Weber Grill

Saturday night saw another New Restaurant Saturday outing, this time with Amber, Damien, me, and D's friend Jeff. This week: Weber Grill.

All of us had heard mixed reviews, primarily of the 'it's overrated' variety, but Ber and I had both been wanting to try it so the boys agreed.

The ambiance was crowded and a bit noisy, but comfortable in a leather-and-dark-wood sort of way. And the service--well, I'm sad to say that the service was by far the worst part of the evening. We sat down and were given water, but no carafe of water like the other tables. Then we were brought rolls (very interesting 'pretzel bread'), but no silverware--namely knives--with which to spread butter. We were reduced to scooping the cheese-butter out with pieces of bread. Very uncouth. Besides that, she also mixed up our bills pretty badly.

But on to the food itself. Amber got the "Pick 2" BBQ combo of brisket (she liked it a lot) and pulled pork (she liked it not as much). Damien got the flank steak in chimichurri marinade and reports that it was pretty tasty. Jeff got Sesame Crusted Yellow Fin Tuna, rare, because it was sushi grade and seemed to enjoy it. I was probably the least satisfied with my choice--a Turkey Burger. I have had some seriously good turkey burgers in my time, and this was not one of them. It was okay, but did not leave much of a lasting impression. Leaving more of an impression on me was the Romaine Wedge salad--a twist on the classic blue cheese, tomato, onion, and bacon salad that's normally served over a wedge of iceberg. This one was on romaine, obviously, and was delicious. Large pieces of bacon, plenty of chunky blue cheese along with a cool, creamy blue cheese dressing. The only thing that it lacked was grape tomatoes--Scholar's Inn's wedge salad used to feature those small, sweet tomatoes which were a perfect compliment to the saltiness of the rest of the dish. Weber used ordinary vine tomatoes, and sadly they had little flavor.

D opted for the Dutch apple pie for dessert and was kind enough to share. It was very tasty, with as much crumbly streusel topping as there were apples, and served warm next to ice cream. Unfortunately the coffee he and Jeff got was less pleasing--they said it tasted burnt, like it had been sitting there too long. They asked our waitress to take it off the bill, and she obliged.

I think that does it for my evaluation. Perhaps the steak would have been fantastic if I had felt like spending $30 on one. My summation of this place's main issue? It's trying to be a fancy pants steakhouse, but 1) it's also catering to the masses and 2) it's just plain doesn't have the goods or the service to back it up. It's overpriced for what it is. My recommendation is to skip it.