Restaurant Week at Maze- Gordon Ramsey

It seems kind of odd to me that I’ve never eaten at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. I see him shouting all over television constantly you would think it would remind me to eat at one of his places. When I saw the Maze participating in RW I decided it was finally time to try one out. I had the day off of work for some playoff football recovery time so I decided it would be the perfect excuse for lunch.




They started me off with a warm basket of bread and some butter which was incredibly unsatisfying for some reason. The bread had no flavor. Even a little salty butter on top didn’t help- it was just incredibly bland. Luckily that wouldn’t be the theme of the meal. My appetizer the Roasted Spanish Mackerel, grilled romaine lettuce, tomato marmalade, parmesan and basil.




Mackerel is a funny fish- sometimes I hate it other times I love it. Here it was definitely towards the love side. The tomato marmalade was delicious and the bitter greens and parmesan just completely worked with the mackerel. Onto entrees Roasted Amish chicken breast with red cabbage, gaufrette potato, fig and red wine jus.





The waiter poured my red wine jus tableside which is something I consider to be classic Ramsey style. I hardly ever order chicken in a restaurant and I don’t know why since this chicken was cooked absolutely perfect. I loved the red wine and gaufrette potato. It gave the dish a nice salty kick and some crunchy texture. The only thing I didn’t care for was the red cabbage which was entirely too sour for my tastes. Unfortunately dessert didn’t fare as well as my first two courses.





The Buttermilk panna cotta, concord grape, oat sable and maple ice cream was disappointing. Nothing was wrong with it per se, it just was incredibly boring and pedestrian. I’ve had yogurt parfaits from the corner sandwich shop that were more exciting. So most of the food was great but I’m not sure I’ll make a return trip.


The atmosphere of the restaurant was kind of strange. I was prepared for it to be fancy but it felt somewhat sterile and detached. The bar had these big, fluffy bar stools but not one person ever sat down for a drink. No one ever offered to take my coat although I saw multiple coat check tags and I sat for a good 5 minutes at my table with no menu. None of these things are terrible they just put me off a bit. However a stop in the ladies room on my way out did score a few more points in their favor. The bathrooms were almost sparkling they were so clean and pristine. I’m not sure how I feel on the whole experience. I may leave this one at undecided.


Maze- Gordon Ramsey

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ramsay was just on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares making fun of a grilled romaine salad (it was called grilled ceasar salad)...he said on camera he'd never heard of such a thing...
Anonymous said…
Well, not to split hairs, but he said he'd never heard of a grilled salad - grilled lettuce is one thing, grilled salad another. Although, personally, I don't think grilled salad would be a problem at all--but then I don't have a culinary degree nor do I own a restaurant.
Anonymous said…
I had also had heard of grilled romaine I thought it was odd that he said that too.
Anonymous said…
The problem he had with the grilled salad on the show was that the guy had grilled the entire head, which was a health issue because without taking off the butt of the lettuce, it's hard to clean it well enough to serve it in a restaurant. And what he hadn't heard of was that it was a "grilled Caesar salad" but was just an entire head of lettuce. Even if you out the grilling, it's still a big head of lettuce being served as a "Caesar salad."
Anonymous said…
Well, Ramsey complained about a halved romaine lettuce “head” with the butt on. Nonetheless, he complained of a grilled Ceasar’s salad made with grilled romaine lettuce. Now, here, he serves grilled romaine lettuce. Pretty hypocritical!