The Restaurant at 1900 is in a late 60’s building that has been restored and turned into a mixed use space.  It was once the location of the Green Parrot Restaurant that ran from the 1920’s to the 1950’s.  It now displays a collection of salt and pepper shakers that were part of the late Rose Karbank collection.  It is a medium sized dining room with a large bar area that also includes a few tables.  The lighting is lowered and the tables are medium sized marble ones.  A wall of windows makes up the front of the place and spot lights are over each table.  There is a large patio.   The mostly older crowd was fairly dressy.  Service was friendly but really, really slow and the food is variable.  I would not go back.

Set up

 

Food and Drink

When we first were seated we ordered a Negroni cocktail and it was good with one big cube, so less dilution.

 

One of our starter dishes was the Mustard Seed fried rabbit loin salad which contained compressed persimmon, shaved fennel, watercress and frilly mustard greens, hazelnuts and whole grain mustard-leek chimichurri.   The persimmon was thinly sliced large rounds at the bottom with the mix of greens on top and the rabbit on the side.  The greens were nicely dressed and the addition of pommegranate seeds helped the already good textural mix on the plate. The rabbit pieces were nicely fried and fairly moist.

 

The scallion pancake held Brussels sprouts and shiitake mushroom and was served with a  soy ginger dipping sauce and a Korean cucumber salad.  The pancake was soft not crispy on the edge as I expected.  It was mildly tasty but the dipping sauce really added to the flavor.  The cucumber salad was nicely spicy.

 

Porcini-rubbed filet mignon was alongside butter-glazed black and pearl barley, grilled radicchio, apples, celery and preserved lemon with a veal demiglace.  The beef was cooked a beautiful rare as requested, but was really dull in flavor.  It could have benefitted from more sauce or salt or both.  The barley combined with the apples was okay.  A disappointing plate.

 

Coffee and molasses brined Bershire pork chop was with black mission fig and cherry chutney, braised fennel and green tomatoes and artichoke puree.  This was one of the server’s favorites.  The pork was reasonably moist and picked up lots of flavor from the brine and fruit.  The fennel and tomatoes were on top of the puree, which was tasty.  It was the better of the 2 main plates but still didn’t cross into great territory.

 

For dessert we shared the Balsamic poached pears with almond-orange brioche and toasted cinnamon whipped cream.  Here the almond brioche was the best part with the pear-balsamic reduction sauce being a smear on the plate.  The plate did offer some textural interest but was mostly dull.