Bobby Ostini's Red Oak

Great steak, liked the wine selection.  The "shrooms" were delicious.  The Union Hotel is a great place to dine with family and friends, we love the history.  

The chef, Bobby Ostini, greeted our table, which was really nice.

I didn't particularly enjoy the pork ribs or the BBQ artichoke, but overall the food was impressive and we had a really nice time.

my ribs were dried out, tough and salty.  the chicken had no flavor, but was cooked ok.  the salads were just lettuce, salt and minimal dressing.  the room was cold and uncomfortable.  the lazy bartender asked for my order only after i started to walk out.
our waitress was great.   a horrible experience and a lousy staff

I love charming, out-of-the-way places and sometimes you can find a real gem.  Unfortunately I didn't find that here.

Pros - Steaks are perfectly seasoned and cooked to exactly the correct temperature.  The dining room, and the Union Hotel in general, pretty much exudes old time atmosphere.  Service was pleasant and helpful.

Cons - Limited (I mean LIMITED) menu, limited hours, bagged salad with tasteless dressing, mediocre bread, boring presentation and no veggies.  A clueless bartender who served my up Grey Goose martini with a lime twist.

Overall - Not worth it in my book.  Kinda pricey for the quality of experience and there are other places in the valley that I'd return to first.

Full review - I was excited to try the Red Oak after having it recommended by a couple of locals.  They have really limited hours so we waited until our last night to check it out and they're only open until 9 PM so coming in at 8:30 like we did guaranteed that we were the last one in the dining room.  Which was fine except that the staff was busy setting and prepping and cleaning around us which was kinda distracting.

The old west plush hotel dining room setting is pleasant with good spacing between the tables and relatively quiet except for the occasional hooting and hollering from the adjoining bar.  We were seated and greeted promptly with drink orders.  Since the menu is so abbreviated we were also ready to order our meals.  I decided to indulge in a Grey Goose martini from the full bar and ordered it my usual way - up, extra dry with a twist.  When it arrived I was pleased to see it was a decent sized glass and nice and chilled.  And then I saw it, floating in my potentially wonderful martini - a stupid lime twist.  Who serves a lime twist in a martini?  Lemon twist people!!!  I almost sent it back but didn't want to be snobby so drank it anyway.  Sure, it was only $7 but still not my ideal for sure.

All dinners include a salad and I can safely say that ours was just a bagged salad dumped on the plate.  I'm even pretty sure the croutons were already mixed in.  Dressing on the side was a tasteless blue cheese that looked like a pile of mayo.  A restaurant with $$$ shouldn't even think of serving a salad like this?  The tasteless and dry bread, which I think was toasted, unfortunately did nothing to improve the salad experience.

The main course came and we were confronted with a plain white plate containing a steak, a baked potato and a large piece of parsley.  Is this supposed to be minimalist a la Ruth's Chris?  Not getting points for presentation.  I had the 10oz ribeye and my husband had the 5oz filet.  Both were seasoned and cooked to perfection.  The filet was excellent quality, very tender and quite tasty.  My rib-eye had great flavor but was a bit tough and while it was overall cooked a correct medium-rare, one side had seen more heat than the other so the doneness was a bit uneven.  A baked potato and some garlic bread finished off the dinner offering.  The baker was slightly underdone and something about it said "microwave" to me because it was simultaneously underdone and nuclear hot.  I peeked at the garlic bread but decided not to go there.

While the staff cleaned up the dining room around us, we enjoyed our meals and a great political discussion.  The Chef did come by the inquire about our meal and we were able to honestly tell him that the steaks were perfectly seasoned but decided not to get in to the rest of the feedback.  We lingered for quite a while and didn't feel rushed to vacate our table which was appreciated.  We passed on dessert but I saw a couple going to other tables and they appeared quite impressive.

My final thoughts on the Red Oak are that it's not really worth the price.  Dinner for two with two martinis, the smaller steaks from the menu, and no dessert was right at $90 before tip.  I wanted a better experience and didn't get it.  Not unpleasant (well except for the friggin lime twist) but nothing to create a lasting memory.  I'm hoping that they will improve with age but I'd have to be convinced to give it another go.