Just got back from a Restaurant Week lunch at Deep Blue Bar & Grill.
While they couldn't find our inital reservation - not sure what happened there - the friendly staff was very accommodating and sat us right away. Good thing, the dining room was buzzing with customers a mere 15 minute later.
At Deep Blue, you have six options for the first course and six options for the second. It's one of the larger Restaurant Week menus.
I always run into a dilemma when I'm dining out - do I order what I really want or get items that I think other people would most likely order?
For this lunch, it was 50-50. Since this is a seafood restaurant, I went with things that swim in the sea: fried calamari with jalapeno curry aioli for the first course and then got the crab cake sandwich with melted jack cheese, tomato, cole slaw, french fries.
My dining buddy ordered the seafood spring rolls with cucumber mint salad, wasabi aioli, sweet Thai chile sauce and the pan seared sea scallops with saffron Serrano ham rice, avocado crab salad, chorizo broth.
The lightly crispy calamari, which easily feeds two, was right on the mark - especially the very artistic Sriracha swirls on the side of plate and the creamy, yet zippy jalapeno curry aioli. The crunchy spring rolls came with equally eye-pleasing, and very pretty, swirly wasabi and chili sauces. (Keep that budding Picasso on staff!)
However, I wish I read the menu more closely when it came to the crab cake. I'm not a big fan of cheese on my crab cake - I think it cloaks the sweet flavor of the meat - and this one had a layer of oozy jack cheese.
It was fine, but, to be perfectly honest, after a few bites of what was essentially a crab melt, OK fries and not bad, not great cole slaw, I was wishing I had ordered something a little more imaginative. (I know, I know. The two-course meal is only 15 beans, but still...)
Maybe the grilled New York Strip Steak with white truffle mashed potatoes, creamy spinach and Cabrales blue cheese butter or perhaps the grilled salmon with scallion potato hash, roasted garlic spinach and green peppercorn sauce?
My companion chose much more wisely and after a few bites of her beautifully seared sea scallops and the smoky chorizo broth, I began coveting that dish. Next time.
UPDATE: Some suits at The News Journal - i.e. people who have bigger offices and salaries than me - grabbed a table today at the Hotel du Pont's Green Room for a Restaurant Week lunch. Raves all around. My boss said they all loved the salmon. The service was top-tier and the dining room was full. Good to hear.
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We had dinner at Deep Blue last night and did a lot of sharing. They were too busy and our server made lots of mistakes and bad deliveries to us. But... the food was lovely. Not a great review on the spring roll too much dough, but the calamari was a big success. Dinners: the scallops were great, sea bass very very good with too many "calypso beans" not a great pairing, and excellent grilled cauliflower; nice crabcakes with very thick masked potato with lobster but not much lobster taste. At 7 they were already out of the peach/raspberry crisp, the tres leches cake was indifferent, dulce de leche cheesecake not remarkable, but the tiramisu ice cream was excellent as was the chocolate sorbet.
We indulged with oysters first, having a sampler and they were fresh and well presented.
Can't wait to hear how the others were.
A group of us went to Deep Blue yesterday for a Restaurant Week lunch. I hadn't been there for at least a year and half. Before that I was more or less a regular patron. I have to tell you I was very disappointed with the lunch. I could not believe how the quality (and quantity) of food has changed. You are absolutely right about the crab cake sandwich. It was a crab melt (not a sandwich) and certainly not a very good crab melt. There were only about 3 french fries on my plate. The fries were good, just very scarce. The cole slaw served with the crab "melt" had no taste. We all ate and had a pretty good time, but this is the first time I had ever been at Deep Blue and not heard someone comment on how excellent the food was. What is going on???
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