Central 214, our 2nd restaurant week reservation!

What a great night!  Another tasty restaurant week to fill up our bellies with ups and downs.  We think it was great because of the people we had with us that night, great conversation, met new friends, chatted it up with old friends, laughed a lot, and ate everything up.

When we walked in we noticed a dimly lit orange color bar, a brightly lit open kitchen, and some comfortable sofas if you needed to wait a bit for your reservation.  The sofas we have to say were extremely comfortable!

As we looked through the menu we started out with a cocktail.  We ordered one of their specials, it had lemon, honey, passion fruit, and a liqueur which we do not recall what it was.  The drink looks beautiful but very very strong, we remember telling the waiter we wanted the drink to be light, but we got the opposite. One of our friends waited for her drink and never received it until we ate all of our appetizers, that was disappointing.  We almost tasted the whole menu that night!  Sadly, some of the entrees on the menu were sold out or was changed, and we got one of our orders wrong.

Here comes our appetizers!
The scotch egg sounded like a wonderful idea but it was not as great as the menu made it seem.  To be honest it just seemed like a regular hard boiled egg with a crust.  We found it under seasoned, over-cooked and probably wouldn't order it again. We left wondering what all the fuss was about when people raved about it.

The dinosaur kale on the other hand was delicious!  This totally surprised us and caught us off guard amongst the appetizers.  The kale was seasoned well, very tender, and the garlic flavor really came through.  The ricotta gave it some creaminess, the artichoke added to texture to the dish, the watermelon radish just tied the dish together.  This was much better than we expected after reading the description on the menu.

The Israeli melon with chorizo and manchego cheese was pretty awesome in its own right.    The melon was super honey sweet and juicy, the chorizo was just the right amount of saltiness and gave the dish a savory touch, and the manchego cheese was nutty and rich.  This was very a bright and refreshing highlight to our meal.

The star...Wagyu Carpaccio.  OMG YUM!  The beef literally melts in your mouth.  The duck egg was smooth and soft, when you dip the beef into the broken yoke, it was like a butter sauce coating the delicate silky beef.  The watercress was kind of in the way, but it gave the dish some texture and peppery notes, but to be honest the beef was so delicate, we could have done without it.

Our entrees were beautiful.  We would've tried the duck too but our waiter got the order wrong..unfortunately =(
The bavette steak was cooked to perfection.  The steak was moist, tender, and seasoned with just salt and pepper.  Very simple preparation but cooked to perfection.  The mash potatoes were rich and velvety, and the shaved fennel added texture and a brightness to the beef.  Overall a solid dish of meat and potatoes.

The red fish was delicate, fresh, and exquisite.  Also a very simple preparation, nicely seared fish with some herbs and the capers gave it a briny saltiness which we love.  The capers definitely added points for the fish.  The sauteed spinach was also cooked well, and not overcooked and mushy.

The handmade trompetti was the big entree surprise for the table, colorful and sensational in your mouth.  Even though it was a vegetarian dish, the pasta was surprisingly flavorful.  The pesto coated the pasta evenly, very fresh and bright.  The goat cheese and the mushrooms gave the pasta a very earthy and rich tone, they basically substituted the meat in the dish.  We all thought it would have been much better with some type of meat or seafood, but it was still delicious and nothing was left on the plate.

The slow cooked goat brisket was pretty tasty.  To be honest some parts of it was lacking a little bit of fat, its either that, or they just did not handle the cooking temperature correctly and they just got dried out.  We couldn't tell because it was coated with their sweet BBQ sauce.  The parts where there is some fat left was moist and tender, but the part without the fat was kind of dry.  The avocado slaw was tangy and creamy from the avocado, and the corn bread was actually not bad, still had some moisture to it.

DESSERTS MMMMMMMMMMM!
Unfortunately they ran out of the honey lemon cake, but luckily they substituted it with a delicate flan.  The flan was one of the best we have had. The flan had a good egg flavor, delicate, and soft.  The caramel and the pecan added texture and sweetness.  The caramel was not so thick that it stuck to your fork, but light and smoothly covered the flan.  The garnish was little champagne grapes which were tasty and helped cut the richness.  This dessert was YUM!

The chocolate cake was a beauty.  We have no idea why they called it a ugly pug chocolate cake.  This was very rich and kind of hard to eat after a big meal.  It was good, but compared to the flan, it did not compare.  But the cake was moist, and if you really like chocolate cake, you would like this.  The chocolate cake was coated with a thin chocolate shell and covered with Chantilly cream. The cake was very dense and almost an adult version of a Hostess Ding Dong.

Last but not least, the green tomato pie.  A very interesting dessert if you ask us.  Have you ever had a green tomato pie?  Definitely worth a try.  This kind of tasted like a regular green apple pie if you had your eyes closed and didn't look at the menu.  The chevre ice-cream was also pretty good.  A light way to end because it was sweet and tart, which didn't make it feel too heavy to eat.

Overall the food was tasty, the ambiance was nice, decor was pretty, but the service was not great at all.  They got our orders wrong, ran out of several things, and at the end of the day, our checks were incorrect and the waiter looked pissed off...you would think you would get better service for a high end restaurant in a high end hotel,  but we were wrong.  We would rate this place a 6/10 for bad service, good food, interesting menu, and nice trendy environment.

Central 214
5300 E Mockingbird Ln
Dallas, TX 75201