Eating Out

Mahogany Grill, Ithaca, NY
Price: $$
Cuisine: American
General
Recommendation: If you’re in the mood for a fairly tasty steak or a yummy burger,
Mahogany Grill isn’t a bad bet. The
setting is decent and the staff is nice and the food is reasonably tasty. Good for a date or a dinner with a few
friends. Sit at the bar or get a table-
you’ll usually have a nice time.

This review is based on the second visit I’ve made to the
restaurant- this must mean something good if I returned to the place. Funnily
enough, I sat at the exact same table- I was hoping for one not in the bar area
but got the one there anyway- oh well. John and I went on a Friday “Date Night” and we had a nice time. They broke a few “rules” but the food was
good and the people were friendly. It’s
not the restaurant’s fault we sat near a VERY loud man, so I won’t hold it
against them, but in general, I’d say it’s a fine place to go, assuming you are
looking for decent food that’s not very far away from Collegetown. 

The Food:
The food is pretty good at Mahogany and I enjoyed most
courses we ate. Most entrées come with a
house salad and they bring you some home-made chiabatta bread (which we had to
ask for since no one ever brought it) that comes with some sweet, garlic butter.

Here are details on our order:
First Course: Chicken
Pot Stickers
We learned how to make pot stickers in the cooking class
that we’re currently taking over at the Hotel School so we like to try other
kinds of pot stickers when we can, and these were pretty good. I liked that they had corn in them, along
with ginger, green onion, chicken (of course) and some other tasty things. They came with a thicker plum sauce which was
also tasty.

Main Course: Filet
Mignon, Medallions Oscar
Both steaks were cooked just right and the cuts of beef were
good- minimal gross fatty parts. The
Medallions Oscar was a filet with some Lobster pieces and béarnaise sauce (I
ordered béarnaise on the side with my filet- a move I recommend). The veggies were quite butter-soaked, but
yummy! The cheesy-bacon mashed potatoes
that come with most entrées are good but there are a lot of them- neither of us
finished them, but that’s okay.

Dessert: Volcano Cake
Not sure why we got dessert. The dessert menu is a dessert platter which is always fun- most of it
looked pretty good- standard, but good. There was a cheese cake, a carrot cake, a flourless chocolate cake, a
peanut butter and chocolate cake, a key lime cheese cake, and a volcano cake
(there may have been one other thing but I can’t remember…). We went with the volcano cake based on our
server’s recommendation- she told us it was a brownie with molten chocolate
melting out of the middle- it was more of a cake with some warm fudge in the
middle- which was fine. I don’t love
cake and was pretty full so I only had a few bites, but it wasn’t a bad dessert.

Drinks:
I was less than impressed by the wine list- given that the
place serves steak and lobster, I would expect at least a 2-page wine list, but
the entire wine list is only one page long and there are very few options-
you’re either ordering a $29 bottle of wine or a $40+ bottle of wine. We enjoyed the wine we ordered, however. They also have a full bar. We’ve stopped by this bar a few times in the
past- it’s right next to Just a Taste which always has a long wait so we’ll
sometimes go over to the Mahogany Grill and grab a drink while we wait. The bartender is pretty prompt and the drinks
are good.

The Service:
It took
our waitress quite a while to show up but when she did, she was very nice. They stuck to all but two rules- no butter
knife and removing plates too soon. In
fact they seemed to be in a huge hurry to keep our table clear- They actually
waited to remove our salad plates until we were both done, but they removed
John’s while he was still chewing- talk about a way to make someone feel
rushed! Then they removed his plate
first during dinner which was unpleasant. They also do an interesting thing with the bread- it comes out as a loaf
on a board with a large knife- you get to cut it yourself. This is all fine- I just wish we had a butter
knife to use as well.

I’m
also beginning to think that overpouring wine is becoming an epidemic and I
might have to make a 6^th Rule about it. It’s possible that I might be a little
over-eager about the wine since we’re in a wine class right now, but it’s not
good when you order a bottle of wine and the server fills your glass almost to
the top. While I do appreciate a large
pour when I only order a glass, I want to be able to actually enjoy the wine we
order by the bottle. When they fill it
so high, we can’t swirl it, smell it or do much else other than drink it. Given the waitress’s propensity for
overpouring, we were actually glad she didn’t do a good job of refilling our
wine glasses. We did always have full water
glasses, however, so I guess they only half-broke that rule.

The Atmosphere:
Mahogany Grill is a nice local
establishment with cherry wood paneling and brass bars. There is a lot of local university
paraphernalia hung around the place and it’s pretty laid back with a flair of
niceness to it. There’s a bar area which
is pretty big as well as a restaurant part- the two are divided by a low
wall. I’ve never sat in the restaurant
area- I’m always in a booth in the back of the bar area which is a pretty loud
part of the restaurant, but that’s fine. The restaurant is nice enough to bring a date but isn’t so intimate,
you’d feel weird eating there with some friends. The menu is varied enough, you can get out of
there having had plenty of tasty food without spending a ton of money (getting
a burger and a beer, for example), or you could make it a more expensive meal
(filet mignon and wine). As with most,
if not all restaurants in Ithaca, you can wear jeans or more casual clothes-
but it’s a good place to go if you want to wear something a bit nicer as
well. The staff is friendly and everyone
there seems to be having a good time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 10:27 am and is filed under Food and Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.