RESTAURANT REVIEW: John-Robert's Table (our best meal there, ever)

For our wedding anniversary, we dined at Jean-Robert's Table, the establishment owned by Cincinnati's top French chef, John-Robert de Cavel, who is also one of our area's best community citizens.
The crowd was light after the restaurant's five-day Bastille Day extravaganza, but as always the ambiance was perfectly pleasant. As an extra treat, Sylvain Archer and his band "Frenchaxe" was playing all evening.
The meal was superb and in fact was the best I've had there, start to finish.
We started with a great lobster salad (a special preparation not on the regular menu) and totally scrumptious spring vegetable ravioli with a delicious but light truffle cream sauce poured over the dish at table. (I had a glass of Champagne instead of a cocktail and had a bit of it left to enjoy with my ravioli.)

Lobster salad (L) and Spring Vegetable Ravioli

 For entrees, I took our waiter's advice and selected the scallops, which were prepared marvelously with a fava bean puree, a few other light veggies, and another hit of a truffle-infused sauce.

Jean-Robert's Scallops

My husband's entree was halibut, not on the regular menu. I took a photo of it but didn't have a taste, and he didn't try my scallops, either!
With the scallops, I had a glass of red Burgundy.

Halibut special at JR's Table

After all this...........my husband ordered a chocolate macademia nut tart and a cup of coffee, but I finished with a lovely glass of Sauternes.
We vowed not to let another couple of years go by before we dine there again!

Disappointed -- again -- at Jean-Robert's Table :-(

I really want to like -- no, love -- Jean-Robert's Table. Chef is such a superb citizen of our city, so generous in charitable works, and my francophilia (if that's a word) makes me want a French restaurant to be the best, and my favorite, in town.
But I haven't had a perfect meal there, or even a terribly interesting one. The room itself is lovely, but the food (alas) just never rises to the level I feel it should.
I went with a friend to try the Springtime in Paris Thursday night promotion, available every Thursday this month. The quality/price ration for this deal was excellent! Four courses for $40, with wine pairings for another $20 --can't be beat. The amount of food and wine you get for the money was outstanding; in fact, it was too much of both for me. I ran out of stomach room, and was already buzzed, after the second course.
That was actually OK, since the first two courses were the best. (Every one of the four wines was great, and our favorite was the finale.)

Shrimp salad -- delish!

First course (best of all): Shrimp salad with pineapple, snow pears, radish, cucumber and ginger, paired with a French Aligote -- best dish of the night.
Second course: Arctic char with polenta, sauteed peppers and watercress salad, along with Rochette Morgon Cru Beaujolais, another winner of a wine, and a decent preparation on the fish.

Arctic char

Things went downhill.
The "main course" was a lackluster Cornish game hen, served with a nice Bordeaux wine.
Dessert was almost inedible, billed as "Strawberry-violet charlotte," it was dry, tasteless ladyfingers arrayed around an insipid, custardy filling. The tasty Albert Bicho Rose burgundy (sparkling) pairing took the sting out of the ending of this meal.

Looks better than tastes

I realize that I am nobody and Jean-Robert de Cavel is a prominent citizen, renowned chef, and successful resterateur (did I spell that right?) in our city. But I'm just saying......I can think of several local establishments that have satisfied me more consistently than Table has. (Bouquet, Boca until recently, La Poste, Rue Dumaine, Abigail Street, Enoteca Emilia...) None of these has the ambition, or the reach, of Table, but they don't disappoint, either.
 That said, the Springtime in Paris deal is worth doing, if only for the first two courses and the really good wine.

Rating my recent fine-dining experiences: some surprises

Soft-shell crabs at Jean-Robert's Table

Thanks to an unusual set of opportunities, during just over a week I dined at four notable restaurants, at least 2-3 of which would be on most people's lists of the best in Cincinnati. Based on those four dinners and considering all factors but most especially the quality of the food (always my top rating criterion), here's how they ranked. Note that #4 is a brand-new wine bar/light-bites enoteca and doesn't have the same aspirations as the others. This was my one and only visit to Enoteca Emilia, while I've dined many times at Local, La Poste and Jean-Robert's.

1. Local 127

2. La Poste

3. Jean-Robert's Table

4. Enoteca Emilia

You might be surprised that the Table ranked as #3, but my dining companions pretty much agreed that the food was fine, but didn't knock us out. On the other hand, the same bunch had dined on separate, recent occasions at Local 127 and raved -- if not dreamed -- about at least one thing they ate there.
For me, what disappointed at Jean-Robert's was my entree, a seasonal special of soft shell crabs. I love those little devils when they are cooked properly -- flash fried and as crispy as popcorn -- but so many restaurants just don't deliver. I decided to trust Chef de Cavel, and alas, he (or whoever on his staff actually prepared them) failed. The crabs looked crispy when the waiter set them before me, but then he poured a sauce over them that did what I dreaded: made them soggy.
At La Poste just the night before, I had a light meal of melon/tomatillo gazpacho and a bowl of delicious mussels and clams. Clearly not as ambitious as what de Cavel does, but every bite was perfection.
I've written (below) about my terrific dinner at Local 127 a week earlier, where my friend and I oohed and ahhed our way through entrees and a cheese plate, accompanied by cocktails and wine.
I also blogged about Enoteca Emilia, so if you care, scroll on down to read about that.

