RauDZ Report

Yesterday my Facebook status announced I was going out for dinner.  My sister-in-law asked me for a detailed report on the evening's menu.  Naturally I always do what I'm told, so here it is!

We arrived at RauDZ on Water Street at 5:50.  Unfortunately they don't take reservations and there was no room at the Inn.  There was an hour and fifteen minute wait and the host suggested we go somewhere else for drinks first, offering to take our phone number and call us when our table was ready.  We decided to go for it and walked down Bernard, picking up our daughter from work on the way.  My husband had the great idea of going to The Rotten Grape for wine and tapas.  Luckily it's easy to find a seat there at this time of year.  

My daughter and I chose The View's Red Shoe Red and my husband ordered a glass of Red Rooster's Cabernet Merlot   I'd recently brushed my teeth and found the wine a bit tart.  My taste buds did seem off a bit as I found the Baba Ghanoush we shared to be fairly bland despite my companions' comments on the nice caraway flavour.  We also ordered the curried broccoli and manchego cakes, which were quite tasty, reminding me of my chicken divan recipe without the chicken. The serving was fairly small (two cakes) but it was enough to whet our appetites and we didn't want to spoil our upcoming meal.  With perfect timing, my phone vibrated as we were finishing our tapas and after settling the bill we walked back to RauDZ.

Though I had thought it would be nice to chat with some interesting strangers at the long common table, most of it had been taken over by a group of ladies who appeared to be having a bachelorette party. I was quite happy when our host directed us to a booth.  My daughter ordered the backyard lemonade to start, my husband a glass of red wine and I had a vodka martini with extra olives.  I guess he didn't hear the "s" on extra olives as my drink arrived with only two.

I had checked the online menu earlier, and was thinking about the Wild Boar Rigatoni.  As luck would have it they had just changed the menu and the Rigatoni was gone.  I was considering the Risotto, but I knew it would put my blood sugar into orbit and I didn't want to have to take large amount insulin I'd need to be able to deal with all that white rice.  I ended up ordering the Butcher Special of the day, which was a flat iron steak served over potatoes with roasted broccoli, heritage beets and a chantarelle mushroom sauce.  It was excellent.  The sauce was smooth and peppery, with thin slices of garlic and the chantarelles had nice texture and flavour.  Roasted broccoli has never appealed to me.  The tiny florettes can burn easily and get a gritty texture.  They fall off in your mouth making you think you've eaten some dirt.  The potatoes were peppery as well, with a rough mash and a darker shade that made me wonder if they'd been cooked in a beef broth. They were very tasty.  The meat was fairly tender, flavourful and almost perfectly cooked, a touch more rare than the medium rare that I ordered but I didn't mind.

My husband and daughter ordered the Coast Special, which tonight was Halibut, served with potato pave, pesto, heritage beets, and roasted vegetables including carrots, peppers and onions.  There might have been some braised fennel in there too, maybe fennel pesto? Or maybe crushed fennel on the fish itself?  There was definitely fennel somewhere but I don't quite remember.  I did have a sample and it was very good.

We finished the meal with espresso macchiato ...RauDZ does make the best of any restaurant in town.  I think he serves you double the usual amount because it's normally pretty tiny. 

(My apologies for the out of focus photos of the food.  Neither my husband nor I could figure out was was going on with my camera last night.  The flash made no difference.  It was quite frustrating but I thought I'd post anyway just to give you an idea of the look of the meal.)