Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurant

Pretzel crusted pork is amazing

After all the positive reviews I'd seen, I was seriously disappointed. First off the service was deathly slow, and the waitress was just generally terrible, but I was still willing to give it a fair chance on the food.

I ordered a medium rare burger, and 45 minutes later what came out was one of the rarest pieces of meat I've ever been given at a restaurant. I figured it was an honest mistake, so I sent it back, pointing to the blood dripping red center and expecting this would be sufficient explanation for a quick fix on the grill. Instead, I spent the next 20 minutes waiting for them to completely redo the plate from scratch, and having multiple people talk to me like they had delivered it perfectly to spec and i was just an impossible to please customer. By the time the thing finally showed up, I was so ready to leave I just had them box it.

On the way out, my fiance stopped to use the restrooms, and reported that they were absolutely filthy. And then to top it all off, we both got sick from the food later that evening.

I don't want to say I wasn't excited about coming here, because I'm almost always excited about trying out places I've never been before, but I definitely felt like the Cooper's Hawk brand had grown so fast, that there was a very slim chance of my enjoying a unique and thoughtfully prepared here. Luckily, I was proved very wrong.

I met up with mi madre here because supposedly, she misses having me at home, and while I have my doubts, I'm not going to turn down the opportunity to dine at a new-to-me restaurant.

I got there early (mark this day down in the record books) so I got a seat in the regular dining room since the bar had a weird vibe for a mother/daughter meet-up... plus it was balls cold and I wanted to be as far away from the door as possible, though the tasting area, chocolate gift shop were a nice-ish touch. I say 'nice-ish' because I hate Cracker Barrels with the fire of a thousand suns and it sort of reminded me of that, also, it's sort of suburban cheesy, but it definitely worked for the crowd that packed in here on a weekday night, which was middle aged to just plain old, but in a really cute way. Ya know, like old people date night sh*t. Undeniably adorable.

So anyway, I've been doing those stupid Insanity workout routines so I really wasn't in the mood for drinking alcohol or really rich food, so I got hot lemongrass-ginger tea and ordered off the healthy lifestyle menu, which was robust and certainly not lacking any flavor. My mom got their special that night, a walnut-crusted tilapia with roasted potatoes in a spicy aioli some grilled veggies, while I went for the Ahi tuna entree, with no shortage of Ahi tuna- seriously, some HUGE cuts of lightly seared and minimally spiced Ahi with a side salad of mixed greens--- all under 400 calories... supposedly. I tried a little of my mom's dish as well as pretty much licking my plate clean. I was thoroughly impressed with everything we'd ordered. So much so that I even contemplated going back for a repeat dining experience the next week, but decided to lay off only because it's not the most budget-friendly, though I wouldn't try to argue that it isn't worth it, because it absolutely is.

Beyond that, I also want to give a shout-out to our server, who was honest-to-god, probably the best server I've ever encountered in my many years of non-cooking and eating out lifestyle. He was so good that I actually went into my bag to fish out the receipt so I could specifically drop his name here for anyone in search of superb service. Anyway, his name is Neil and he deserves every bit of kudos I can give him.

My only minor let down was the dessert I ordered (chocolate covered strawberry and chocolate truffle), but my mom's dessert (which Neil suggested), the oatmeal berry crumble something something was divine. Yes, I said divine.