The eagerly-anticipated O Steaks & Seafood restaurant finally opened this month, so naturally the Food Snob got a table as soon as possible. And O, let me tell you, it set the bar high for Food Snobbery early in this new year.
I stopped by the restaurant, on the first floor of the Capital Commons, with my dining companion for a weekday lunch. The Snob loves good service almost as much as good food, so I was instantly won over by the hostess, who held the door for me and then scurried off with my coat. “Did they recognize the Food Snob?” I asked myself. “No, they must do this for everybody.”
The lunch menu was a pleasant surprise regarding variety and pricing. Most items were in the $9-$12 range, with only two or three meals up at $15-plus. My companion and I pulled the trigger on some house specialty appetizers: sweet and sour calamari (a heaping plateful for $9) and O Pops ($9 for five pops). Both were delectable.
The O Pops are Kobe beef balls are infused with bacon and blue cheese, resting in little puddles of a chipotle sauce and impaled on skewers so they may be eaten like a lollipop. The beef alone is pretty delicious, but once I bit through the slightly crispier outside layer and let the blue cheese infusion gush into my mouth, the real taste sensation began. It's not that I literally got a mouthful of cheese, either; it's just the right amount of blue cheese flavor swirling around with the savory juices of the Kobe beef.
Our other appetizer, the sweet and sour calamari, was definitely the MVP of the meal. The calamari was coated in a glaze that could boast a perfect sweet-to-sour ratio. The drizzling of Thai chili paste as a dipping sauce was an excellent complement for both the taste and presentation, and it left a sweet but spicy chili aftertaste in my mouth that haunted my dreams later that night. The sprinkling of black sesame seeds was a nice touch.
The Food Snob's only quibble with this appetizer was that between the breading and the sweet and sour sauce, the calamari was virtually unrecognizable. It could have been anything cooked up and served like that! Still, there is something to be said for a dish where the only complaint comes in the form of a backhanded compliment.
After appetizers like that, it was going to be tough for the entrees to make a name for themselves. We went for the two most intriguing sandwiches on the menu, an Oyster Po Boy and something billed as “The Ultimate Fried Egg Sandwich.”
Both sandwiches came on toasted ciabatta rolls, which in this Snob's experience are often served stale, crumbly, too thick, or all three. O's ciabatta was none of those. Light, fresh, flaky with the perfect amount of toasting applied to the outside, the rolls left nothing to be desired.
The sandwiches each came with our choice of chips or fries and a pickle (much to much to my dining companion's chagrin, she was given no pickle). We went with one side of sweet potato fries (splurging an extra dollar for maple syrup to dip 'em in) and one side of shoestring. Many restaurants allow their sweet potato fries to get too soggy; O's were cooked to perfection and just firm enough. However, we did grumble a bit that both sides of fries were not as hot as we would have liked when our meals arrived. This was probably a side effect of the amount of time we spent savoring our appetizers.
The Oyster Po Boy ($10) consisted of fried oysters with lettuce and tomato on the aforementioned ciabatta roll. We slathered some tartar sauce on it and we wolfed it down. While we both enjoyed it thoroughly, we came to the same conclusion that we had reached about the sweet and sour calamari: The breading and frying overpowered the seafood taste. There were really only two or three bites that left me with that nice, chewy, oystery taste and texture that I expected. Visually, it appeared that the bun could barely contain the fried oyster bursting, but for some reason that didn't translate itself into loads of chewy oyster in my mouth.
The Ultimate Fried Egg Sandwich ($12) should not be eaten after one scarfs down multiple appetizers like the Snob did; this is a giant sandwich. A slab of Kobe shiitake meatloaf forms the foundation. Two slices of bacon and melted cheddar cheese sit atop the loaf slab, with a just-runny-enough fried egg slapped on top of that layer. As the capper, thin-sliced onion strings, seasoned and fried. Definitely too much sandwich for a multi-course meal, but as a stand-alone with a side of fries, you can't do much better.
Our server was helpful and friendly throughout the meal, so when she suggested we try the house specialty dessert, we shook ourselves out of our food coma and obliged. “It's only polite,” I thought. I did not regret that decision, as our waitress returned with something I had never even envisioned before-fried Oreos! Battered, fried and served a la mode, it was all I could do to contain my O face. A veritable foodgasm rocked me to my core as I bit into what surely must have been God's perfect creation, and I must have been glowing as I retrieved my coat and stepped out into the bitter winter wind.
