Wednesday - Out to dinner at Torches

Yesterday was M and my wedding anniversary. We, obviously, couldn't go out last night because who could miss the parade??? Not us. So, we went out one night late. We went to Torches, a restaurant we have only been to once before, and that was on New Years Eve and you can't really gauge a place on a night like that. We enjoyed it then and were ready to try it "for real".

I have to be honest, the night began rather roughly. M ordered a dry martini up with a twist and was presented with a wet, slightly dirty, martini up with three olives. we thought about keeping it, but there were a couple other martinis still on the bar and we thought we might have gotten the wrong one. So, the waitress took it back and, it wasn't the wrong one, but the bartender re-made it. Meanwhile, while waiting for the next martini, we ordered and M asked for the veal shank (yes, they have free range veal at Torches!) special. The waitress says, "Oh, didn't I tell you, we're out of that. What else do you want?" There wasn't anything else on the menu that M really wanted as much, but he ordered the steak frites. At this point drink two came and was so "dirty" that all you could taste was salt. It was, literally, undrinkable. We were seriously considering leaving, but instead we told the waitress again. The owner came over and made M's drink himself. It was perfect and that segued into a MUCH better, in fact truly excellent, meal.

Appetizers:
Grilled calamari (M)
Pot stickers (J)

Main:
Steak frites (M)
Salmon with kalamata tapenade, lemon hummus, and tabouli (J)

Dessert:
Bananas foster cheesecake

There was not a single food mis-step. We had a great night and came away very certain that our rough start was not typical. We will definitely be back :)