Thanks to Pinky I have become addicted to the Customers Suck Livejournal group. I think my favorite entry was from the person who works at Sea World, who said that they most looked forward to the times when the dolphins bit people. I think every customer service business should have highly intelligent mammals which can attack rude customers with impunity.
So we went to Magnolia Grill tonight to celebrate our 1 month anniversary. Yes, we're ridiculously shmoopy. I had never been to Magnolia Grill before, and I must say it lived up to its reputation. Everything we ordered was outstanding. We started with heirloom tomatoes with goat cheese and balsamic syrup. The goat cheese was creamy and mild, and the tomatoes were so sweet! I don't think we've even gotten such sweet tomatoes from our own garden. I had halibut with swiss chard, shrimp, corn and bacon lardons. Georg had rabbit confit with sour cherry sauce and pepper grits. For dessert I had a lemon tart, and Georg had chocolate cake. I had a bite of Georg's cake, and that one bite was amazing, but I think a whole portion would have been too rich & would have left me overfull. The lemon tart was perfect. Very light and not too sweet.
My only complaint was the noise level. It would have been uncomfortably loud, but tolerably so. Except that our table was trapped in a corner behind an insanely LOUD table of six. It was mainly this one guy. Every time he laughed my ears rang. It only got worse as they continued to imbibe and their volume level increased. Thank god the waitress offered to move us after our entrees. She discreetly took us to another part of the dining room. It was like being in a whole different restaurant. Still noisy, but so much more bearable. She even told me that she had been trying to figure out how to get us moved for a while. We joked with her that she was going to have to cut that guy off, and she said that he came in like that! That waitress is my hero. Not only did she move us without our even having to ask, she told us where to find the recipes for both of our desserts. (The lemon tart is in Karen Barker's first cookbook, and the chocolate cake was published in More magazine.)
4 Comments
Well done, waitress!
I'm glad you enjoyed your meal. The restaurant went hit or miss for a couple of years after Barker bought out his partners. But apparently it's back to the all good.
One thing I've always appreciated/respected about the Magnolia Grill is that they're so completely unpretentious. They welcome walk-ins who sit at the bar just as well as they welcome anyone else.
And gee, now I'm nostaligic from when that site was the very first Wellspring, and my high school girlfriend and I would wander down from NCSSM for the occasional purchase of mussels and bread, or maybe chocolate. Mmm. It was good to date a Spaniard.
i love karen barker's cookbooks!
that's my biggest beef about the grill, too.... the noise. it's loud no matter where you are. but it sounds like you got the worst of it.
phil's right... they're happy to welcome patrons to the bar area (w/o reservations) to sit, drink, eat, talk... it's very nice and relaxed up there.
i'm glad you enjoyed your meal! it's been a year or so since i've been and you're making me want to go back!
hee - I'm glad I'm not the only one whiling away much too much time on Customers Suck!
(I could quote you all the entries from X time to X time, but I didn't see the dolphin one!)
the funny thing is that one of the women who writes and comments is a stripper in Raleigh. It's really odd to read "local" references in that community!
and yes to the loudness at the magnolia grill. i've only been once, the food was divine, the desserts wonderful, and it was SO LOUD.