Restaurant Week 2009
By the time many of you read this, the primary week for Restaurant Week 2009 will have officially begun. However, as we've discussed previously, this is the second year for an official preview weekend before Restaurant Week. The preview weekend is sponsored by 10 Cane Rum and Grand Marnier. Officially, restaurants participating in this weekend are to charge $40 for the meal instead of the standard $35, but the Central Market 4th Course and a special cocktail including either 10 Cane Rum or Grand Marnier are to be included with the meal. I say "officially," because that was not exactly the experience I had this evening. My first stop for Restaurant Week was Bailey's Prime Plus in Cedar Hill. In place of full participation in the Preview Weekend as publicized, Bailey's Prime Plus simply began serving their Re staurant Week menu early. There was no cocktail included, and we were charged for the optional 4th course, as we did not know we needed to bring a Central Market voucher with us. Although I was admittedly disappointed by the difference, this is the only time I will mention it. I am assuming it was a mistake made by a new restaurant, and I will treat the rest of the review as a standard Restaurant Week service.
As I live and work considerably north of Cedar Hill, it is certainly not an area I frequent. However, as I'm always pushing people to get outside their bubbles and seek out different parts of the metroplex, we did not take location into account when choosing the short list of restaurants to actually visit during Restaurant Week this year. Instead, we went one by one through the stack of menu choices looking for things that were different from our usual dining experiences and of course sounded delicious.
Bailey's Prime Plus is located in Uptown Village at Cedar Hill. The development is quite large, so it's not difficult to locate. However, the signage in the area is not very good, so it can be quite difficult to find one individual space, but we gave ourselves plenty of time to drive around and look for the restaurant. I can't say it was easy to find, although once you come upon the building, it's pretty hard to miss the white columns and gold guilding. However, I have to say that it was worth the search.
I often say that the first impression of any restaurant comes with the first person you encounter. Quite often that person is a valet. Bailey's Prime Plus offers complimentary valet parking. However, there was plenty of open parking available, and I was already heading for a parking spot before I noticed that. Quite often, not using valet services would be cause to be ignored by the valet, but not at Bailey's Prime Plus. The valet welcomed us to the restaurant and, along with a hostess from inside, held ope n the restaurant's front doors for us. In the elegant lobby, we were immediately greeted and shown to our table in the central dining room.
The high level of hospitality was continued in the dining room. Since our server was at one of his other tables when we were seated, another server appeared to take our beverage order before the hostess had even returned to the front. Before he could make it back with our Pellegrino, one of the managers came to welcome us to the restaurant, and he immediately apologized that we had not yet received our drinks. Less than a minute after his departure, our server, Josh, came to welcome us. The manager then returned to serve our water in chilled glasses while Josh went to get the freshly cut limes.
I give you this much detail regarding our experience before even ordering our food because it was very indicative of the experience throughout the evening. It was very clear that at Bailey's Prime Plus, every employee considers e very person in the restaurant to be his or her customer. When a water glass gets low, you can count on the very next person who passes by to fill it no matter where in the heiarchy that individual ranks or if you are sitting at one of his or her tables. However, we never doubted that we were one of Josh's top priorities, and I never found myself wondering where he was.
Now let's get to the food. A Restaurant Week Review is a little different from most reviews. The price is set at $35, and the menu choices are more limited. Therefore, the info boxes at the bottom of the review show the offerings for each course, regardless of which selections we sampled.
The Central Market Fourth Course was served first. It was an almond crusted fried brie served with strawberry balsamic ginger jam and Marsala wine jelly. Although we both agreed that we weren't sure it was worth an additional $7 per person, it made for a very nice amuse bouche. If you've been doing your sh opping at Central Market and have the vouchers to get the course for free, you should definitely go for it. When the course was first placed on the table, I was a little concerned. It appeared that the thickness of the almond crust combined with the generous amount of jam would overpower the subtle flavors in the creamy brie. However, I was wrong. The combination of flavors was truly exceptional. The complexity of the cheese managed to shine through and combined beautifully with the crust, jam, and jelly.
