I haven't done a bad review since late winter/early spring and I hoped one wouldn't rear it's ugly head for at least a year… but the time has come. I'm not here to bash, I'm here to inform. I'm a firm believer that spending hard earned money on eating out should never result in a poor experience. My job as a food writer is to let you know what's good and to also inform you on my personal opinion of the restaurant/food/service. I'm not here to be anyone's friend even though I make a lot of them. Think of me as a culinary referee. I'm gonna call the plays as I see them and I'm gonna throw a fucking penalty on the play if that shit sucks. Today we have multiple flags on the play.
Just recently I heard of a restaurant opening in Unionville that a lot of people were talking about. The restaurant is called Cure. I don't know what the fuck they're trying to cure, but that night I left the restaurant with hepatitis, herpes and crohn's disease. I don't know where to begin, I was not cured, I died. I am sorry to inform you that I am writing this review from the grave.
I was actually angry at this meal and only a few things will make me angry when it comes to food. Those few things are; attention of the waitstaff, caliber of food, and actual time it takes the food to be served. Cure got a failing grade in every category.
So walking into the restaurant I was pleasantly surprised even though it was in a pre-fab building next to a salon. The wood working was nice and the bar side looked like a huge party was going on. The restaurant felt fun and I thought this vibe would continue to my meal, but I was dead wrong.
The waitress put us at a small high top table that was about 2ft by 2ft. After sitting there for about 15 minutes she finally came over to take our drink order and then blatantly admitted she forgot about us. This was probably because she was holding conversations with every table but ours as this was the third day cure was open. After she took our drink order we requested a larger table to accommodate the number of dishes we were expecting to order. Now mind you, the restaurant closed at ten on the night we dined there and we walked in at 9. I'm hungry, I'm 240 lbs. There's no god damn reason you should wait that long to take my drink order, not even my food order, when the restaurant closes within the hour anyway.
After changing tables and another fifteen minutes passing she returned with our drinks. I quickly ordered all of our plates as I realized this was going to be a long ordeal. Some of the appetizers were good. The crab cakes were excellent and they were the first thing to come out. I was like okay, this is going to be good, cant really fuck up a crab cake. Next out were the duck fat parmesan fries. These were also very good, but they are french fries fried in duck fat and covered in parmesan cheese, cant really go wrong there. And here is where my night took a drastic turn… duck maki roll. I would not feed this to my dog. I am not being mean or exaggerating, this tasted spoiled. I do not want to die from eating bad japanese fusion. I believe that if you are not a sushi restaurant you have no business dabbling in the art that is sushi. If you walked into a sushi restaurant and the man behind the counter wanted to make you biscuits and gravy, do you think he's going to do a good job? I don't think so. And to charge $12 for 4 pieces! Each piece a miserable three dollars! This is horrifying for me to reflect on. I wouldn't be surprised if I had a maki roll nightmare tonight just thinking back on it. Now, I love bacon. It has been one of my favorite meats since I was a child. It was the first meat I ever ate. Needless to say I know good bacon. I know bad bacon. I know oscar mayer bacon. I know slab bacon. I know pancetta. This bacon was so fatty, that I thought the chef actually cut a piece of skin from my ass while I wasn't looking. Now the flavor ideas for the flight were quite interesting, and so is the idea of the bacon flight in general. There are six flavors to chose from; honey applewood, pastrami, bayou, asian, honey jalepeno and frank's red hot. We got the bayou, honey jalepeno and frank's red hot. I tasted no difference between the three of these flavors. I don't know if they were spritzed with an essence but it was very hard to tell. This bacon was so fatty that it was almost un-chewable. And look at the last piece of bacon in the picture. The one that is oddly shaped like a penis. The ball sack portion of this dick bacon was pure fat. I took one bite and spit it back onto my plate so it could be thrown into the trash where it belonged. By this point I was regretting my decision on visiting this establishment.
This is where it went from bad to worse. Now this is in part my fault, I wanted to eat something that was different and that I hadn't had in a while. Chicken fried steak was something I don't often see on the menu, so I went ahead and ordered it. I don't know if there's a difference between chicken fried steak and country fried steak but all I know is I should not have ordered this. This looked so unappetizing when it came to the table that I was immediately bummed out at my selection. It was a grey wet steak encased in a crispy shell, and the steak was cooked grey all the way through. This was disgusting. What made it worse was it laid atop the most unattractive looking slop that they insisted was gravy. I cut into it, took one bite, and left it on the table. I was astonished that the waitress did not pick up on this because I assumed she would notice it went untouched and ask if there was a problem. But nothing. No question, no apology, no offer to take it off the bill. Horrible. Dog Puke. To make matters worse I couldn't even cleanse my palate with the second entree, as that was an ugly, over-salted, poorly plated pile of ingredients that baffled me. First off, none of what I remembered the menu claiming this dish to be seemed recognizable when I actually went to eat it. Aside from being poorly cooked rubbery duck, the "hash" was a pile of salted beet mush and I would not be surprised if the duck egg was not in fact duck at all. There was no hash. There were no leeks. That could have been a gator egg for all I know. And what was that hideous smear. Aioli? Mustardo. This was a sham!
So, this honey shortbread alone is probably the only thing that saved the review of this restaurant into even being written. If any restaurant I visit rates 5 or lower I don't waste my time writing the review. There had to be something in this menu that was redeeming, a few appetizers and this dessert were it. I can say that this dessert was definitely pre-made. This was apparent from the light freezer burn and icy temperature of the plate when it arrived at the table. Nonetheless this dessert was good. Slightly hard due to it being previously frozen but still good. Now beignets… aka a soft donut like puff or fried dough. Whatever the fuck you wanna call it. These are soft and puffy. At Cure however, these were not soft. Remember when your grandmother would buy the Stella Doro cookies, and there was always the one that was left that was stale and covered in powder and hard as fuck. This is exactly what these were like. They were hard and filled with nothing. I was continuously lied to throughout this meal as to what was actually in these dishes. I did not eat the beignets, instead I took the semi-fredo and poured it on the other dessert, because fuck it.
In summary, there are a lot of things I did not like about this restaurant, the food and the experience. One further thing I noticed is that the head chef was walking around the dining room shortly after we arrived, talking and greeting patrons and holding full conversations. I don't know about you, but if I had opened a restaurant three days prior, I would come in, work till close, and then and only then would I exit the kitchen. There is just too much work to be done before you can relieve yourself on a busy weekend night for social hour. And the example he was setting was apparent, as the servers spent more time huddling around the hostess stand than they did actually waiting on tables. This management is in dire need or something like an opening huddle to get everyones mind on the same page. You just opened. There should be nothing but customer service at this point. Pre-shift meal, staff bonding, whatever it takes to get everyone in the mood for service. Cure had all the makings of a great restaurant but they just fell short. Hopefully by their year anniversary they can pull their shit together, or I see this as just another one and done pop up restaurant in a shitty town with no nightlife or any good restaurants.
I HEREBY GIVE CURE RESTAURANT .....
6 LOAVES!
Thanks for reading and join me next week when I review Nudel, Lenox, MA.