I was debating doing a riff of either the duck song or wobble using Squable as the substitute, but I think I’m ready to just get to business today.
Squable is a fancy hip combo of a restaurant that does sharable plates. They have both cold/hot plates and entrees. I have to say that I get excited going to places like this lately because it’s fun to write about them afterward. Perfect combination for a date night.
We showed up at our 8:15pm reservation and were seated instantly. Service the whole night was great and they always stayed on top of things such as water.
We started out with cocktails with me opting for the Irish coffee while Amelia got a dirty martini. They have a fun option where you can pick 3 toppings and she went with a blue-cheese stuffed olive, pickled okra, and pearl onion. She loved how strong the smells were and how it made each sip taste more like the toppings. The Irish Coffee was also delicious with the whiskey blending nicely with the creamy foam.
For food we ordered two cold plates, two hot plates, and an entree. They request that you order all at once so the chef can stagger things out. Our waiter suggested getting 3 or so small dishes and two entrees each, but we elected to mix it up since that seemed like overkill. That ended up working out perfectly with our appetites. Another fun fact we learned was that there’s a sliding drawer at each side of our table holding silverware!
Our first course was the marinated mussels and beetroot. The mussels come out on grilled bread, are mixed in with calico beans, and drizzled with lots of olive oil. The mussels tasted fresh and the bread soaked in a lot of the flavor without taking away from the star ingredient. The beans were soft like the mussels, but it felt like something was missing to make this an amazing dish. It was still really good and (spoiler alert) our favorite of the night, but a crunch or other element was needed.
The beetroot includes endive, honeycrisp, walnut, and blue cheese. The best bites were the ones that had everything on the spoon. It’s creamy with big bites of beets making up the majority of the flavor profile. This was meant to be our fresh veggieful dish of the night, but it didn’t translate like we hoped. We expected the ingredients to harmonize and instead they were just kinda there.
Next up were our hot dishes. We ordered two glasses of wine before receiving dumplings and pork collar milanese. The milanese came first so let’s start with that. It’s basically a thin fried pork topped with white anchovy, fennel, and apple. To me it tasted like something I’d get at a Cracker Barrel or Kellys country cooking. The pork didn’t have a whole lot of flavor without the toppings. However, the added freshness of the fennel and apple did make it more enjoyable. Again, just not something that I was super impressed by. It’s passable, but I expect a bit more at a place like this.
The dumplings came up next and include sweet potato, ricotta, brown butter, pancetta, and pecan ragu. Doesn’t reading that sound like an absolute bomb is about to be dropped on my taste buds? Well, I felt like I was missing something because I just wasn’t that impressed. It tasted like someone grabbed the remote and turned the volume to about a quarter of what it should be. The sweet potato is the main component that came through and there was no shine. I should have been fiending for these and instead I was just meh.
Finally it’s time for our main course. Our waiter said chicken was one of his favorites so we went with that. Chicken is always an interesting dish to order at a place like this because it’s a hard one to make shine. Theirs is a roast chicken with potatoes, lemon aioli, and herbed schmaltz. The technique and butchery of the chicken is impressive with absolutely no fatty parts, cartilage, or bones beside the main pieces. We squeezed the lemon and loved how it was covered in a spice blend that came out with the juice. The lemon aioli with the schmaltz was delicious and the meat was best when it’s soaking up that flavor. Otherwise, it tastes like a rotisserie chicken I’d get at a grocery store. The potatoes with the sauce were great and I gobbled those up.
I loved the dinner in terms of the date, but not in terms of the food. Nothing left much of an impression and it almost feels wrong to not like it. I’ve heard nothing but good things otherwise. I am a picky eater not in terms of what I eat, but in terms of value. I expect everything at a place like this to taste amazing, not good. Otherwise, the service and atmosphere was excellent for our date. T
he final bill with tip was $216 and that’s not something I’d ever want to drop here again.
Rating: 496/1000