:: D. Morgan's ::

For Valentine's Day, Andrew and I wanted to go to a nice restaurant.  I thought about all the good places we could go to in town, but when Andrew told me that there was a jazz concert that evening in Rome that he wanted to go to, I thought, "Hey, perfect.  We can go to that place in Cartersville we've been wanting to try for a year."  So I made reservations.  

Here's a little background story about this place.  Andrew lived in Cartersville last year, and ever since I read reviews about this place, I've been wanting to go.  We had reservations once, but we didn't make it out there because one of us got sick or something like that.  Anyways, the executive chef cooks for the James Beard House every year, got pretty good reviews and the menu looked great, so I was pretty excited.  Since it was Valentine's Day, they had a pre fixe four course menu, and we had a choice for each course.  

Well.  We got there, sat down and it was nice.  There isn't a lot of space in there.  I'm going to guess that the dining room seats around 50 (but there's a private party area on the bottom level).  The service was pretty good.  We never really had any problems with our waitress (except when I asked about a dessert, she didn't know the answer and had to ask another waitress, who also didn't know the answer, so she had to go into the kitchen to ask).  We ordered our courses, and waited.  Here's what we ordered and what I thought:

1st

Andrew: crab cakes with mustard remoulade (too much flour, not enough crab meat)

me: lobster bisque (holy crap, this was awful.  it was too salty, and it tasted like they used the lobster guts to make the bisque.  it wasn't as creamy as it should've been either.  oh...and it was BROWN)

2nd

A : I can't remember what he had, but it wasn't memorable, obviously.

G : seared ahi tuna with greens and ginger vinegarette (this dish pissed me off the most.  First of all, the tuna looked like dog food.  It looked gelatinous and completely not edible.  Second, it was COLD.  The seared tuna was cold!  Aren't seared things usually hot or at least warm?  Third, it tasted like it was made hours in advance.  It sucked, really, really bad.)

3rd

A : beef tenderloin with wine reduction sauce (the wine wasn't reduced enough, and it was also too salty)

G : scallops (okay, so I made a mistake with this one.  I ordered it knowing that I don't like scallops.  I mean, I guess I ordered it thinking "hey, if there's anywhere I should order scallops, it's here because they'll do it right, and maybe I'll like it."  Nope.  Didn't like it.  And the asparagus had the tough ends still on them.  BOO)

4th

A : keylime tart with raspberry sauce (this wasn't bad.  Andrew actually really like the sauce and the tart together, but thought that the tart wasn't tart enough for a keylime pie)

G : chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream (not bad...but I could've done it better.  The outer part of the cake was a little over cooked)

We basically spent the entire meal picking out what was bad about it, and by the end I was pretty pissed that I had to shell out $130 for it.  I think what they did was cook everything by the main course in advance and in bulk, so nothing tasted fresh, and it definitely looked and tasted like it was mass produced.  It was totally not worth the money, and the worst part is knowing that I could've produced a meal 100 times better for a fraction of the price.  We're never going back there.  NEVER AGAIN.