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JAZZ'OO
It’s like when you buy a great new pair of shoes. They look fabulous, fit perfectly, but will still require a little breaking in before they become completely comfortable.
That’s JAZZ'OO.
It is billed as a European Bar and Lounge, located on Sparks Street just up from Yesterdays.
It is a restaurant, bar, patio, jazz club and probably any number of other things that weren’t immediately obvious.
We arrived and stood inside for a good 10 minutes before anyone asked if we wanted a table. In that 10 minute span a number of waiters had breezed by us, one stood talking to patrons on the outside patio.
But we eventually got seated and left with our menus. Some time later our waiter returned to ask if we wanted to order drinks. No water, no bread, no advice and seemingly no particular interest.
We wanted to order just a juice and a glass of water deciding to wait until we got the lay of the land. There was some discussion about the juices available. The waiter returned with the wrong juice but managed to get my glass of water right. We said nothing.
The menu is interesting and offers a good choice of options. The salads range into the 18 dollar range while entrees hover between 22 to 35 dollars.
Our waiter returned and asked if we were ready to order. In announcing that there were other items available that weren’t on the menu he promptly pulled out his order pad and began to read the choices to us. I hate this. Serving is part of the experience of dining. Surely your server should know what is on offer, how it is prepared and perhaps, if you’re lucky, even how things taste.
We ordered a Mediterranean Seafood Salad to share ($18). Lynn wanted to try the Mediterranean tenderloin goulash with a tomato paprika chili sauce on basmati rice ($22). I opted for one the specials, a 10 oz steak with steamed vegetables, roasted potatoes and a mushroom wine reduction sauce ($25).
I also ordered a glass of wine from one the most curious wine list I have ever seen. It is pages and pages long. What is curious about it is that it tells you what wines are available but most aren’t. 90 percent of what they list are not available. Think of it as a wine wish list where your wish never comes true.
Finally the bread arrived along with our salad plates. Lynn’s plate had encrusted tomato sauce on the bottom while mine was soap scummed. When my wine finally arrived I told our waiter that we wanted clean salad dishes. “Okay,” he said as he scooped up the dirty ones and left.
The salad arrived along with clean plates. The presentation was odd. Holding true to the current rule of building height on a plate this salad had the height constructed by assorted greens tented underneath 3 full leaves of romaine lettuce sprinkled with the dill yogurt dressing. The upside down cake approach to salads. There was a Sesame encrusted piece of tuna, two sea scallops and two shrimps – not the jumbo shrimps as advertised.
This was a great salad. The tuna was perfectly seared and just warmish inside. The scallops and shrimps were just right. The real surprise was the dill yogurt dressing. It had just a hint of dill, not a heavy hand, and something sweetish to balance the yogurt. I am guessing it was a small drop of honey.
It’s like when you buy a great new pair of shoes. They look fabulous, fit perfectly, but will still require a little breaking in before they become completely comfortable.
That’s JAZZ'OO.
It is billed as a European Bar and Lounge, located on Sparks Street just up from Yesterdays.
It is a restaurant, bar, patio, jazz club and probably any number of other things that weren’t immediately obvious.
We arrived and stood inside for a good 10 minutes before anyone asked if we wanted a table. In that 10 minute span a number of waiters had breezed by us, one stood talking to patrons on the outside patio.
But we eventually got seated and left with our menus. Some time later our waiter returned to ask if we wanted to order drinks. No water, no bread, no advice and seemingly no particular interest.
We wanted to order just a juice and a glass of water deciding to wait until we got the lay of the land. There was some discussion about the juices available. The waiter returned with the wrong juice but managed to get my glass of water right. We said nothing.
The menu is interesting and offers a good choice of options. The salads range into the 18 dollar range while entrees hover between 22 to 35 dollars.
Our waiter returned and asked if we were ready to order. In announcing that there were other items available that weren’t on the menu he promptly pulled out his order pad and began to read the choices to us. I hate this. Serving is part of the experience of dining. Surely your server should know what is on offer, how it is prepared and perhaps, if you’re lucky, even how things taste.
We ordered a Mediterranean Seafood Salad to share ($18). Lynn wanted to try the Mediterranean tenderloin goulash with a tomato paprika chili sauce on basmati rice ($22). I opted for one the specials, a 10 oz steak with steamed vegetables, roasted potatoes and a mushroom wine reduction sauce ($25).
I also ordered a glass of wine from one the most curious wine list I have ever seen. It is pages and pages long. What is curious about it is that it tells you what wines are available but most aren’t. 90 percent of what they list are not available. Think of it as a wine wish list where your wish never comes true.
Finally the bread arrived along with our salad plates. Lynn’s plate had encrusted tomato sauce on the bottom while mine was soap scummed. When my wine finally arrived I told our waiter that we wanted clean salad dishes. “Okay,” he said as he scooped up the dirty ones and left.
The salad arrived along with clean plates. The presentation was odd. Holding true to the current rule of building height on a plate this salad had the height constructed by assorted greens tented underneath 3 full leaves of romaine lettuce sprinkled with the dill yogurt dressing. The upside down cake approach to salads. There was a Sesame encrusted piece of tuna, two sea scallops and two shrimps – not the jumbo shrimps as advertised.
This was a great salad. The tuna was perfectly seared and just warmish inside. The scallops and shrimps were just right. The real surprise was the dill yogurt dressing. It had just a hint of dill, not a heavy hand, and something sweetish to balance the yogurt. I am guessing it was a small drop of honey.
Our plates were cleared and while we awaited our main dishes I noticed another waiter attending to a nearby table. He was animated, full of information, suggestions and was engaging. For the first time ever I realized I was experiencing waiter envy.
Our entrees arrived. Both dishes were well plated. We dug in. "Oh no," raced through my brain as I tried to slice my steak with my Crocodile Dundee sized steak knife. I had a tough piece of meat. It was perfectly prepared, the right color and a perfect crusted sear. The sauce was a treasure. The potatoes were earthy and pungent. The Swiss chard was great but the new small carrots were heated but still annoyingly raw.
To be fair the steak was a good quality piece of meat. As I sawed my way around the gristle there was gold, mind you it only appeared in the smallest of nuggets, but it was quality. I decided that I had just gotten that one bad steak in a hundred of other perfect steaks. Somewhat like our waiter.
I looked up at Lynn to see her fanning herself. “This is hot and very spicy,” she said. She reached for my glass of water for relief. Her own water glass had never been on our waiters agenda.
Lynn is a hot babe in more ways than one. Spicy food is something she enjoys and eats regularly. She was enjoying her dish but would have rather been warned about its bite. Our waiter hadn’t bothered to share that information, or worse he might not have even known.
Drone # 6 returned and asked how our meal was. Most of my carved up steak was still on my plate and I mentioned that the cut was bad. “Can I do something,” he asked. “Well, probably not..,” I responded as a question. “Okay,” he replied as he scooped up our plates and left.
The bill was $91.00 I rounded it off to a 100 dollars. Normally I tip in the 15 to 20 percent range but not on this night.
Serving food is not just a job it is a profession and a good professional can make your experience something special. A good server can serve everyone, the customer, themselves and the business. It is easy to be ordinary and not that difficult to be memorable.
JAZZ’OO has a lot of potential. It is a great looking space, it has great music and offers live Jazz on the weekends. The Wednesday night we were there they had a guitarist playing on the patio.
What it lacks at the moment is focus. The night that we were dining no one was in control, no management to attend to the problems, to oversee the flow of the room, no one to host the experience.
JAZZ’OO
132 Sparks Street,
613-232-6161
www.jazzoobarandlounge.com
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