I had a groupon and we love fish, so P and I celebrated Valentine's Day at Kinkead's. Although the ambiance was a bit stifled (no background music!) and the kitchen was slooooow, the food was absolutely delicious.
We were seated at 8 and ordered shortly after, but our dinners didn't arrive until over an hour later. Fortunately, there was some pretty fantastic bread to snack on--the soda bread, which was slightly sweet and studded with rye, was dense without being heavy and so freaking yummy. It's a good thing we only got two pieces of it, because otherwise I definitely would have spoiled my dinner. Pat liked the cornbread too, but the rustic wheat was just okay. A little salty.
Pat started with some Northumberland oysters which he said were very fresh, and conveniently pre-separated from the shell. For entrees, he had the mahi mahi with pesto, I had the pepita-crusted salmon, and we split some garlic sauteed spinach. The presentation was beautiful, and the portions were really generous. Overall, the food wasn't very refined, but it was really very good. The salmon, in particular, was delicious, if just slightly overdone and a tad salty for my taste. It tasted like New Mexico, and all of the components just worked beautifully. Actually, it was surprisingly innovative for being a staple entree at a rather old-school restaurant. I ended up eating the just-okay rustic bread anyways, because I needed something to sop up the sauce left on my plate! Pat was happy with his mahi too, although we really didn't think the addition of gigantes made sense, and my dish was definitely the winner.
Dessert was also a win. Out of character, we each ordered our own dessert (probably because Pat actually wanted to have a chance to have more than one bite before I devoured the whole thing :) ). I got the carrot cake, which was served as pinwheels with a boozy but super-yummy rum raisin ice cream. Pat got a chocolate espresso mousse pyramid with a brownie base. Again, we cleaned our plates.
I think I would say that Kinkead's is probably a good starter restaurant for new foodies. They put out some delicious, higher-end food, but plates that are still generous, approachable, and well-executed. (portions x-posted to yelp.com)
Couple additions to Margaux's excellent review:
ReplyDelete- Her salmon looked beautiful...but very, very busy. I thought it would taste directionless but it all came together in an amazing fashion. The sign of an excellent chef.
- I saw Mahi Mahi and Pesto and thought "beautifully simple dish that should really work well." It did.
- Request a table in the main dining room which has more space between tables...we were in the room that can be used for larger parties...with the combination of table proximity and lack of background music it was really easy to get distracted by the conversations on either side of us...