We really wanted to like the Belmont restaurant. In fact, after a shaky first experience, we decided to give it another chance. After all, talented Chef Ben Nathan, decor by Joel Mozersky, some decent word-of-mouth and a pretty website had us convinced that our first experience there--inconsistent cocktails, incompetent bar service and half-assed bar food--was most certainly a fluke.

We're sad to say just how wrong we were.

Our second trip offered really good service from the start. Two friendly hostesses met us at the door, and seated us immediately in a beautiful back room. Our able waiter walked us through a fine wine list, introducing us to nice Pinot Grigio and a wonderful Malbec. We ambled ambivalently through an unoffensive queso appetizer with black beans and chorizo. The menu offered a collection of traditional fare, some kitschy and old school (think wedge salad with bleu cheese dressing, steaks, etc.) We chose the fish, sat back, enjoyed our wine and anticipated the flavors that should comprise a hundred dollar meal.

Then the food arrived and negated all the good stuff.

On one plate sat tuna, fingerling potatoes and roasted tomatoes, all drenched in a mustardy vinaigrette so overpowering that the tough tuna (ordered rare) tasted much the same as the potatoes and tomatoes. Another plate hosted snapper, rice pilaf and asparagus, swimming in a monotonous sugary swamp of pineapple juice. It was as if the food before us was cooked by someone's kind-of-crazy grandma. In 1963. From a 1958 cookbook.

We politely struggled through our food, declining dessert, coffee or more wine.

The looks on our faces must have given us away as our waiter rushed the check to us, telling us to have a good evening in the same voice a one night stand might use to say, "I'll call you," the morning after. We scuttled away, disappointed, still hungry, poorer, and with nothing to show for it.

You win some, you lose some.

photo by MJ Milloy on Flickr