My experience at King was an imbalanced one - on one hand, for my veggie friend, it was a terrible experience but on the other hand, for me as an omnivore, it was perfectly fine. So it kind of nets out to a mediocre rating food wise but when I factored in how much I spent in total, I had to take it down a notch.
The restaurant has gotten a lot of buzz lately for being an all-female run kitchen from 2 women from London. With that background, you can't help but want it to to be a success story. While I love that story line, the food and overall experience still needs to be great for me to really get behind it. The menu changes daily based on what they get at the farmer's market, so don't rely on the online menu being super accurate. For someone who eats anything, the menu shouldn't be an issue because you will be able to find something to eat but if you have any sort of dietary restrictions, you might have a tough time dining here. The menu is small with maybe 4 appetizers and then 3-4 main entrees. At first glance, none of the dishes sounded particularly inspiring. Unfortunately for Lav there weren't really any good veggie options on the menu, so the waiter said that they could put together a vegetable plate for her, which honestly at this point was her only option. I got the onglet ($32) which is basically hanger steak.
Whenever I hear the phrase vegetable plate I weep for my vegetarian friends because you know it's just going to be an uninspired plate of grilled vegetables, which is exactly what Lav got. The dish had some pumpkin and other fall veggies but there wasn't anything hearty to it. I felt bad for her because you just knew at a place like this it wasn't going to be cheap either. But the good news is that my onglet was actually really tasty. It was beautifully cooked and very tender on the inside. The flavor and juices of the meat were spot on - but at $32 I wished there was more than 3-4 small cuts of it. Lav and I pretty much finished our meal in record time and were still starving. So we ended up ordering 2 desserts - the chocolate tart and the date tart ($9 each). Surprisingly the date tart was the better dessert. It had a sweetness that wasn't overpowering and it was paired well with the warm crust on the outside. Despite the dessert, we were still hungry but there wasn't much else left on the menu for us to eat, so we made a stop at Kati Roll on the way home - waaay yummier and cheaper!
While I enjoyed my part of dinner, I can't say that I left here feeling really warm and fuzzy about the overall experience. I'm not saying that every place should bend over backwards to cater to vegetarians but if you're going to try to offer something off menu to accommodate them, at least make it a good one, otherwise just don't bother. I wouldn't have been offended if they said they didn't have anything, that is totally their choice but it's not worth doing something if it's not going to done right. However, if you eat meat the onglet is an excellent choice - I just wish the portions were bigger because for that price I should be leaving dinner full and happy and not stopping at another place on the way home for more food. Total bill: $77/pp with tax, tip and wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
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