Red Medicine

A meal that made me think.

Innovation and execution are the two things that Red Medicine brings to mind. It is the sort of establishment I appreciate for its earnest attempts to cook outside of the box and introduce diners to a new way of understanding food, and which I want very badly to like yet don’t. When done right, this approach to food is enlightening. In Red Medicine’s case, the ideas are there but the execution is not. Uneven is the impression I came away with and that their message was not persuasively communicated.

Because the food is much of the driving concept of this restaurant, it only seems right to start the review with it. I came with one other dining companion and we ordered everything to share. The dishes selected are listed in the order they came in:

Brussels Sprouts

Crispy Spring Rolls

Pork Pâté

Toasted Grains

Akaushi Beef

Milk Chocolate Cream

We got off a good start with the Brussels sprouts and for me, this dish was the most pleasing of all the ones we ordered throughout the evening. The combined flavors of salty and sweet were well-balanced and though not a revelation, the sprouts are definitely above average and satisfyingly rich in flavor. It came blanketed in shrimp chips which I wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t been mostly half-stale. For a small plate, the portion size was too much and it would have been better labeled as an actual side. Presentation was simple and unassuming.

The crispy spring rolls were light but otherwise unexceptional. The individual flavors of the ingredients didn’t come through and the lime sauce was mildly astringent. Plating was attractive.

Like the Brussels sprouts, the pork pâté was generously portioned and was more of a hefty side dish than a small plate. Calling this a pâté is highly misleading as it was more of a rillettes sans adequate spreading fat. It came with a small dish of bread chips which were rather problematic as the bread chip to pâté ratio was highly uneven and the bread chips themselves were much too thin and fragile to apply the pâté on without shattering into a mess in the hands. We finished the bread with only a third of the pâté eaten and were not aware we could have asked for more until we were left with a dime sized ball of pâté and a server finally came by to ask us if we wanted more. It was rather ironic he came back with a full dish of bread chips for what we had left. This would have been much easier and satisfying to eat with an actual, whole baguette. In addition, the amount of unevenly crushed pistachio pieces started to get tiresome halfway through and removing the sizeable layer of mixed greens to get to the pâté was not optimal. The overall balance of this dish considering the ease of eating along with the combination of textures is best described as awkward. The flavor was pleasant but unexceptional.

The most anticipated dish was the toasted grains. It sounded much better on paper than in the eating. The aromatic duck broth was true to its promise and was the highlight of the dish with the unenviable responsibility of pulling the rest of the elements together. The broth itself was bold and complex and the essence of the duck was remarkable, unlike the mushroom pudding which presence I did not at all notice. The dish arrived as a small pile of the dry ingredients arranged in a mound with a hollow in the center to hold the yolk, topped with a few shavings of chanterelles and a light tangle of sprouts upon an almost flat dish. The server who delivered it poured a third of the duck broth around the grains and left the rest for us to dole out as we saw fit. Having been given shallow bowls to eat the grains in, we realized how absolutely maddening it was to spoon the grains and yolk into our bowls with what duck broth had already been poured out on them. What we were able to get into our bowls (with the much too big spoons from the table’s utensil canister and a good amount of teamwork) and then mix with the remaining duck broth was visually very unappetizing and the flavor was highly unbalanced in favor of the broth’s intensity. This dish ended up being extremely frustrating.

Akaushi beef came last. The meat itself was fork tender and meltingly soft, competently seasoned without being astoundingly flavored. When the server came to pour the accompanying sauce for the dish, he did so carelessly and a good quarter of the stuff dribbled off the edge of the plate into an oily puddle on the table. This dish was enjoyable but not very impressive.

As for the milk chocolate cream, while this was the most visually pleasing of our dishes to look at, it was also not very easy to eat. The flavors and textures were quite interesting yet didn’t harmonize well and ultimately, it left me intrigued but unsatisfied. The coffee we had along with it was also very sour.

Service again like the food was uneven. We had a total of five different people serve us and it was unclear whom we should be flagging down for what at any given time. Service rotated between attentive, careless, or the feeling that we were altogether forgotten. It was mildly disappointing to find out the Dungeness crab was sold out a mere hour after the restaurant opened (it was mostly empty when we arrived) but it was unpleasant to see one server roll his eyes in annoyance when we asked for another few minutes to decide on a substitute. He impatiently and unhelpfully suggested there were no adequate substitutes for the crab.

Overall atmosphere of the place was energetically loud and bustling even on a Sunday night with a spacious interior very dimly lit but not at all unpleasant.

It is very hard to review a restaurant such as Red Medicine. Since its approach is so much more creative and daring, it also invites the diner to be more thoughtful of what they are confronted with. I get the impression most of the gorgeous plating I was expecting to see was limited to certain cold dishes and at an establishment with such high aims, I was certainly disappointed to find clumsy cutlery with dried food stuck to a number of them. The bill also arrived in a tea tin that was poorly cut in the corners to allow the bill to fit. What the jagged corners did was tear the receipt upon extraction and pose a cutting hazard to the fingers involved. For people who place mouthfeel highly in their criteria of pleasurable dining, this is not the place for it. What you get at Red Medicine is an ambitious creative approach that sometimes dazzles the eyes and tease the tongue into expecting more but falls short of delivering a consistently flawless experience. There are a lot of sensible details that need seeing to.

All in all, Red Medicine is a flawed but promising symphony that may become a dining revelation with time if it ever hits its stride. I applaud it mightily for its daring and hope it can achieve the high goal and ambition it has set itself up for. In the meantime, the prices charged for the pleasures afforded feels undue and I wouldn’t find myself too sad if I didn’t get to return.