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1 Shared Experience on “Montarra Grill”
We celebrated our 10th anniversary at Montarra, to a near perfect evening.
We opted to dine inside and sat near the waterfall. It may seem cheesy or like a small touch, but they make note of special occasions and even included a “Happy Anniversary” message at the top of the menu. But that also carried through, being the first words from our waitress. Such a simple thing to do, but carries a lot of weight toward making an effort to deliver an amazing experience.
We started with some fantastic bread rolls and I opted for a house Old Fashioned while Jill went with a specialty martini (which we both forgot the name of but she says was really good). We then started with the Spicy Ahi Tuna Tartar, which was absolutely amazing. Great mix of flavors, not too hot unless you got a lot of the red chile/sesame aioli, but even then it wasn’t overpowering. Literally could have just had a meal of that!
Jill went for one of the evening specials, an Oscar style Red Snapper with a bearnaise sauce and fingerling potatoes…which, quote, “was damn good!”
I went for the Shrimp and Sea Scallops DeJonghe, which featured a row of garlic butter crusted shrimp and scallops on cream sherry sauced baby spinach and whipped potatoes. Truly sensational with the shrimp and the sea scallops, both easily overdone, cooked to perfection. Both were beautifully plated and we might have to argue over who made the better selection.
We finished off with some kind of peanut butter layer cake (Ok, it had a way better name than that and was way better tasting than that sounds), which was so good that I failed to even get a picture of it!
And overall, our waitress was wonderful, helpful, always timely, without being intrusive or overly attentive. Likewise, the busser was attentive, keeping waters refilled, removing plates and wiping down the table between courses, without production.
So why only near perfect? Unfortunately, there was some kind of presentation going on in the large dining area, with mic and amplifier and projection on a screen. Fortunately, it wasn’t too loud, but still stands out even more than loud but “normal” dinner conversations. It was enough to occasionally pull your attention. I get it, they probably make some decent money allowing these type of group uses, but they also aren’t without a cost.
The last bit aside, we’ll be back and I highly recommend Montarra Grill, although next time we might check whether there are any group presentations scheduled.