Tempt

931 Canal St., New Orleans, LA (in The Saint hotel)
http://www.thesainthotelneworleans.com/tempt.html
(Sorry for the lack of photos on this one--we didn't think to snap a couple, and the website/Facebook for the restaurant has no photos worth using)

Overall Ratings (H in orange, C in purple)
Food: B-/C
Ambiance: C-/B-
Drinks: C
Overall Experience: C/C


Quick Thoughts:

H says: The only time I would go back would be if I was staying at the Saint and didn’t want to bother walking the 150 feet to McDonald's. It was that bad. Both of our main courses were undercooked. The mussels appetizer was full of sand and grit and the wine was terribly young. For a place that has only a few options, the food was far from adequate.
C says: The restaurant is still young (they've just re-vamped it) and I had high hopes for the food because the chef formerly worked at a restaurant I really enjoy, but it just wasn't up to par. We had an appetizer, main courses, and a dessert, and I left hungry and dissatisfied. 



Full Run-Down from H:

We were very much looking forward to having dinner at Tempt. C had informed me that its head chef was from one of her more favorite restaurants, Patois. My first warning sign should have been the fact that she had obtained a daily deal. [Note from C: It was a pretty unbelievable deal, so I should have had an inkling the restaurant might not be good, but the Patois cred of the chef gave me hope. Plus, they just re-branded the restaurant because the original was a flop, so I figured they were just trying to lure folks back in.] In my experience, the restaurants that give these out are not worth the money that you would pay for a regular meal. They are trying to get you in the door so you will buy some of their expensive drinks. Basically if it has good food, they don’t bother trying to get people in the door that way. Regardless, we were here and I was determined to enjoy myself. Unfortunately things didn’t get much better.


The decor is post-modern in style, and entirely too white for my tastes. I also prefer a more dimly lit cozy spot to have a dinner with C. Tempt had too much light, too much white and not enough pop. [Note from C: I prefer a little more light than H, so it didn't really bother me. The stark black-and-white is not quite my taste, nor does it fit the feeling of the city, in my opinion, but I could see what they were trying for, and I thought it was ok. However, they need more signage--the restaurant is small and right at the front of the hotel as you walk in the lobby, so I wasn't sure if we were in the right place.] Plus when we were shown to our seats, we were given a booth made out of a rubber-like material that when I sat down and/or moved at all made a loud sound like I was rubbing my face against a balloon. However amusing this was at the time, I don’t want my seat to make noise everytime I move. [Note from C: The booths are shiny and white--almost like a patent-leather shoe. I really don't think the material was chosen for the comic relief (though I was laughing every time H moved), so I have to give them a FAIL on that one.]


Can’t get any worse, right? Well, the next part was something out of a bad movie. Our waitress came out and took our order and then less than 20 seconds later another waiter came out, gave us the same spiel and tried to take our order. Now, if this was in an Outback, I can understand, but there were only 2 other tables occupied in the whole place. How hard can it be to keep each table straight? But, I digress. [Note from C: I'd rather have over-service than under-service, and they're definitely still working the kinks out, so to me this was more comic relief rather than a major strike against them.]  The first portion of our meal to arrive was the mussels appetizer and wine. First off, I understand serving a inexpensive bottle of wine as a special, but if you are trying to attract a customer base, handing me a young, not very great-tasting wine is a pretty quick way to have me write you off. Needless to say, I was not impressed. The mussels themselves were from Maine, which I heartily approve of; the problem was that the sauce had not properly infused itself with the mussels and there wasn’t much sauce in the bowl to dip them in. Also the mussels were sandy/gritty in some cases. [Note from C: Agreed. The sauce was pretty tasty, but the mussels on top had almost no flavor from the sauce, and the grittiness of some was not pleasant.]


For my main entree, I had ordered a pork chop with a strawberry glaze with sausage and corn mixed in as a side. The corn and sausage was great, but the pork chop wasn’t anything special and portions of it were undercooked. At this point, I lost interest. Nothing was impressing and there are plenty of other places to spend my money on food in the Big Easy. No more daily deals; that's my recommendation.


C says, I had the gulf fish for an entree, which was served with a lemon-butter sauce, eggplant puree (very little of that, mainly just smeared on the plate for looks, which is not a great idea because although I love eggplant, it's not particularly attractive on a plate), and greens (collards, probably), cooked with bacon. The puree was good, but there was very little of it, and the greens were ok, but if you are going to serve greens in the South, they'd better be awesome! I made the mistake of not asking what the fish was. I think it was wahoo or something similar--it was a very meaty fish, which is not my preference (I much prefer trout, redfish, drum, grouper--something along those lines; a fillet, not a steak). I'm not sure if it was over-cooked or undercooked, or if it was just filleted improperly, but the texture was off. It was rare in the middle, and though some fish can be served that way, it's not my preference. But the well-done parts had an odd, meaty texture, too. I should have inquired about the type of fish before ordering, but usually in NOLA, you just can't go wrong! It failed to impress, and I didn't even finish it, although I was hungry. For dessert, we shared the s'mores eclair (2 in a serving), which were tasty, but nothing to write home about--kind of a yawn to end the meal. 


Although we had high hopes for Tempt, it's unlikely we'll ever go back. 

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Hi, and welcome to our blog! We’ll get to the restaurant reviews shortly, but we thought we should introduce ourselves and the blog first, so you have an idea of what this is all about.

Caitlin is a born-and-raised NOLA girl, and Henry is a Yankee new to the area. Since we live in such a great city for food, we love to eat out, and with over 1300 restaurants in the metro area, there are plenty of places to try! So, we thought we’d share our thoughts here, so you’ll know where to go for a great meal and which places to skip.

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