Critic's Review
I had no intention of going to The Foundry today. I was just out for a drive and I noticed that there were people there; the decision was made.
On one side of the restaurant all of the spots are allocated to Houston's, which is across the street. Houston's has been around a long time, so they get dibs on the spots. The lot on the other side of the restaurant offers free parking for the restaurant.
I went inside and it started out somewhat humorously. I'm standing at the hostess stand and the hostess is 10 feet away talking to the bartender. She showed no interest in acknowledging me. Finally a guy came over who seemed to be the manager. "Would you like to sit at the bar?", he asked automatically.
"No, a table please".
They have booths for 2 so there wasn't any negotiation required. At 2:30 the place was fairly empty.
He gave me a menu and I took a quick look. This is the lunch menu? Well as it turns out, there is no lunch menu. Way too overpriced for lunch. A passing by server took my beverage order.
They have a raw bar in the back; I think a lot of old guys like the idea of a raw bar as they're making a re-appearance. It seems like a high margin idea until you don't sell as much as you expect and you end up having to throw much of it away.
The tea arrived and my server rattled off a bunch of things that she said they added to the menu, without prices of course. Since they just started serving lunch yesterday it seemed like maybe they just needed a new menu. How hard is it to print out the new items on a piece of paper? I stopped listening after a while as I wasn't going to get surprised by a $30 sandwich special.
I was going to just order some mussels, but I decided to get the short rib instead. $20, with a mushroom farro ragout and a vegetable salad. She took my order and scampered off.
They have free Wi-Fi; music is kind of funky with "Trouble" and "I Can Change" playing; after a couple of minutes the manager dude came over and told me that it would take 15 minutes to make the entree. You can't make a short rib in 15 minutes, even in a pressure cooker, and if it's prepped it shouldn't take that long, so I thought the timing was odd, but I said fine. It gave me a chance to hit the men's room
On the way out I could see the main room better; the place is much bigger than I expected. Remember that Mr Fish was here before; a relatively small fish store.
After a few minutes I realized there was no bread; another exemplary dining experience in and around Fort Lauderdale. $20-32 for a lunch entree and there's no bread service. Tick tock. Tick tock. 15 minutes comes and goes. 20 minutes. 25 minutes. 29 minutes later, a runner appears with the food.
As I was preparing to photograph the dish, the ladies leaving the next table were marveling at the presentation. I was less impressed. The short rib was too square; the "vegetable" salad didn't look edible, and I didn't like the smell coming from the plate. I took a few pictures and tried to figure out what was going on with the salad. Everything was raw, and there was a very strong, vinegary dressing on it. The salad wasn't edible.
Time to examine the short rib. I'm always suspicious of short ribs when they don't give you the bone. Many restaurants just put a block of braised meat in front of diners and 95% of people in South Florida can't tell the difference. I broke it up and took a taste. It needed another 10 minutes. It was also very lean and bland. Great short rib combines with the braising liquid to form a flavorful gravy, but there was none of that going on here. I suspect that the "ragout" was cooked separately.
My server never bothered to check on me; she was setting up a table nearby and I flagged her down and asked for salt and pepper. Short ribs shouldn't need salt. Salt made it edible, but it still wasn't braised enough so it was pretty boring. I'm not convinced that it was a short rib.
The farro with mushrooms were also hopelessly under seasoned and tasted like wine or dry vermouth. This is the kind of stuff that makes ladies who lunch oh and ah while leaving those with higher standards totally disappointed.
As is usual in South Florida, when I was ready to leave my server was nowhere to be found. I had to ask another server to fetch her so I could ask for my check.
Conclusion
So what we have here is a restaurant that has adopted the policies of Houston's across the street (Wildly high prices, no lunch menu, no bread) without bothering to go through the 30 years of establishing themselves as a reputable restaurant.
It's a very nice restaurant, very corporate, with Houston's prices without the waterfront ambiance or the pedigree. There aren't many nice restaurants around here (which is why Houston's does so well), but I couldn't see coming here for lunch at these prices, even if I had liked the food.