Yesterday, we were all like, “both the Tribune and the TOC review suburban restaurants, so we’ll leave them to the sharks.” But then David Tamarkin was all, “’fraid not! Brasserie Ruhlmann what what.”*
And sure enough, we went to back to TOC’s Eat Out page and there was the review. We’d like to think it wasn’t there yesterday, but who knows, it easily could have been. Our face was especially red because when Mr. Tamarkin reviewed Old Town Brasserie, we even mentioned that we were looking forward to his BR review in comparison - a battle of the brasseries, if you would.
Oh man, well, if you thought David liked OTB, he loved Brasserie Ruhlmann, giving it 25% more stars than its competitor. OTB had a few identifiable flaws - a tasteless smoked salmon terrine, a commonplace salad Lyonnaise, underwhelming pâté - but the worst Mr. T could come up with for BR is that his waitress presumptuously implied that their steaks were famous. Which, based on the rest of the review, turned out to be justifiable.
Choice out-of-context quotes:
• “getting deep into the luscious experience that is dining at [BR]”
• “rich, savory, deep, penetrating flavors”
• “each one plumper and more succulent than the one before it”
• “impossibly tender…and…expertly balanced”
Nous pensons que la Brasserie Ruhlmann a gagné, n’est pas?
Brasserie Ruhlmann [TOC]
Brasserie Ruhlmann [MenuPages]
[Photo: do you know how long that took to make in Paint? Longer than it should have! ]
* Not an actual quote
