Six Plates

After visiting the actual place for a big event (hubs' and my shared birthday dinner) I have to drop my rating a bit.

There's nothing wrong with Six Plates, per se. Okay, yes there is, and I must address the elephant in the room now:

What do you tip when you have to seat yourself and go order everything at the bar? This is not traditional waitservice, so 20% seems a bit high, but then 10% seems like I'm cheating someone their paycheck. IT'S ALL SO CONFUSING...we felt kind of like we were stuck in a Seinfeld episode the whole time we were there. Add in the fact that our waitress/bartender was a bit of um, well, hell, let me be honest: she was kind of snooty. It was just very off-putting. I felt like she was two seconds away from eye-rolling me if I asked for an extra plate. I kind of felt like I was harassing her when I strolled up to the bar to order something new, and when my husband ordered two glasses of wine and also asked for two glasses of water, no one offered to carry two of the glasses back to our table so he had to make two trips.

Now that the service issue has been dealt with, let me move on to the food: Delicious. Heavy. Imaginative. And...heavy. I should have brushed up on my french before I went, because we ordered 6 plates (cute, no?) and 2 of them ended up being fried balls of something. Nothing wrong with that...it was a birthday dinner, and we could enjoy ourselves, right? We also learned that we don't like the flavor of truffled anything, that horseradish butter doesn't really taste at all like horseradish, and that the salmon salad they make her is amazingly good. The kitchen staff seriously knows how to cook a fish in this joint. Both the salmon and trout were perfectly cooked, with edible crispy skin. YUM.

The wine selection was small but expertly curated. Both the "cheapie" wine as well as the $9 pour were excellent wines, so good that we downloaded a wine app so that we could remember them and find them later, breaking our strict no-technology at dinner rule. I feel the pours are a little small for the price, but that just seems to be the way things are heading everywhere, right?

Overall, six plates is certainly worth a visit, but I don't think it's the best restaurant in the triangle, and I think it's better for a small group to gather for a catch-up session and to share appetizers than for a sit down dinner.

Came on a long weekend during the Women's NCAA basketball tournament. Not a great sports bar but definitely one of the best foodie joints in town. The food was great - especially the Risotto! They also have an extensive wine list! Great place to kick back with some close friends and a few glass of wine! We will definitely be back!

Truffle fries and arugula salad were the best. Trout and cheese plate were good. I'd skip the arancini next time. Order at the bar, and have a seat to relax.