Years ago, writer Dorothy Parker recognized the futility of premature judgments. She responded to a lover apologizing for a hastily concluded performance with the assurance, “Don’t worry; I don’t review rehearsals.”
Ms. Grace, in her comments about Agraria, has reviewed a rehearsal.
This "review" does a tremendous disservice to a restaurant that opened barely a month ago amidst a flurry of well-publicized difficulties. Ms. Grace is certainly entitled to her opinions, but what qualifies her to transform those opinions into facts? After sampling only four dishes, Ms. Grace feels that she has collected sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that the public should not order food at Agraria. In their nascent days, restaurants have enough problems as it is without having someone pass careless public judgments that directly affect their fiscal health and the livelihoods their employees.
The proliferation of the internet has been particularly troublesome for restaurateurs. On foodie blogs and websites, the ability to eat and type is the only qualification necessary to become a Restaurant Critic. Opinions and errors masquerading in the form of reviews regularly pass for factual information which readers then mistake for truth. Online diner reviews have a veneer of authority that casual cocktail party stories about restaurant experiences do not, and restaurateurs are left holding the bag. They have no recourse; even if they had the time to respond to these promulgations, doing so would only open them to more criticism and/or to accusations of excuse-making. And so the public continues to say whatever it wishes without any accountability; they do not have to answer to pesky editors and fact-checkers as real journalists do.
The only hope that restaurant owners have is that someone might come along who calls a diner's comments into question. People who are not journalists but play them online open themselves to scrutiny and must expect to take what they dish out. It is with this in mind that I would like to review Ms. Grace’s comments:
The author does not list any credentials which would suggest that she is an authority on restaurants. The quality of the writing does not instill confidence. Leaving matters of grammar, syntax, and punctuation aside, I will only say that I have learned from experience that a writer’s work improves greatly when the red pencil is taken up in place of the poisoned pen.
“The bar area and dining room are gorgeous.” Why? What do they look like?
“(T)he homemade drinks at Restaurant Eve in Old Town Alexandria surpass Agraria's attempts at uniqueness - that is in terms of taste.” How? Why? How could Ms. Grace make such a sweeping statement after having sampled, at most, two drinks?
“The Caesar's salad was pre-prepared in a refrigerator - so it was not freshly-made. ( you can tell when the plate is served super cold and "sweating" from the condensation).” I do not concur with Ms. Grace’s deductions. The fact that a salad is cold does mean that it was prepared ahead of time. Does Ms. Grace think that restaurants cut and wash lettuce for individual salads to order? Restaurants store salad plates in refrigerators. It is no mystery of science that once a cold plate meets warm air, condensation occurs.
“The dressing was sub-par, at best.” Why? What did it taste like? What makes a dressing “par?”
“The scallops had not been cooked correctly as there was a crusty brown rim on each of them - from sitting underneath a heating window too long.” This is simply incorrect. The brown rim on the scallops indicates that they have been seared. If the dish had been under a heat-lamp long enough for the scallops to “broil,” the scallops would not have browned in a ring.
“And then the sauces served with the scallops - too many of them and too many flavors. There was caviar sprinkled on top of the scallops, and then the sauce base was creme fraiche and some type of pesto. Quite frankly, with all these sauces, there was still very little taste to the entire dish.” Ms. Grace complains of too many flavors and then contradicts herself by saying there was little taste to the dish. It is difficult to believe that caviar and pesto “didn’t taste like anything.”
“And by the way - the scallop dish alone costs $29. Ridiculous considering it doesn't taste like anything AND the scallops were not cooked correctly.” Price is not a function of flavor or degree of doneness. How many scallops were there in the dish? How large were they? What kind of scallops were they? $29 is certainly not out of line for a sea scallop entrée these days, considering that the food cost for the scallops alone could easily be in the $6 range.
“The watercress salad started off ok - if Agraria would just stick to one type of citrus. Instead, they insert BOTH mandarin orange, as well as sliced of lime. it also included shaved fennel. The overall dressing did not complement the watercress. It doesn't blend together and it sets the palate to different tastes without enjoying one or the other.” Since when do orange and lime make a poor combination? Why did the dressing not complement the salad in her opinion? The combination of watercress, orange, lime, and fennel makes perfect sense to me intellectually and there is no compelling evidence here that would suggest otherwise.
“Then the Tagiatelle was undercooked. Several of the pasta noodles were not Al dente.” Does Ms. Grace mean to say that some of the noodles were cooked more than others? That would be a dubious achievement.
“And from my perspective - there is no need to top off a pesto dish with pine nuts, since pesto sauce already has pine nuts in it.” And from my perspective, as a chef, topping a pesto dish with pine nuts is perfectly acceptable; it’s called a garnish.
“We did not have dessert.” In other words, Ms. Grace has not yet researched her subject sufficiently.
“And for two drinks, two starters, and two mains, we paid $101. Overpriced .” I do not know where Ms. Grace has been eating recently, but this sounds like the going rate to me for a restaurant of Agraria’s echelon.
“In General - This restaurant has kinks that need to be worked. Most importantly, they need a menu and food that tastes like something. I hope that when the chef shows up - sometime later this month, that I can post something different. But for now, just go for the drinks and the view.” Of course the restaurant has kinks to work out; it just opened. To say they need food that tastes like something is simply of no value. It is not a criticism; it is an empty statement. Without ever having been to Agraria, I can say with complete confidence that although the food is not to Ms. Grace’s liking, it tastes like something.
Yes, Agraria is open and charging full prices, but that does not mean the public should reject its food based on someone’s questionable opinions. Paying for flawed meals in new restaurants is an investment for which diners should be willing to incur initial losses. It amounts to a leap of faith, a nurturing process of tolerance and patience similar to that which parents undergo while newborn children are learning how to walk.
David Hagedorn
