Bobo soso

I must begin by apologizing for the lack of updating, I have been suffering an endless slew of ailments (one of which being Christmas) and general malaise, so I haven't felt much like sharing or cooking. I also had to cut the drinking due to said ailments--you can see where the ill-will towards life comes in.

To go along with this general feeling of negativity I give you: a Negative(ish) Restaurant Review! I have to admit, that even though I love eating at and hearing about good restaurants, nothing can compete with the glee I find in reading a real burn of a review, especially by every food maven's favorite cantankerous culinaire, Frank Bruni from the New York Times. I really enjoyed his slam of a psychedelic Thai restaurant just because it was so grandpa-cranky. Of course, I probably would have hated it, too, from the sounds of it.

So anyway, I guess I should have listened to the Brunmeister when he gave Bobo one star--now, granted, one star is actually not terrible--but I forgot, or thought he gave it two, or whatever. In any event, there I was, with friend in tow, both of us just off antibiotics and looking for a party. I knew Bobo could be pretty scene-y, but it was the weekend after Christmas and we planned to eat in the more casual "Den," so I figured it wouldn't be too bad.

To give credit where it's due, we were graciously offered to sit either upstairs in the fancy dining room or downstairs in the more casual aforementioned "Den" even though we were, despite fancy shoes, probably not dressed for either. We took an upstairs menu and a downstairs table. So far so good. Our waiter was helpful and attentive to start, we ordered a tasty wine that was under $40, he offered to double a scallop appetizer for my friend to make an entree, we ordered oysters of the East Coast persuasion and we were happy.

Now before you envision some sort of seafood poisoning, waiter-tripping, kitchen fire disaster, I'm going to stop you right there. It was fine.

But that was just it: It was fine. My friend's scallops were ceviche-ish (which I like, but she didn't) and small (which no one likes) and the presentation was basically scallops tossed with pea shoots (?). I mean, maybe something was lost in the translation between appetizer and entree? I doubt it. The scallops, the shoots and the plate were all the same color, and the taste was nothing to jump around about either: vaguely lemon does not a flavor palate make, people. I had skate wing that sort of reminded me of country club food--nothing bad about it, but nothing good either. It was fried, which I was mildly perturbed about since the menu said nothing about its method of preparation, and I hate fried fish in fancy restaurants. The menu did say something about pomegranate, which I got, in the form of 5 seeds sort of next to the fish. It was dry. There was some tasteless mush underneath it--white bean puree? It was too dark to tell.

Oh, and our waiter totally disappeared for the rest of the meal, probably off to chic-er tables. We had dessert, which was good, although the gingerbread panna cotta had more random pomegranate seeds and the apple crisp (mine is better) was served in a coffee cup, which made it kind of hard to share.

So yeah, Bobo is ok, I guess, if all you want is wine, oysters and to be surrounded by people cooler than you. But I'll take fish and chips in a newspaper wrapping over tortured skate wing with indeterminate sides any day.