Next, we had one of each salad. I love dining with my sister, Rebecca, for many reasons. One of them is that she doesn't mind letting me try her food. She had the Half Slice, which to me sounded a great deal like your standard "wedge" salad. I'm not normally a big fan of the wedge. You tend to get a huge chunk of hard iceberg lettuce that tastes like crispy water with a variety of other salad toppings scattered around and either way too much or not nearly en ough dressing dumped on top. This salad was a pleasant surprise. The lettuce was flavorful and the tomatoes were perfectly ripe. When you combined that with top quality bacon and blue cheese crumbles, it made for a very refreshing and flavorful course. I had "That Salad," which was another pleasant surprise. It sounds like a lot of sweetness with the cherries, the candied pistachios, and the maple-sherry vinaigrette, but it was once again a beautifully refreshing combination of flavors. It wouldn't be quite right without any one of the ingredients. The bitter greens and the saltiness of the blue cheese just worked beautifully with the soft sweetness of the brandied cherries, the crunch of the pistachios, and the slight bite of the vinaigrette.
For the entree course, we had the striped bass and the filet mignon. The fish was perfectly cooked, and the subtle spiciness from the jalapeno and onion crust came through beautifully. Although the flavor of the tequila did not necessarily shine through, the red chile cream sauce was a perfect addition. The creamed corn was probably the best example of that dish I have ever tasted. When creamed, corn quite often becomes broken and "mushy." While this corn was creamy and smooth, the individual kernels were sweet, firm, and delicious. I always get nervous about reviewing a meal during which Rebecca orders a steak. After all, we have sent back steaks in some of the top steakhouses in the world. She eats her steaks Blue, otherwise known as extra rare. While I prefer my steaks at least warm all the way through, her order is a perfect test of a restaurant's steaks. Not only do we get to see if they can cook the outside of the steak without overcooking the middle, but if they get it right the true flavor of their beef is showcased perfectly in such a rare piece of meat. Although the steak was warm in the center, it was beautifully dark red all the way through, and a manager appeared as so on as the steak hit the table to ask if it was cooked properly. The steak was served with Purple Peruvian Mashed Potatoes and a Truffled Bleu Cheese Cream. The cream sauce was smooth and delicious. We actually discussed the mashed potatoes more than anything else. They had an incredible flavor, and the potatoes were smooth and perfectly creamy. However, the skins had been left in the dish. Personally, I normally love a good skins-on rustic mashed potato, but they just did not work here. The potatoes were smooth and creamy. The pieces of skin were large, tough, and a little gritty. It was kind of like finding a bone in a beautifully prepared fish fillet. However, as a whole, the entree was a success.
Dessert was the only course in which I would say I was actually a little disappointed. Normally, with two of us dining, we would have each ordered a different dessert to try them both. However, neither of us could find any interest in a giant cream puff filled w ith vanilla pudding, so we both ordered the Banana Butterscotch Toffee Pie, although it sounded a little "busier" than desserts I typically enjoy. At first bite, the butterscotch toffee seemed to overwhelm the rest of the flavors, although someone who prefers their desserts incredibly sugary sweet and rich might have found that to be a positive trait. The butterscotch toffee was the bottom layer of the dessert, so I cut off about half the bottom layer and acutally rather enjoyed the dessert after that. The sliced bananas had a very fresh flavor, and the bittersweet chocolate was just tart enough to balance out the sweetness of the dish without all of the toffee present.
It always seems to me that when reading a critique of anything, the negative comments, no matter how small, are often the ones that stick out in your mind after reading it, so I like to close with a summary of my feelings to leave you with my actual overall opinion. I was quite happy with my visit t o Bailey's Prime Plus. I seldom order dessert, and the flow of flavor profiles from the Fried Brie through the That Salad and Texas Striped Bass was really incredible. I will definitely make the drive to Cedar Hill again.