LATEST NEWSRECENT REVIEWSRECENT COMMENTSLATEST POSTSOTHER STUFF
Last Update: Mar 17th, 2012
Pinon grill

Pinon Grill

6000 Glades Rd
Boca Raton FL, 33431
(561) 391-7770
Overall Rating
3.1
Food
Service
Ambiance
Last Review
03/17/2012

Details

Hours: Sun-Thu 11:30-10pm, FriSat 11:30pm-11pm
Parking: Private Lot
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Outside Dining: Yes
Reservations: Yes
Delivery: No

Critic's Review

I never really thought about going to the Pinon Grill before; it was a new, rather expensive mall restaurant that initially hired a PR agency who is known to have bad restaurants as clients. There are enough restaurants around to not have to try every restaurant in Boca Raton. But recently, the restaurant group that runs Pinon bought out Rare Las Olas and announced that they'd be opening a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale called The Grill on Las Olas. Now I had a reason to check them out.

I was up in Boca on Thursday and stopped in about 8:30pm, but they had some sort of networking event and the place was packed, so my idea to sit at the bar and have a couple of apps was thwarted. But one thing you can say about the place; it's a handsome venue. The bar is very upscale, with big TVs and an impressive wall of bottles.

Pinon Grill Bar

I decided to go back for brunch, even though the menu doesn't thrill me. They serve brunch on both Saturday and Sunday until 3pm. At just after 2 on Saturday it was pretty dead; of course it was St Patrick's day so people may just have had other plans. There was nothing green about the place or the way the employees were dressed; just another day for Pinon.

There was NCAA basketball on, but I didn't want to eat at the bar, so I asked for a booth in the bar area. The place is decorated with nice materials; there's one stone wall and another with stacked logs.

Pinongrill inside

I asked for some coffee as I already knew what I was going to order. When you sit in a booth at the bar, the bartender is your server, which is less than ideal. Another server took my order for the crabcake eggs benedict and brought me my coffee; I declined ketchup for the potatoes; after my coffee was delivered the bartender came over with some ketchup. "No thanks, I don't take ketchup on breakfast potatoes". I asked for the password for their wiFi only to be told that it didn't work.

They give you a decent sized coffee cup, and it's a good thing, because I wasn't offered a refill until after I asked for the check. The eggs came out pretty quickly.

Pinon Grill Crabcake Eggs Benedict

My first impression that it was a smallish portion for $16; very small crabcakes and small eggs as well. No bread (Bread is $3 extra). I tasted one of the potatoes to see if they needed salt and it was very interesting; they're battered somehow and are almost like red potato tater tots; very good. The presentation faux pas with the dish is that the asparagus were char grilled which not only doesn't go with a delicate egg dish, but the black was coming off into the hollandaise, which doesn't look very nice. The asparagus should probably be blanched with a breakfast dish; grilling goes better with salmon. The eggs themselves where poached properly; the biscuit couldn't be discerned from the usual english muffin under the crabcake, egg and sauce. The hollandaise was ok; not very buttery or lemony; a bit benign but nothing bad about it. As it turns out it was enough food, but $18.50 is steep, particularly considering that the coffee was junk. I remember when coffee at a nice restaurant was the kind of stuff that you couldn't even buy in a store. No more of that.

I asked my server how they made the potatoes and her answer was "I don't know, but they're good, aren't they"? Staff here are mere robots to shuttle things to the table.

My impression of the restaurant is that it's fairly typical of a "high end" South Florida restaurant; A very nice atmosphere, overpriced, with barely competently prepared food and poorly trained staff. While their brunch may have trouble competing on Las Olas with Cheesecake Factory and Big City Tavern just a block away, if they build a nice restaurant that serves as a good place to hang out, they'll fit right in and provide a substantial alternative dining and mingling choice on Las Olas Boulevard.

Comment Policy Add Comment

Next: Positano Italian Restaurant