Five Sixty Falls Short of Expectations

Note: Image a representation of food,
Courtesy of Google

As Restaurant Week marches along, we patrons have the opportunity to see which dishes fall short of victory, and which ones demolish the competition. This year Justin and I decided to go to Wolfgang Puck’s Five Sixty for dinner and drinks. The menu looked phenomenal, the buzz about the rotating room was overwhelming and Wolfgang Puck is supposed to be a culinary master, so naturally we chose his restaurant as one of our Restaurant Week choices. Well, let me just say, I am glad we picked two to dine at this week.

The first course offered choices of Chinese style ribs, Korean style ribs, crispy lobster and shrimp rolls or something called black bean clams. The waiter suggested the sweet Chinese ribs but I went with the crispy lobster and shrimp rolls (I never turn down lobster). When I ordered the rolls I fully expected mainly filler like cabbage or glass noodles with one lone shrimp thrown into the mix for name’s sake. But to my pleasant surprise, the rolls placed in front of me were stuffed to the brim with lobster and shrimp, there were no fillers at all! The combination of savory shellfish with the honey glaze dipping sauce started the meal off on the right foot. (I also got taste the Chinese ribs because Justin took the watier’s advice.) The Chinese ribs were ordinary, I would not order or recommend them to anyone.

The next course was optional, for $6 extra we could have the Chef’s Daily Maki Roll, we decided to do it because it sounded appealing and why not, right? The roll consisted of tempura fried shrimp, avocado and crab wrapped in a blanket of sticky rice. I very much enjoyed the roll, again, nothing unbelievable, but for it being a sushi roll, I felt it was an appropriate addition to the meal. Then, just as our appetites were ready to be satisfied, our entrees arrived...Going against the recommendation to order the spicy noodles with chicken, both Justin and I ordered the “Corriander crusted prime flat iron steak”... needless to say, we should have ordered the chicken.. Maybe my inexperience with ordering this type of steak is to blame for my expectations but our meat arrived completely rare. Now, I love a good medium piece of meat, but this was unbelievably raw, I think it might have been moving. Not to mention the long, impossibly hard to cut through fibers running throughout the pieces of meat. That being said, I should have known that flank steak was not the most high quality cut of meat, and would probably be served underdone so as not to make the meat more tough. For the future, I will know this information, remember it for future meals and plan accordingly so that I don’t end up with e coli poisoning.

 On another note, the bloody peppered chunk of meat came with an onion ring on top, and that was hands down the best onion ring of my entire life. I am not even exaggerating, I have never been able to cut an onion ring without the breading falling off or the onion collapsing under the weight of greasy sogginess. But this onion ring was something special! I would go back just for the onion rings, the most perfect combination of crunchy coating and thick onion creating absolute fried bliss that left me wanting more. Literally! I would have traded my entree and dessert for a bowl of those onion rings.

And that brings me to (usually) my favorite, and most depressing course, of the entire evening ---dessert. The options for the final course were between cheesecake, pineapple rugalach and a chocolate salted caramel tart. Obviously, I chose the tart, like lobster, I never turn down chocolate, unless the alternative is something with bleu cheese. Sadly, only the top of the tart was chocolate, the bottom was some sort of bitter fluffed cream-like substance. I kept eating it, hoping with all my might that the flavors would suddenly come together to create a magical explosion of happiness. But sadly, they never did... the chocolate remained bitter, not bittersweet, and the caramel tasted like the chef had forgotten this was a DESSERT course and used salt instead of sugar. Leaving the beautiful restaurant all I could think of was the lone onion ring and how I wanted more. As for the rotating room, it is very unique to experience sipping a cocktail and watching the city go by. My recommendation? Get dressed up, go to Five Sixty, have a drink, order onion rings as your appetizer, then pick up Chinese from a hole in the wall joint on your way home.