River Cafe: CornerTable goes to Brooklyn

Let me set the scene: it was a gorgeous night, no clouds in the sky; a perfect early summer night in NYC… or should I say Brooklyn?
Yes, I went to a borough.

The River Café’s famous setting is why people go there, for the views of Manhattan and the flowery surrounding garden (which smelled amazing). The décor and the view made you feel like you were on a boat on the river. Yet, what they are lacking is the reason people go back to restaurants time and time again… the food. Who cares about the view when you are spending $98 a person (all meals are price fixed) for food you can get anywhere. It is just not as impressive as the skyline.

The tasting menu sounded meek (and was $125 btw), so we went for the two app, two entrée scene. Of course, now that it is summer time, there was a soft shell crab appetizer special, which we promptly ordered. We also went for the rabbit and ravioli. The soft shell crab appetizer was a rather large crab with…to be honest; I don’t even remember what was on the side of the crab. It was decently cooked, but considering I had a decent soft shell crab entrée the night before at a random restaurant/bar in Hoboken, I wasn’t enthralled. The Rabbit and Ravioli appetizer was rabbit loin wrapped in panchetta on top of hand-made cheese ravioli. I was expecting the cheese to be of the stinky, flavorful variety to balance out the gamey taste of the rabbit. To my chagrin, both the rabbit and the ravioli were bland, nearly tasteless, considering all the potential it had.

Now, before I go onto the entrees I must tell you the real reason I will never go back to River Café. It should be obvious that I didn’t care much for the food, but it was the despicable service that did me in. Consider this… I had no idea who was actually our waiter. There were about 5 people working for us, filling water, clearing silverware, folding napkins, etc. But, until we were seated for, let’s underestimate it at, 20 minutes, we were not asked what we wanted for drinks. Then, once we actually ordered a bottle of wine and some prosecco, we waited, again underestimated, 20 minutes until we were asked if we were ready to order. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for a leisurely dinner, but there comes a point where you are sitting there at the table with your menu closed with no one in the restaurant acting like you are there, when you realize that something has gone wrong. Did our waiter quit? Do we not have one? Oh! There he is. Once we ordered, we got our food within another 20 minutes (rather quick actually). But, at the end we were completely ignored for the check. After 3 hours of dining, when half the restaurant was empty… we just sat there…wondering…maybe we should have dined and dashed?!

So, onto the entrees. I had the branzino with tomatoes and some lemon sauce that I chose not to put all over my fish. They unhappily left the sauce at the table for me when I told them I wanted it on the side. The fish wasn’t horrible. It was covered with a baked almond crust and stuffed with shrimp and chorizo, which is the reason our “waiter” (and I use that term loosely) told me it was a better choice than the sea bass with artichokes. My date had the rack of lamb, which was supposedly one of their specialties. I found the lamb to be extremely fatty, so much so that there were huge chucks of fat left on the plate with each piece. The dessert was decent, and came with the price fixed menu. I don’t normally order a dessert, so I ordered the fancy Brooklyn bridge mousse, where chocolate was formed in the shape of the bridge. It was cool. I took a picture.

One we were finally able to pay and leave, we found that we were at the edge of Brooklyn with no way to get home! Luckily, I scored a cab, where we got to hear the end of the Cavs game (Lebron is ridiculous) and got safely back to the city.

By the way, if you have been there, please let me know if you also think that the dining room is slanted towards the water? It was a little disorienting.