Rant or Rave: Tabla Restaurant

The reviews I've read about Tabla Restaurant was peppered with adjectives like exquisite, bewitching, and deliciously satisfying. Well, the chef and all the kitchen staff must have been having a day off (if not, then definitely an off-day) when I went, because I could not apply any those adjectives to my first dining experience at Tabla.  

The decor is beautiful...as a matter of fact, one could say it was exquisite and bewitching. The service was attentive.  The ambience intimate and soothing.  The plating was very prettily done.  Unfortunately, the most I can say about the dishes I had is that they tasted good.  After all the great reviews, I expected more than just "tastes good."  I expected my taste buds to break into a happy dance, not smile faintly, yawn and turn in for a nap.  The tamale lady in my neighborhood has more exquisite, bewitching and deliciously satisfying offerings in her little pot than Tabla did on the day I was there.

I started with Bruleed Gingered Watermelon which had "house spiced smoked salmon" on watermelon with frisee and lime dressing.  I loved the concept and could not wait to taste it.

I'm not sure what the house spice was since I could not taste any thing other than the usual smoked salmon flavor.  I don't know where the "gingered" part was on the watermelon because I could not taste any ginger.  It was good and refreshing but rather ho-hum when the write up on the menu led me to expect so much more.

Next was Goan Shrimp Balchao & Shirred Egg.  My friend ordered the same, and it looked like he got all the shrimp and the sauce.  My dish looked like they ran out the sauce so they added some water to the dregs of what was left in the sauce pot and threw in few pieces of shrimp.  Even so, the watered-down sauce was good.  But, alas, no happy dance.  The pasta was not quite al dente...it was taken out before it got to that point.  Trying to twirl it around my fork was a challenge.  All it did was splatter mists of sauce everywhere.  It was the second most difficult dish I've ever had to to eat.

The most difficult dish I've ever had to eat was the dessert, Tahitian Vanilla Kulfi.  It was very pretty as you can see, but the flying carpet-like thing was a fried wonton skin which added nothing to the dish other than disappointment.  The little dollop of ginger sherbet was delicious...too bad there was only one mouthful of it.  The kulfi itself was rather yummy but it was frozen rock solid.  All I did whenever I tried to cut into it was to push it around in the sea of Kool Aid-like sauce.  An ice pick would have been very handy.  

I can't say that I would never go there again.  It wouldn't be my first choice, but I'd like to give it couple more tries before I write it off my list.  I mean, as disappointing as it was, all those reviews can't be wrong, can they?