Spago DineLA menu

Oh, no. It mirrored every other Spago experience I’ve had, and was pleasantly paced.

Aside: I absolutely refuse to dine out on Valentine’s Day. It’s like the worst offenders of DineLA, Brunch spots, and NYE combine to make misery-inducing performance art pieces.

I actually was never given a wine pairing menu. And I didn’t get any photos, either. I know we started with a glass of Duval Leroy, and then Williamette Valley (cannot recall the house) and Foxen Chards, in some order.
I felt these to be pretty uninspired beginnings, though the wines themselves were fine. I know things perked up towards the end with a Portugese Red and a '10 Barolo (great year), though for the life of me I’m blanking on any more details.

Caveat: I am not a “wine snob”, at least I don’t think. But, afterwards my wife and I both said we perhaps ought simply to have ordered a bottle.

Counterpoint: all of the wines were fine, at a minimum, to good/really good. But nothing revelatory.

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Totally agree. Vday is near my bday. We do a combo, but usually a day before or after the holiday.

Went last night and pretty much concur with your assessment, food wise. The cod was my least favorite dish of the savory courses, but I really liked the cook on it. Not bad, but not a wow. The dish that really blew my mind was the smoked salmon amuse with the potato chip espuma. It legit tasted like a chip, but was impossibly silky. This is an instance in which modernist technique really lent itself well to the advancement of the dish. As a matter of fact, the whole flight of amuses really delighted by friend and I. Service was tight, friendly, and fun without being overbearing. This was certainly an atypical DineLA experience. Server was explaining that this was a version of their “California Tasting Menu”, but at $40 lower than the normal price. At $145, I would have been alright with it. At $125, even more enticing. Put my faith back in Puck and company last night.

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Went over the weekend for the DineLA tasting menu. The restaurant was packed…didn’t know Spago was still that popular, or is it because of DineLA?

On to the meal…it was good but far from perfect. Of the small bites, the spicy tuna cone and the bacon macaron were my favorites. The smoked salmon mousse had an off putting pasty texture. Kind of like eating glue. Wasn’t silky and airy like it should be.

The agnolotti with black truffles, a course I was most looking forward to, was also a let down. Not because the agnolotti wasn’t good. In fact, it was very good and could have been a great dish on its own, but the black truffles they added had ZERO flavor. I put my nose right up on the truffles and couldn’t smell a thing. Such a waste.

My other disappointment was the veal cheek. Good flavors, but again, the texture was all wrong. It was super fatty and mushy. Not appetizing.

The desserts were also meh. The sorbet was so tart, i couldn’t finish it. The rasberries served with the bombe were also so tart and lacked any sweetness.

I didn’t mind the cod dish as others have pointed out. Thought it was very good. The lobster was poached perfectly and really enjoyed the pastel.

Service was good but inconsistent. I asked about the wine pairing and asked if they had a written menu for it and our server said they didn’t. I asked what was being poured and she didn’t know but just said “it’s really good.” I asked how much it was and she wasn’t sure so had to go ask someone ($95). I chose not to do it mainly because @a213b said it wasn’t great and opted to do several glasses of wine. Started with a glass of Riesling and the sommelier came out with the bottle, showed me the bottle, and let me taste before pouring the glass. My next two glasses of wine (different wines each time) was brought to me already poured in the glass by our server. Not the end of the world, but for a restaurant of this caliber, I think that’s a miss. Pacing was also not great…the earlier courses came out like rapid fire but we had to wait 15 minutes for the last dessert course (odd given that there is nothing to cook and just needed to be plated).

I guess this is sounding like a pretty negative review, but we did enjoy the dinner. Just wasn’t up to Providence standards. Oh and if any of you are curious about portion size as I was, we left completely stuffed.

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#BecauseDineLA

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[quote=“tailbacku, post:24, topic:4939”]
The restaurant was packed…didn’t know Spago was still that popular, or is it because of DineLA?
[/quote]Last time I was there for lunch (not dine/la) the restaurant was full, with people waiting in the bar. I don’t know about dinner, but they definitely still get the power lunch crowd.

Went last Friday night and it was pretty packed, so I think they are still doing pretty well and not just because of DineLA. Enjoyed the off-menu schnitzel and corn agnlotti. Don’t remember much else. But I will say that at restaurants I enjoy, I won’t order their DineLA menu cause who knows what quality / portion size you will get…

Spago corkage is steep at $50/bottle and with a party of 10, we elected to order wine off the list. That ended up working out quite well, as everyone got 3-4 glasses of wine for about the same as it would have cost to order by the glass (but with “better” wine).

My Father’s favorite. BITD, Wolfgang would make it for him with tomato sauce and mozzarella on top - an Austrian Chicken Parm.

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Golden bouillon with perfect little liver dumpling quenelles. And +1 on the schnitzel.