Restaurant Review - Fat equals flavor
So don’t expect much from Midtown’s Balance
The frisky, bustling intersection of 10th and Piedmont distills the essence of Midtown into three words: young, gay and hip (not necessarily in that order). Beefy guys jog along the sidewalk and eye the similarly fine specimens passing time on the patio of Outwrite Books. Stylish art boutiques and hair salons face off with Caribou Coffee and Smoothie King. The area’s proximity to the park makes it one of the few spots in the city that welcomes pedestrians.
And the restaurants of Midtown’s microcosm? Most of them are on the pedestrian side as well. Oh, they’re certainly popular and parking can be a bitch, but they’re not the kind of places you’d seek for sophisticated chow. Nickiemoto’s, Zocalo and Santino’s serve ethnic-lite fare with user-friendly menus designed to please every palate.
Now comes Balance, a new venture in the space vacated by Big Red Tomato earlier this year. Balance has a user-friendly focus as well, but takes it to a higher level. As you might guess from the name, Balance has your health in mind — whatever your definition of health might be. High carb, high protein, vegetarian/vegan, low fat — you name it, Balance tries to cover it. It’s a noble ambition. And since many members of the Midtown community are obsessed with their bodies, it’s the perfect concept for the ‘hood, right? Too bad the food just isn’t very good.
Executive Chef Edgar Cruz, a former sous-chef at Spice, borrowed the original menu idea for Balance from Craft, an exquisite New York restaurant run by passionate chef Tom Collichio (under whom Cruz trained at New York’s Gramercy Tavern). The concept put the diner to work: You chose your protein, cooking technique (grilled, sauteed, etc.), sauces and sides. In theory, all that freedom seems ideal. Aren’t many of us always asking for substitutions anyway? In practice, though, what we really want is an astute chef we can trust to simply do his/her thing.
Craft eventually toned down the number of its choices, and Balance has followed suit. (Aside from the lengthy ordering process, customers also carped justifiably about high prices from ordering their entire meal a la carte.) Now the technique and saucing of your fish, meat or veggie dish are decided for you. The only choice left to make is which sides should accompany your meal.
With a bit of luck you can put together a tasty dinner. Grilled trout is moist and well-seasoned. It makes for a light meal when paired with sauteed cauliflower and a blob of creamy herbed risotto. My friend who works out like a fiend loves the hanger steak matched with almond-flecked brown rice and delicately garlicky Swiss chard. The grilled bison New York strip makes a juicy alternative to beef.
Unfortunately, my luck ran out with the above dishes. Grilled grouper with a tomato vinaigrette tasted like it had been out of water a day or two too long. When the food is this simple, the basic ingredients need to dazzle. A side dish of potatoes barely deserved its label of “gratin,” by definition a rich dish with butter, cream and/or cheese. This thing had bland, mealy potatoes barely bound by any of the above. Serve a gratin the way it’s meant to be made or don’t serve it at all.
Salads suffer from a similar fate. Many of the dressings lean heavily on vinegar to reduce fat and supposedly pump up flavor, but the notion doesn’t really fly. The endive and blue cheese salad (with precious little of the latter) is an incoherent jumble of chewy rabbit food sitting in an acid bath. A combination of raw and roasted beets gets no support from a watery champagne vinaigrette.
The appetizers I tried discouraged me even more. Bitter eggplant mush given the upscale title of “caviar” shows up on soggy crisps. Allegedly warm goat cheese comes to the table with a cold, chalky center. Scallops are fishy and served on a salad composed of a different (and less appetizing) variety of seaweed than advertised. Getting the picture?
You’d think the concept would lend itself to some fine vegetarian innovations, particularly considering the dearth of accomplished meat-free cooking in this city. Nope. The best option is the seared tofu topped with a spicy peanut sauce. Tempeh, one of the cooler creations of soybean cuisine, is doused with insipid black bean sauce and strewn with a few limp snow peas. Baked beans with cipollini onions become monotonous after two bites.
I’m too disheartened by the end of the meal to attempt dessert (and the cliched offerings of tiramisu and Key lime pie don’t do much to prod me either). Hoof down to Jake’s for some Breakfast in Bed ice cream if you want something sweet.
They have done a nice job spiffing up the joint with cobalt blue-tiled tables and giving the inside a metallic gray West Hollywood look — Midtown’s boys of summer will certainly approve. The flower arrangements are lovely. But what’s going on at the unventilated bar? I spy two patrons chain smoking like nobody’s business. I know smokers can follow the Atkin’s diet too, and most everyone eats on the patio anyway, but still ...
It’s just another confounding symptom in an experience that falters terribly with the purported mission statement of Balance’s chef and owners. In other words: Restaurant, balance thyself.