Let’s be frank: Grand Center has been a great underachiever.
Even though it has long been the setting for a cluster of cultural
gems, it has never coalesced as a 365-day (and -night) destination.
When the theaters and concert halls are dark, the rest of the
neighborhood is sparsely populated.
I’ve always thought that a collection of good restaurants could
be the catalyst for keeping the area lit up every night and the
sidewalks full during the day.
The stage was set when the people who run Triumph Grill in
nearby Midtown Alley announced they had taken over the previously
ill-starred space across the street from the Fox Theatre.
The new restaurant, Kota Wood-Fire Grill, looks out through huge
windows onto Grand on one side and into a pocket park on the other.
The Southern coastal- and Caribbean-influenced menu was also well
conceived to give the restaurant a distinct identity.
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Much of what we tried was in turn interesting and well executed:
shrimp and grits ($7) that wedded garlic in the sauce to a medium
smoked chile flavor in the grits, with shreds of sweet potato for
an additional accent; or hangtown fry salad ($10) with a half-dozen
plump oysters under a coarse yet fluffy batter, with peppered bacon
among the greens. The most distinctive note of this salad was its
“Green Goddess” vinaigrette, a smooth and light dressing that
seemed to be herbed with shiso, an Asian relative of mint and
basil.
Miami mahi ($17) was a firm, very good piece of fish with an
unusual plantain breading. And voodoo shrimp pasta ($17) was
interesting both for its flavors and visual presentation, the black
squid-ink pasta offering a sharp contrast to the bright colors of
the shrimp, corn, and poblano and red bell peppers that topped
it.
Our server described one dessert, bread pudding, as a
melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon roll, an unexpected but perfectly
accurate analogy.
Another dessert looked fascinating when we saw it on the dessert
tray, and its description as an upscale version of a famous
cellophane-wrapped lunchbox cupcake drew us in further. What was
served to us, however, was a wreck: cake so dry and crumbly that it
was almost unrecognizable as cake, and an almost petrified cream
filling.
I would have forgiven the dessert but for a similar experience
with an entree on another visit: “pot roast” ($15) that was three
slices of round-quality steak as opposed to a more appropriate and
flavorful chuck cut. The meat was fork-tender but way too dry, and
despite the affinity of root vegetables both for the dish and for
the time of year, the accompanying vegetables were summer squash
and green beans.
The server for our second meal was a real pro, balancing
multiple tables at the height of the pre-theater rush and
illustrating a thorough grasp of the menu and wine list. This only
emphasized the relative cluelessness of our first server, who had
mispronounced about half the wine list, brought us the wrong wine
and disappeared for several long intervals.
Kota supplements a value-priced wine list with a good variety of
by-the-glass wines in both 3- and 6-ounce pours. In addition to
desserts, there’s a list of milkshakes in both regular and spiked
varieties.
If I could combine the best aspects of both of our visits to
Kota, I’d have a very good new restaurant that I’d recommend
regardless of your plans for the rest of the evening. But although
Kota is a vast improvement over its predecessors, our mixed
experiences there left us doubtful that it would be the Grand
Center restaurant that finally could be a destination unto
itself.
522 North Grand Boulevard, Grand Center • 314-535-5577 •
kotawoodfiregrill.com • Menu: Southern coastal and Caribbean
influences • Smoking: No • Hours: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.
Monday-Thursday; 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday
