Absinthe

We feel particularly metropolitan this week. As if lunching at Anchor and Hope on Monday wasn’t enough, we were also treated to lunch at Absinthe.

We have now experienced breakfast, lunch and dinner at Absinthe and we’re reluctant to say it, but every time we’ve eaten here we’ve been a bit underwhelmed. We’ve certainly never had a bad meal, but then we always want just a little bit more.

It was sort of like finally seeing the Dark Knight this week. Yes, it was good, yes, Heath Ledger made a great Joker, but we didn’t think he should win an Oscar and in our opinion, the movie had 4 different endings and all of the action sequences went on a beat too long.

Our dining experiences at Absinthe have been similar. Our first trip was for brunch and we remember being excited about our omelet description and we couldn’t stop staring at the house made scones. Ultimately, the omelet was good but it fell short of great and the home fries were okay, but the Rosemary went on a beat too long.

The dinner adventure was more full-blown, a sizable party, and between the 5 of us we had a comprehensive sampling of the menu. The deep fried chick peas were clever, but somewhat difficult and draining to eat and while entrées tasted as they should (we shared duck confit, a few people had the French onion soup, there was an order of beef cheeks and the day’s fish dish) and we left full, our meal was just shy of memorable. It was a 3.8 GPA student—clearly strong and bright, but missing some AP courses and not the best test taker.

Lunch was nice yesterday. We had the Absinthe burger, which was actually cooked perfectly (medium means medium and they got it right). We also enjoyed the dipping sauces with the fries and our afternoon cocktail. In fact, we’ve decided that Absinthe shines brightest for special lunches and executive meetings—it’s a nice jaunt from the Civic Center area, the dishes are standard enough for all palettes yet self conscious enough to create a vibrant and stable menu.

Absinthe [MenuPages]
Absinthe [Official Site]

[Photo: Beef cheeks at Absinthe via Adam Martin]

Absinthe