Grocery Bistro

We started off dinner with a big fail. Grocery Bistro is a BYOB restaurant. Instead of bringing a bottle of wine from home, we decided to go to Perman's Wine Selection next door so they could help us choose a bottle. Their website said they are open until 9 pm to accomodate diners at Grocery Bistro and are sometimes open even later. When we got there slightly after 8 pm, the place was completely dark. Thankfully, there is a Dominicks grocery store right across the street where we were able to buy a bottle.

Grocery Bistro is not the place you want to go for a private and romantic dinner. There is a giant table in the middle that several parties are seated at. The tables along the sides are practically right on top of each other.

The appetizer list looked fantastic and I wanted one of everything. I started with the curried crab and apple napoleon, crispy wonton, and cilantro whipped cream. The crab was delicious. The only complaint was there was a bit too much cream since there was a thick layer at the top and bottom.

The Husband had the multigrain bruschetta with goat cheese, oven-dried tomato, and fava bean hummus. It was wonderful. It was also nice since this one was not messy and falling apart like traditional bruschetta often does.

I had the grilled ancho-rubbed flank steak with melted tomatillo, corn puree, chimichurri coulis, and tostones. This steak was too spicy for me to finish. If they cut back on some of the spice it would have been excellent.

The Husband had the Tallgrass Farms burger with white chedder and fried egg. He really enjoyed the burger although he said the egg over powered the cheese too much and he couldn't taste the cheese. It came with a side of frites and truffle aioli. The frites were awesome. Nice and small and crispy and the aoili was excellent.

For dessert I had the cheese plate. It came with tallegio, a blue cheese, and a parmesan-reggiano. The tallegio was good. The blue cheese was too mild, you could barely even taste the blue. And the parmesan-reggiano was too soft and almost processed. Definitely not worth the $14.

The Husband had the Venezuelan chocolate and bacon toffee crepe with creme anglaise. I tried the bacon toffee and it was excellent. Sweet and savory inside. He liked the crepe a lot. I didn't even get to try a piece.

Grocery Bistro has a fixed price menu available Monday through Thursday from 5 pm - 7 pm for $29 for three courses. This would be a good choice if you're looking to save some money. Generally when I eat out I prefer to do it on a weekend though and also at a later hour.

Overall I thought this ended up being a little pricey for a BYOB. Our total bill was $110 without wine. It also sounds like there's some drama with the owner. From the sounds of it, he didn't pay his last chef. So the last chef quit and they've got a new one. I've only pieced this together from things I read on yelp.com but he sounds kind of shady although I'm not sure of the full story.