Sorrel Urban Bistro is one of the most earnest restaurants I've ever encountered. It wants to be loved, and seems to almost bend over backwards in its willingness to earn your goodwill.
Its dining room is airy and open, inviting in its stark white-and-wood casualness, its simple blown-up photos of plaintive sorrel leaves dancing close to the ceilings, or giant turnips as sculpture on the long bar — decor that anxiously conveys its modern farmhouse cuisine with a Texan twist. The bar is friendly and accommodating, offering skillfully made cocktails and locally concocted wine with equal aplomb. Its almost all-male waitstaff is all smiles, crisp white aprons and guileless charm. A brand-new menu is printed twice a day — once for lunch, again for dinner — with brand-new dishes on each run and an interesting historical fact of the day across the top. The kitchen is open in so many literal and figurative ways that it has closed-circuit television monitors throughout for those patrons who wish to examine and approve of the cleanliness of the grout between the tile as much as the painstaking plating of a dish of diver scallops.
So why is it that I find myself straining to only like Sorrel instead of love it? It's not just the overeagerness — that's not a crime in and of itself. The dining room truly is one of the loveliest to come along in a while, equally beguiling by day or night. And the food under chef Soren Pedersen can be truly inspired. But in its exhaustive efforts to be so accommodating, Sorrel falls short in many crucial areas.
Sorrel prides itself on obtaining pristine food: the freshest produce from area farms like Warfel and Animal Farm, the freshest fish from the Gulf. "The red snapper just came in 25 minutes ago," my excited young waiter told me on a recent Tuesday night. I wasn't too clear about what else would be involved in the dish other than a lemon beurre blanc and some crab meat — the menu was rather vague on that point, as it tends to be too often — but his excitement over the fish was infectious. I ordered it.
The snapper arrived looking like a piece of eiderdown under a fat feather pillow of blue crab. It was cooked perfectly, a word which is often overused but not in this instance. A delicate pool of satiny beurre blanc sat underneath. I could not wait to eat this fish. But before it even hit my tongue, I knew something was wrong: My lips were already burning with the sting of saline.
The poor fish had been salted as if to be hung and dried. To add insult to injury, it had been peppered to within an inch of its life, too. I imagined a panting, discarded pair of salt and pepper shakers in the kitchen having been emptied of all their contents onto this now-wasted piece of fish. I tried a few more bites, but it was ruined. In an attempt to salvage the meal, I went for the crab on top. It was full of shells, too many to spit out to make eating it worthwhile. The beurre blanc underneath? It was a masterwork.
A New York strip steak that same night suffered as well: gristly and tough — even for that cut — and cooked to a disappointing medium despite a request for medium-rare. And the roasted vegetables we ordered on the side were mostly unidentifiable, as if they'd been put into a steam room instead of an oven, overly peppery like my fish and tough like the steak. Were they parsnips? Turnips? Radishes? The world's worst potatoes? Our waiter was no help in that department, either.
But our appetizers had been dazzling: a salad of freshly torn Animal Farm greens in a bright, citrusy vinaigrette, and plump fried oysters served with a surprising Mornay sauce on the side along with their own little salad of greens and sliced apples (neither of which was mentioned on the menu). And dessert — a lovely, pale slice of lime semifreddo served at just the right temperature with a piece of nut brittle as its sole flourish — nearly made up for the entire affair.
It's this odd inconsistency within not just visits, not just meals, but dishes — stunning saucework under a mauled piece of fish, as one example — that mars Sorrel. And it extends to those odd menus, too.
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During a weekend lunch, I eavesdropped on a neighboring table as my friend and I awaited our meals. (My friend, like nearly every other person I've taken to Sorrel, was distracted by the TV monitors showing the kitchen activities and arguments — don't take your Hell's Kitchen-loving friends there if you're hoping for a conversation along with your meal.)
