Saturday, June 22, 2013

San Diego, CA - Cafe 21; My eyes are in love. The dish arrived and it was beautiful and creative. A work of art. That was the climax unfortunately.

The Shrimp Corn Cake with Poached Egg and Cilantro Cream Sauce arrived. The contrast in colors were dazzling and not over whelming. I took a minute to look at the carefully constructed dish to allow my eyes to become smitten.

My taste buds were not equally impressed. With the colors delivered to my delight, the flavor fell flat. Nothing worse than a bland dish. Nothing popped, nothing stood out. The corn cakes did have a nice harder sauteed outer shell, soft on the inside with a soft muted crab flavor. It either needed more crab to elevate the flavor or less corn which muted the crab. The eggs were poached well with beautiful runny yokes. I love cilantro, pack it in. It has a wonderful herbaceous flavor, why hide it in the background. The color of the cream sauce and even seeing little pieces of cilantro in it that survived the puree process, still, barely any flavor of cilantro. How disappointing.

The staff was really nice and welcoming and they have a nice patio to enjoy outside people watching while eating.

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