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RSS FeedRestaurant Review - Fobes Mill Steakhouse, 200 Sycamore Valley Rd W., Danville, CA 94526 |
Jan. 5, 2008
Categorized in: Restaurant Reviews
Tagged with: danville, restaurant review
I have to admit that when Forbes Mill opened its doors in Danville last year, I wondered if it would be a success. Certainly this Los Gatos based restaurant is extremely successful in its original South Bay location but people who live in Danville, although not short of a dollar or two, expect good value for money regardless of price. And The Price is the first thing that strikes you when you look at the Forbes Mill menu.
Situated in the Danville Livery, in premises formerly occupied by Tony Roma’s, Forbes Mill has a high profile location right next door to Piatti and with lots of parking spaces. The transformation from Tony Roma’s took a considerable length of time and although the outside looks the same apart from signage, the inside was stripped back to the studs and it shows.
On entering, the main restaurant area is to the left, with a large, very traditional style bar area to the right. The bar is very popular with the after-work crowd most nights of the week and is a pleasant place for a pre-dinner drink while waiting for your table in the restaurant.
My wife Sylvia and I visited Forbes Mill on a Friday evening, early in December. I took the precaution of making a reservation, although I doubted the necessity, but it was just as well that I did. Without a reservation we would not have had a table that evening.
The menu is fairly typical steakhouse fare apart from the fact that in addition to what is already high quality Angus beef, they have Kobe beef on their menu. I have heard that people travel a long way to the Los Gatos location for this but I have to report that we passed at these prices.
For a starter, we shared a portion of Dungeness crab cakes, a dish that often disappoints, unfortunately. But not on this occasion I am pleased to say. They were not the best crab cakes I have tasted but they were still very tasty and I would have them again.
For main courses, Sylvia had the prime rib (ordered medium) and I had the Ribeye Steak (medium rare) with a demi-glace sauce. We also had some creamed spinach (my favorite).
Sylvia’s prime rib arrived rare and had to be returned to the kitchen. On being re-presented, it was still rather underdone although she elected to accept it rather than endure a further wait. My Ribeye was nicely cooked but the sauce was less than impressive.
We are not generally super-critical of restaurants, having been in that business ourselves in a former life and being well aware of the challenges of coping with a full restaurant, but at these prices, one tends to expect everything to be on the nail. Our observant waiter picked up on our slight feelings of disappointment and I was impressed, when by way of recompense, he presented us with a dessert sampler without charge. This is a platter with a small portion of a number of their desserts including a crème brulee, cheesecake, choclate torte and gelato. We are not big dessert eaters but we had to agree that this was outstanding.
We accompanied our meal with a bottle of Rombauer Chardonnay from their extensive wine list. Wine aficionados should plenty to interest them on the Forbes Mill wine list with a number of interesting wines rarely found in the East Bay.
So overall, we came away with mixed feelings. We liked the ambience a lot and the service was faultless. The fact that the kitchen had so much of a problem with Sylvia’s steak was amazing, especially considering that this is a steak house. I think we would have been more impressed if the prices had been a little lower.
See them on the web at www.forbesmillsteakhouse.com.
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