review: The Food Gang underwhelming

So the coworkers and I went to The Food Gang in Miami (actually, Surfside) last Friday for lunch as part of the Miami Spice promotion for prix fixe meals at expensive/top/gourmet restaurants. Now like of a lot of people, I know The Food Gang from BravoTV's "Top Chef," which has the restaurant's executive chef, Howie.

The online menu read like this:
Starter:
Watermelon Tomatoes Gazpacho
Summer Homestead Salad
Grilled Calamari over Tomato Tartar

Entree:
Chicken Brie Panini Argula Aioli
Roasted Squab Wild Mushroom Quiche
Grilled Loin Salad

Dessert:
Raspberry Charlotte
Choc Hazelnut Torte
Basil Sorbet

First, the overall impression then the details, course by course. Frankly, I was underwhelmed by most fronts. The food was just OK for the most part, but the most disappointing was the dessert. The service was snooty and the decor uninspired and even a little tired.

Before the meal:
As I walked through one of the two front entrances, I was greeted by a mini-grocery store of high-end (over-priced) items of pasta, sauces and the like. The Food Gang's decor consisted mostly of simply painted walls with photos of Mediterranean foods, environs, etc. along two walls. The suede-y/corduroy chairs were extremely comfortable.

I broke my no-bread/no-pasta diet before I even knew it when I bit into the crusty bread with the impossibly soft center. Our server offered a pepper grind over the olive oil, but the bread was great by itself.

Starter:
I chose the Summer Homestead Salad, and it's not the restaurant's fault that I don't eat most of the dish's ingredients other than the lettuce: roasted red tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives. The artichoke hearts was quite acidic, something I was not expecting at all. The olives gave the dressing an unmistakable furry-tongued texture that comes from olives. The salad is too oily (perhaps from the roasted red tomatoes?) and generally unappetizing. I couldn't bring myself to finish even the lettuce, let alone anything else.

I did sample the calamari, though, and it is heaven. The tubes of squid -- which I rarely see served in a restaurant in the U.S. -- was tender, succulent and cooked just right. It didn't have the tough, chewy texture that is indicative of an undercooked squid. I'm not a fan of the symmetrical dotting-the-corners-with-tennacles presentation, but the reddish, tomato-y/roast red peppery sauce smothering (with just the right amount) complements both tubes and tennacles well. The tartar (which is apparently just raw) of tomato (read: finely chopped tomatoes) was OK; it didn't add much to the squid. The Food Gang seems to be fans of tomatoes.

Entree:
For the entree, going along with my broken diet, I ordered the chicken panini, whose golden crust was crispy and slightly burned on the edges (I love it!). Although it lacked (in my opinion) the signature panini grill marks and the flattened bread, it was still delicious. The brie (my favorite cheese) was mildly pungent but smooth and creamy. The chicken breast is a bit dry, but the arugula aoili solved that problem and complemented the ingredients perfectly. The small pile of salad on the plate needed dressing, even if it is the oily concoction I ate for appetizer.

I tried the squab quiche, and it was amazing. I'm not sure if I like the taste of squab, but the egg in the quiche was impossibly fluffy and the crust layered and puffed to a golden crisp.

Dessert:
Let me just say that I was really looking forward to the raspberry Charlotte. Then, when I saw on the menu that they'd changed the dessert lineup, I was really excited about the mint sorbet (I am a fan of mint). But they didn't have that, either. I ended up choosing creme brulee.

The Food Gang messed up creme brulee. Creme brulee! How does a restaurant -- one that is supposedly high-quality -- screw up creme brulee? Let's start with the positive first. I cracked the torched sugar top with immense satisfaction -- crack, crack, crack. And that's it. That's where the positive ends. While, the custard was just sweet enough, it also came with a pool of water with every spoonful and was too jiggly. The Food Gang served watery creme brulee. I bought frozen creme brulee from Trader Joe's that had a better consistency. In fact, the creme brulee tin looked like the ones from the ones came with the Trader Joe's creme brulees. Hmm ...?