suffered also. The first people who got served were finished with their food before the last people got theirs. It had to be very hectic inside that kitchen tonight.

We started out with Wild Board Spring Rolls. This was the best dish of the evening. Very good flavor, the dough wrapper was soft but now falling apart. No cracking of dough when you bit into them. The staff was poring two different sparklings. I chose the Rose which was a 2017 "Numdrum by the Wagner Family which is Caymus.  Pleasant wine, nice light rose flavor, went very well with the spring rolls.

First course is a Cilantro Ginger Halibut. Fish was cooked perfectly but I could not get the taste of the cilantro nor the ginger. I felt that this dish was underseasoned. A new wine by Justin was featured. JNSQ Sauvignon Blanc. Too acidic for me.

Second course is a Lemon caper salmon.  Salmon was very soft so it was probably frozen at one time. Again this dish really needed seasoning. Paired with a JNSQ Rose Cru. Way to much "strawberry fields forever" for me.

This JNSQ line form Justin is a lower end line. I think made to appeal more to the masses. The bottles that they were in were extremely heavy decanters.  I would venture a guess and say at least half the  price of the wine was for the bottle itself. I was not impressed with either wine. But I liked the heavy decanter style bottle. They did give away the emptied bottles to those who wanted them

Main dish was Beef Kabobs.  Richard has really been ding well with beef lately but this fell down like the other dishes tonight. Meat had decent flavor but was a bit tough. Potatoes had absolutely no salt at all. Very bland. Paired with a lower end Justin Cabernet Sauvignon. This was was good, not great but good.

Dessert consisted of chocolate ice cream with fresh blueberries. Can't go wrong with ice cream. But by time the main entree plates were taken away and the ice cream was served was way too much time. Quite a few people had left already.

All in all a disappointing dinner and wine selection.  I think that having twice as many people in attendance really hampered Arte from having a really good evening.  I was told that Richard has hired an event manager. I expect to see some interesting things coming up hopefully for the better but I am not betting on that. When people go for numbers over quality something ends up giving and not always for the best.