Nomi-No way...

I and my boyfriend recently went out for a birthday dinner at Nomi in the Park Hyatt. It was perhaps one of the more mediocre meals I have been served in some time. In addition the menu is just confusing. Why do they have a totally isolated sushi menu that has nothing to do with the rest of the food. Is this just for room service purposes in the Park Hyatt?

So as not to be too much of a downer the evening was not completely bad.


The Good
1. The service was outstanding
2. They gave us a delightful assortment of chocolates for dessert emblazoned with Happy Birthday.
3. The sushi appetizer we had was very good(albeit just as good as we might get at mirai or sushi wabi, for half the price)

The Really Bad
1. We oreded a morell and virginia ham appetizer that was just hands down terribly salty and greasy. And I am a woman who loves salt and grease. This was just ill conceived and uninterestingly plated.

2. I ordered the turbot which was covered in a flavorless foam. The entier plate was made up of earthtones, uninspiring presentation. And again the main flavor was SALT. Way too salty, and as I said before I am a salt girl, I prefer salty snacks to sweet, often salt my food at a restaurant... The price was 40$

3. My boyfriend had a risotto, that was also covered in a flavorous taupe foam. The dish was gelatinous and uninteresting, without any real flavor. The price was 38$

I am not sure exactly how much our tab was, but it wasnt cheap, and was completely and totally sub-par. So much so that I am confident that if I was allowed back in the kitchen I could have created something about 20 times more appetizing that what were served. Needless to say I will not be going back to NOmi.

did you sit in the lounge area or in the restaurant?

we've eaten in both- it's had it's highs and lows, though generally we've been pleased.

We ate in the restaurant-not at a great table ie near the windows, but it was a pleasant one in the middle of the restaurant.

Figmolly and I went to NoMi on Sunday for the first time.
We were not in search of a great dinner, just a nice place
to have a drink and a bite to eat. It was a beautiful day so
we decided to sit on the patio. The patio is a cute little area
with modern tropical bar area and little patches of grass. We
sat ourselves at a 2 top and moved in a chair because we
were meeting someone. We waited about 5 minutes until we
finaly grabbed a menu from an empty table. We are pretty
laid back people so we though the absence of service was
more of a humorus adventure. We looked over the menu for
another 5 minutes and decided what we wanted to drink. Just
then, a server came to our attention. I was not sure that he
was a server at first because his vest was covered in pen marks
and he presented himself as more of a servers assistant that a
waiter. We ordered a glass of wine and martini, both were
yummy. Our friend arrived and ordered a Amstel Light ($8).
We ordered the ceviche, was told it was very small, but we
only wanted a bite anyway. The ceviche was incredible, nice
chunks of snapper marinated in a classic lime cilantro(or as
they name it corriander leaf)base. Thats all we had but it was
good. Our friend was happy when we decided to go next
door to Pippens and cut his Amsel cost in half. Ohh yea, make
sure you get bleu cheese olives with your martini, they were
great.

cuteheart1977 wrote:In addition the menu is just confusing. Why do they have a totally isolated sushi menu that has nothing to do with the rest of the food.

I'm not sure what you mean by "isolated" or "confusing" here.

The menu I received (Saturday, June 30) had three pages: sushi and sashimi; appetizers; and main courses. (See http://www.hyatt.com/hyatt/images/hotel ... Dinner.pdf). In what sense is the sushi page isolated?

Perhaps it's confusing that the appetizers and main courses aren't particularly Japanese. But I certainly didn't find the menu or selection of dishes to be confusing or problematic.

We loved our dishes. I can't remember everything that was eaten, but some of the highlights were the chicken liver creme brulee appetizer and the morel appetizer; the ribeye was amazing, as was the sous vide fish dish. Details escape me. We also had incredible good wine suggestions from the sommelier. I believe one was the M. Chapoutier Bila -Haut, Occultum Lapidiem, Côtes-du-Roussillon.

went to a wine function there last month w/gwiv and pigmon. while the wine was very good, the food was underwhelming @ best. so in true lth style we did the only logical thing which was get a drink and go have a second meal elsewhere. that was not in the restaurant though, but downstairs in a sm banquet room. my sister, whose affair it was, was furious. i think there was some of that "flavorless foam" involved as well. kinda scary. like hearing "that wasn't chicken" in a korean restaurant.

by confusing I just mean totally unrelated...it's presence is this totally isolated thing. So you have sushi and then you have a morel and virginia ham appetizer....it is just really disjointed, and not in a "ooh what an interesting contrast kind of way". I think going for a more casual snack or for drinks at the lounge or on the patio looks like it may have been a better bet.

According to Chicago Magazine, Andrew Zimmerman, the former chef at Del Toro, is now on his third week on the job as chef de cuisine at NoMI.

Might explain the recent bad experiences.. hopefully he gets his legs and finds out what works.