Critic's Review
Today I made a mistake. Today I went into the Brown Dog Eatery.
The mistake I made was I looked at the menu for the Brown Dog Eatery in Georgia, and they have a much better menu than this place. I thought perhaps Elliot had come to his senses about his pricing. I was wrong.
The parking lot here is a disaster; with trucks parked there's barely enough space to pass through. One side has free parking and the other is metered; all of the employees in the stores take up the free parking and the customers get to pay.
It started badly as there's no hostess, so I was just standing at the front door for awhile. There were a bunch of Ladies who Lunch at the bar, so there was no chance I was sitting there. And the high tops at the bar looked sad and unappealing.
A server came over and asked if I'd like a booth, table or outside. "A booth please". The problem is, there are no booths at the Brown dog. Note to staff: bench seating are not booths just because they're cushioned.
This place looks exactly like it did when it was Santa Lucia, a place that I really hated. They expanded the old Frankie and Johnny's and it just looks like a makeshift restaurant. Zero privacy in the entire place.
A view of Oakland Park Blvd provides glare throughout your meal during the stay. Bring Sunglasses.
There is no actual lunch menu here; just a bar bites menu with a $13 price point.
I couldn't really find anything I wanted on the menu; I'd decided what I wanted on the wrong menu and everything here is ridiculously priced. Why are the Fish and Chips $23 here when it's $19 at Del Frisco's on Las Olas? How stupid are the people who come here? I just ordered the French Onion Soup, because it's something I was thinking about recently.
Music is all over the place ranging from the annoying Chic's "Everybody Dand" to Manfred Mann and David Bowie. The soup came out in 8 minutes.
Looked about right on the surface. although green onions on French onion soup seemed odd. This stuff is HOT, so you have to wait a bit to eat it.
They claim the cheese is "gruyere, provolone and swiss" cheese. Why all 3? Gruyere is used classically, although most of the chain restaurants that we're used to use provolone and/or mozzarella. The cheese on the soup was ok.
There were a lot of onions in the soup; I can't complain that they loaded it up with bread and broth like some places.
But the taste was a bit off. Maybe the sourdough; maybe they left out the sherry or the bouquet garni. Not bad, but not great either.
So I'm done with the soup and my glass is empty and I'm waiting and waiting for my server to get my check. I waited at least 5 minutes with this in front of me.
When he did come over and I told him to get my check, he took the bowl and left the glass without offering a refill on my $3 glass of colored water. That cost him a buck.
Conclusion
I avoided this place because after several visits to Red Cow and one to Top Hat, I've given up on Be Nice restaurants. My initial discovery of Coconut's Jambalaya was a stroke of luck; never to be repeated.
Is soup and iced tea worth $12? I'll leave that up to you.
I didn't like this place when it was Santa Lucia, and I still don't like it. I just don't believe that Wolf's food is worth the prices he charges.
Pre-Opening Musings
Not sure what happened with Twenty Seven Oak, but it looks like Eliott Wolf will be opening yet-another overpriced eatery at this location. Keeping with the colored animal themes used with his Red Cow and Foxy Brown restaurants,
I would have hoped for a different color here, but it is what it is. Unfortunately the only thing I've had that I really like at any of Wolf's restaurants was the Jambalaya at Coconut's, so excuse me for not being very interested in this.
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