On other criteria in addition to the food quality, here's how I rate my experiences:

Table service: Local 127 -- excellent; La Poste -- excellent; JR's -- very good; Enoteca -- very good.
Wine/cocktail service: Local -- very good; La Poste -- very good; JR's -- excellent; Enoteca -- excellent
Wine/cocktail selection: Local -- excellent; La Poste -- excellent (especially wine); JR's -- very good; Enoteca -- good.
Ambience/Friendliness of Staff: All excellent

Return to Jean-Robert's Table

My first dinner at Jean-Robert de Cavel's lovely downtown restaurant a few months ago was pleasant enough, but I thought the food too rich and caloric for my taste. So it took this long to get back. Happily, the spring menu emphasizes lighter dishes and ingredients, and that problem went away.
Actually my friends and I had a delightful meal and good time. A highlight was the Burgundy wine suggested by the sommelier, which went great with both my filet mignon (a special) and my companions' fish dishes.

In the photos (from top):

• Shrimp salad, a nightly special appetizer
• The filet mignon
• Seared sea scallops from the regular menu
• Roasted cod, an entree special
• Strawberry-mint Bavarian, the one dessert we split three ways.

My meal was the shrimp salad, filet, and part of the dessert, and I can recommend every bite of each of those dishes. My favorite was the entree, a perfect piece of meat, cooked to medium rare and sliced, atop some veggies and with a few bites of melt-in-your-mouth roasted potatoes.

Dining where Barack and Michelle Did

Not only was The Corner Kitchen our very best dining experience on our recent trip to Asheville NC, but it also was the restaurant the Obamas chose for a dinner in Asheville when they spent part of their April vacation in the region.
On April 25th, a Saturday, the staff was surprised by an influx of Secret Service agents followed not too much later by the Obama party, which included two other couples who were their personal friends. Word has it that they spent the day hiking in the mountains nearby before selecting this spot for dinner.
We've been to Asheville quite a few times in recent years but I'd only had lunch at the Corner Kitchen. We had the opportunity to eat there last Saturday night, and it was stellar.
My "Cashew Crusted Snapper on Citrus Basil Rice with Snow Pea Salad and Coconut Carrot Sauce" (bottom photo) was the best dish I've eaten in weeks and one of the best this year, anywhere. It was head and shoulders above anything we ate at Jean-Robert's Table, by the way. Also in the photos, my husband's mountain trout entree -- excellent, but not in the class of my snapper.
Photos of the Obamas' visit are copied from the restaurant's website.

The Healthy Foodie does Jean-Robert's Table (Birthday Dinner)

When choosing where to go for my bday dinner, it was a no-brainer: try the most anticipated restaurant to open in Cincinnati within the past several years. Jean-Robert de Cavel is our city's most celebrated and most talented chef, and the whole local foodie world has awaited his new venture, Jean-Robert's Table. They've been up and running for at least a month, plenty of time to iron out any kinks. We were thrilled to put on some nice threads and head downtown to check it out.
The place has a beautiful interior. It feels spacious and cozy at the same time, with exposed brick arches separating the two main dining rooms and a comfortable bar with a few lounge tables along one wall. We arrived a half hour before our reservation, grabbed a table in the bar, and had a drink -- Champagne for the birthday girl and a cocktail called The Belgian (featuring Belgian ale, vodka and a few other ingredients) for my husband.
Chef walked by and we had a nice chat with him, getting his guidance on what to try from the dinner menu. Our bar server Molly also gave us some tips.
When we were seated, we selected from a moderately extensive menu of about 10 appetizers and a like number of entrees.
We liked all our dishes -- photos are above. For starters, I had a nightly special shrimp salad with watermelon and cantaloupe chunks and a rich dressing; he tried the "surf and turf" (tuna and beef) tartar.
His entree was the bacon-wrapped salmon, and I went with the skate wings. Despite the bacon wrapping, his dish actually was less rich than mine, but only because we had them leave off the cream sauce that came with his. A bottle of Calera Pinot Noir from California's Central Coast complemented our fish entrees very nicely--in fact, we loved the wine and plan to look for it retail.
Since it was my birthday, I also indulged in a lavender-honey creme brulee as dessert.
I'd have to say that the bacon-wrapped salmon was my favorite of all that we tried.
We enjoyed the evening very much, but truth be told, the food was too rich for my taste -- even as a birthday treat. Next time I will order more carefully and steer clear of a starter with a mayonnaise dressing AND an entree floating in too much oil.

Opening set for Jean-Robert's Table

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer article today, the much anticipated Jean-Robert's Table will open for business on August 10th (a Tuesday).

The upscale casual, French-themed restaurant is at 713 Vine Street downtown, formerly a Longhorn Steakhouse and other eateries.

This will be our city's most renowned chef's step away from high end fine dining.

Polly Campbell's article lists some of the menu options, so if you're interested, click on the link above to read all about it.

Update on Jean-Robert's new restaurant

We've all been waiting eagerly for the opening of Chef de Cavel's next Cincinnati restaurant.
My husband ran into Jean-Robert last weekend at Findlay Market and asked him how things are coming along at Jean-Robert's Table (713 Vine St.).
Chef says that the "relaxed French" eatery should open between mid-July and the beginning of August.
That's soon, and exciting!