Tru Conundrum

I have a gift certificate for Tru (only $100, not really significant considering what the bill will be), and I'm having trouble deciding which way to go. Market? Seasonal? Prix Fixe?

Last year (and yes, I can only afford to dine this way once a year), the birthday dinner was Alinea, and I loved it. Now the Tru menu doesn't seem all that appealing in comparison. Is it just me? Should I wait until the spring to use this gift certificate, in hopes that the menu might look better to me, or should I just cross my fingers and go?

Somebody help?

looking at the menu for either you might be perplexed at why it costs $500-700 for two to dine... so i don't know if i'd make a decision based solely off of the menu.

i did the chef's collection--i believe it was called...where they basically just make whatever they feel like, i believe it had a heavy focus on seafood though...

i will say i enjoyed tru slightly more than alinea, but that's not really up for debate w/ your post i guess... )

My dinner at Tru a number of years back was something like $2,000 for four people and while I can't say it was "worth it," I can tell you it was an exquisite experience. We had the full-on whatever it was called, with wine pairings to virutally every course.

Are you stuck on a full dinner? I don't know if they still do it, but they used to do an Amuse Bouche tasting for about $30-35 that sounded great, and a dessert tasting for about $25-30 that I did have and it was fantastic. I love the idea for both -- smaller portions of what they're really known best for.... Note -- the dessert tasting is not for after a full meal -- you wouldn't be able to enjoy it ....

I'd say go with the TRU dessert tasting as well.

I took my girlfriend a few years back for dessert for her birthday, and it was somewhere in the ballpark of $100 for the two of us (drinks aren't included, then there's tax and tip). Totally worth it.

I've also been for a full meal, and while it was great, it definitely was closer to 300 per person.

I like the idea of the amuse bouche and dessert tasting. I'll have to see if they still do it.

This doesn't mean I'm not willing to do the whole thing, it's just that the menu didn't look all that interesting to me, though I can't quite put my finger on it (part may be that I'm not a fish/seafood fan). My dining companion and I were discussing this (she felt much the same) and we had to laugh at our world-weary sort of unimpressed reaction to the whole thing.

I assume you're referring to the menu on the restaurant's website. My experience with website menus is that, while they are consistently representative of the kind of food the restaurant offers, they are also often different in various ways from what the restaurant is actually serving. In some cases I've had my heart set on something on the website, only to find that it wasn't on the menu when I went there. In this case, you might find that the current menu is more appealing than the one on the website. You might want to try calling the restaurant to ask them to e-mail or fax you a copy of their latest menu; most places are happy to oblige.

Furthermore, my experience with the absolute top restaurants is that they are flexible and are happy to accommodate special requests, even to the extent of putting together an entirely different menu for your party. The more specific you can be in directing them how you would like something different (rather than just saying "this doesn't sound so great to us" ), the more responsive they can be in finding dishes that are what you're looking for.

Oh, and if you're basically asking whether others are or aren't impressed with the menus currently on their website (here) - I think they sound great. Although I sometimes find it easier to imagine what a dish is like when the description includes something about the preparation method and sauce, rather than simply listing the top ingredients, as places like Tru, Alinea, and Avenues do.

We finally made the decision to go, so it's Tru tonight. I'm still very nervous about the whole thing, but I think we're going to go with the market menu.

Has anyone had the "whipped salt cod" listed on the menu? I realize that it will likely not be the same menu as the one on the website, but that particular item sounds a little too close to "fluffy mackerel pudding" (a la The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan) for me. I'm just wondering if anyone has actually had it, and if it's as horrifying as it sounds (or sounds to me, at least).

Call it brandade; it will taste better.

I hate to say it, but I was not impressed with Tru. The service was very good, but the food in general was definitely lacking. There were only a couple of standout dishes, a few really bad ones, and some I could take or leave.

We had the Chef's Collection - 10 courses. The first amuse bouche was "Preserved baby artichoke, blood orange, white anchovy, chervil" and was almost without any discernible flavor. I was looking forward to the "Liquid Parmesan Gnocchi, Morels, Ramps, Crispy Serrano", but it just didn't deliver. The Liquid Parmesan Gnocchi were meant to sit in the mouth and dissolve, which they did, but the center was gritty and not particularly pleasant. There was, in my opinion, an overuse of gelatin.

One annoyance was that none of the food was actually hot by the time it came to the table (the hottest item was the finger bowl), and in the "boneless" frog leg, I was confronted with a bone shard. In the prime beef ribeye, there was gristle. To me, that's just not acceptable in this kind of place. The presence of the roaming bread guy was also puzzling. It seemed as if they just threw items together without considering the order, and the result was a kind of a mishmash that didn't quite work.

The cheese selection and dessert courses were wonderful, however. A sort of panna cotta of Greek yogurt with a center of vanilla honey was lovely surrounded by mint, grapes, a variety of plumped raisins, and a mint julep sorbet. Mignardises were all excellent (I tried most of them) and certainly helped me at least end the meal well. However, no truffles for me to take home, just a sort of muffin.

I tried really hard to go in with a totally open mind, but some of those dishes (Avocado-Green Apple Salad, for instance) were just not good at any price.

I would have to agree with the last post.

We were there last night and nothing really stood out. Compared to the dinner had at Charlie Trotter's there is really nothing that I can recall as superb. The best dish was the foie gras but foie gras is just delicious anyway. There was actually one dish that had me thinking "wtf" and it was a pureed fava bean strawberry gelatin thing that just didn't work. The sashimi opening course was such a disappointment compared to the opening fish course at trotter's. It was basically three slices of fish with soy sauce and a cute star of some forgettable vegetable. The first course was something you would find at a nice sushi joint in Chicago like Sushi Wabi or something - it's disappointing to get that in a tasting of Tru's apparent caliber.

The yogurt course at the end was definitely the best tasting - behind the foie gras. The frog leg was a bit bland and the flavoring was more butter than anything else. The liquid gnocci were nothing special and I thought the filling was, again, basically butter. We added an additional lobster course that was pretty tasty accompanied with a great wine. One of the positive points is the sommelier at Tru. There was a sturgeon dish that was rather tasty but again nothing that made me say "wow!!".

Through the middle of the dinner we actually forgot what we had just tasted - not a good sign (it was the gnocci). The final dish, a squab with butternut squash was good but again nothing spectacular (especially since we had just dined at trotter's where the squab was AMAZING). The cheese carts were cool and the dessert tray was a nice touch but overall Tru did not impress me as far as food. For what it's worth, the Manhattan at Tru is pretty damn good.

If I were you I would go with the three course with dishes that sound tasty to you and go to north pond or schwa or charlie trotter's or l2o (so I hear!) for a tasting.

I'm waiting for the 10 course frozen scallop menu to be featured!