The restaurant itself is quite striking, though I'm not sure tavern is the word I'd use to describe it. The space still looks very much like a chapel, with soaring ceilings and lots of white paint, stained glass windows and an altar. It's an impressive setting, but all those hard surfaces make for a noisy dining room. I'm also not entirely sure what the restaurant has to do with the famous Wye Oak, Maryland's former state tree, which met its demise in 2002. Perhaps there's a connection beyond the name.
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| Blurry because it was dark: taiyaki with smoked trout brandade. |
We started with two appetizers, both of which sounded intriguing. The smoked trout brandade came with potato taiyaki waffles and smoked trout roe. If you're unfamiliar with taiyaki, they're little fish-shaped cakes, traditionally filled with sweet bean paste. Here, they were made with potato, which seemed an odd choice given that brandade already contains potato. Hot potato on potato action isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly for carbophiles like us, but in this case, the little fish seemed a bit squishy to use as a base for a spread. The brandade itself was lovely, as was the smoked trout roe perched on top. I just wish the kitchen had resisted the urge to complicate an otherwise lovely dish with squishy little potato fish.
Only after looking at my photographs the next day did I notice that there had been a tiny spoon on the plate, presumably for scooping up the brandade. The restaurant was dark enough that neither of us noticed it during dinner. We managed with our forks and knives, like barbarians. And I am now realizing, as I write this, that the menu states there was an egg salad togarashi component to the dish, but I couldn't tell you where it was.
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| cold fried chicken liver pate with Twin Bears sourdough "waffle" |
Our other appetizer was cold fried chicken liver pâté with "waffles" (quotes theirs). The pâté was molded into the shape of a fried chicken drumstick, breaded, and served with rectangles of waffle-like sourdough. (I am unsure whether they were mini waffles made with a sourdough batter, or slices of sourdough bread that had been compressed in a waffle iron.) It was an amusing presentation, and the pâté itself was quite good. Unfortunately, the waffles were quite tough. I suppose we could have left them whole, smeared each with half of the pâté, and eaten them with our hands, again like barbarians. Instead, we attempted to cut the waffles into smaller pieces—no easy task with the knives with which we had been supplied. Personally, I think a crisp piece of unadulterated toast would have worked better. And if they insisted on making the chicken and waffles connection, perhaps they could use a little brand shaped like a grid of squares to mark the bread.
For our main course, we ordered the 14oz New York strip steak, cooked medium-rare, with brown butter béarnaise sauce. The steak arrived properly cooked, with a nicely seasoned crust. It was a good piece of beef, although, as sometimes happens with strip steaks, there were fatty and gristly sections that Mr. Minx found disappointing. The béarnaise was interesting, but I found it a bit too tangy. Most disappointing was the cheddar popover that comes with their steaks—a dry dark-brown shell, lacking in any cheddar flavor or the characteristic eggy airiness of the species.
We also ordered two sides: broccoli rabe and rigatoni arrabbiata. The broccoli rabe was aggressively garlicky. I like garlic, but this was enough to ward off vampires in neighboring counties. The rigatoni was perfectly serviceable, but the sauce was an arrabbiata in name only. Arrabbiata is supposed to be spicy—its name means angry, after all. This sauce was creamy, texturally closer to a vodka sauce, with none of the heat I was expecting. The pasta is made in-house, and the dish was tasty, but unexpected in a meh sort of way.
By this point, we were full, and there was plenty of food remaining. We packed up the steak, pasta, broccoli rabe, and béarnaise to take back to the hotel. Dessert was out of the question.
Service was pleasant and attentive throughout the evening. I'd mentioned our anniversary when making the reservation through OpenTable, and just about everyone wished us a happy one: the head hostess, the person who escorted us to our table, and our waitress. Even the couple sitting next to us joined in. They were celebrating their first anniversary. When they learned we were celebrating our twenty-sixth, the young couple asked whether marriage had been fun.
I looked at Mr. Minx. "Fun?"
The couple looked stricken. I hastened to explain that marriage isn't necessarily fun, because you don't spend your lives together floating around in a bubble of love. There are aging parents to worry about and eventually lose, beloved pets who get sick and eventually die, and all the assorted indignities and expenses of homeownership. A quarter-century of marriage involves a great deal of ordinary life, and ordinary life isn't always entertaining. I hope I didn't frighten them too badly.
The next morning, we discovered that our leftovers were perhaps the best part of the Wye Oak experience. The hotel offered breakfast, so we went downstairs for coffee and carbohydrates. I snagged an English muffin, and Mr. Minx took a bagel. Back in our room, we made sandwiches with the leftover steak and brown butter béarnaise. Cold from the refrigerator, the sauce had firmed up into something resembling a flavored butter, and its tartness was much less pronounced. It was excellent on the steak sandwiches. I also combined the leftover broccoli rabe and rigatoni, which we ate alongside our sandwiches. The combination improved both dishes, although the garlic remained enthusiastic. At least we were both equally offensive.
So what did I think of Wye Oak Tavern?
I have mixed feelings. The restaurant is certainly ambitious—it is run by the Voltaggio brothers, so that is to be expected—and there were some very good flavors on our plates. The brandade and smoked trout roe were delicious. The chicken liver pâté was tasty and cleverly presented. The steak was properly cooked, and the service was friendly. But I kept wishing the kitchen would stop trying quite so hard. Both appetizers suffered from their waffle-y accompaniments, the arrabbiata lacked its defining characteristic, and the broccoli rate was excessively garlicky. The chapel is an impressive space, but it's also loud, and the atmosphere doesn't quite match the restaurant's name.
I miss Volt. Very much.
The best part about our dinner was getting two hearty meals out of it—I'm all about repurposing leftovers. Oh, and Mr Minx's dirty martini, intriguingly flavored with a "pizza tincture" that we simply must reverse engineer.
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