Come on, Baby... Let's do the Twist!

DO and I were recently in Atlanta for one night and stayed at the Conference Center Holiday Inn Select. Although there are a wide variety of wonderful places to eat and go in Atlanta, we decided to have dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. Between one kid taking a break from his hike up the Appalachian Trail and another home from college to take classes locally this summer, we don’t get much time alone with each other. That’s not a complaint. We love the kids and it’s great to be able to see and spend time with them. It’s just that we decided that by eating at the hotel, we’d gain an extra hour or two of private time.

The hotel restaurant had the promising name of the RockFish Grille. The “e” on the end of the word Grille is a sure indicator of fine dining and an excellent experience, right? With a separate bar/lounge on the property, a plush and well-decorated lobby, and a glance at the room service menu (to get an idea of the offerings) we were looking forward to a nice dinner.

The menu offerings were nice but not remarkable. We weren’t expecting Bacchanalia and although the prices at the RockFish Grille were higher than I would have expected, they didn’t seem too unreasonable. Entrees were, for the most part, priced in the mid-twenty dollar range. The restaurant was not busy and our server only had one other table.

I have a mini-rant and a glowing rave about our RockFish Grille experience. First, the rant:

I ordered a martini. I thought it would be okay. After all, the décor and the service so far had told me this was a somewhat upscale place. They had a separate bar. There was a decent wine list. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m rather picky about martinis; however, I have learned to lower my expectations a little bit and I’ve also simplified my order when I’m seated at a table instead of a bar. Bombay Sapphire, very dry (by the way, very dry means just a tiny bit of dry vermouth and not an absence of it), not shaken, with a lemon twist. It’s really not that difficult. Because the restaurant wasn’t very crowded and we were seated not too far from the hostess stand, I heard our server place the bar order (via phone). She ordered it perfectly. Any mediocre bartender would be able to make my martini.

This is what the bar sent to our table:


In what bizarro world bar is that a twist? That’s a lemon garnish, a lemon wheel, a lemon slice, for fox ache. The only thing twisted about it is the bartender’s belief that it’s a twist.

THIS is a twist:








I’m a daring gal. I had hope that the martini would still be tasty and I’d then make the lemon slice a lemon twist. I don’t know what happened. It’s possible it wasn’t Bombay Sapphire. It’s possible the vermouth was older than I am. It’s possible there was an ice shortage in Atlanta that day. What’s likely is that there was a combination of several of those things mixed with an inexperienced bartender. I did not like that martini one little bit. What I also didn’t like one little bit was the fact that we were eating at a place where it seemed a good martini would be available and it wasn't.

Our server saved the day (evening). She was attentive and friendly and excellent at her job. We explained that we’d be sharing several dishes and that we planned to take our time. We weren’t worried about letting other guests have our table so she’d have good turnover – there weren’t any other guests waiting for that table. She gave us her honest opinion about the choices on the menu and she patiently answered my questions about how the steak was prepared. She said she’d make sure only dry spices were used on my steak (no butter) and she kept her word. She checked on us from time to time and placed the orders for our meal in time with our pace. When she brought out our salad (one of our shared dishes), she noted that the dressing was sparse for a reason.

She said, “When you ordered your steak ‘dry’ and the butter and sour cream on the side, I thought you’d probably want less dressing on your salad, too. I’ll be happy to go get more for you if you’d like.”

Damn. That’s attentive. That’s good service. It’s just one small example of the quality of service we received most of that evening from her. We ended up asking her why she wasn’t working at a five star restaurant because she certainly understood that whole “taking care of the customer” concept. Her explanation was a good one. She’d worked there for years, the other staff was like family to her, and they accommodated her nursing school schedule. Plus, she didn’t care for the strict formality of the higher-end dining places and she liked to feel free to let some of her joyous spirit show rather than always speaking softly and in well-modulated tones.

I neglected to take pictures of most of the courses but will update this post later with pictures of the stuffed cookies we had as one of our desserts – along with a description of them. I dream of these cookies.

~edit~
Stuffed cookies - one of each. Shortbread stuffed with raspberry; chocolate stuffed with peanut butter; chocolate chip stuffed with chocolate truffle; chocolate stuffed with coconut. These were amazing and delicious.



I Paid For That? Gladly.