Emmy Squared

A few Saturdays ago the family found itself without any activities and nowhere to be. So, in that case, what do we do but ... eat!

I'd wanted to visit Emmy Squared as we're semi-regular at Emily's. So answer to the obvious: I prefer the pizza at Emily's to Emmy Squared. I appreciate the Detroit-style but prefer a thin-crust made with a live-fire.

With that said, the pizza is delicious and the service, like at Emily's is poor. We ordered 5 pizzas for 5 people that they squeezed into a 4-top. We don't mind the seating. But we did mind that all pizzas arrived at once. I don't believe the wait staff needs a "bring them in sequence" to understand that if you drop five pizzas at once, the fifth pie will be cold by the time people even get to a single slice. It's a pretty straightforward service aspect and one that they missed here. Aggravating. With that in mind, I enjoyed the Colony-squared most (it was my second pizza slice so still pretty hot) as the kitchen puts just enough honey to balance the chilies and pepperoni in a trio of sweet, sour and spicy.

The Progress

In early June, I ate a decidedly delicious and relatively straightforward meal at The Progress. The conceit is beautiful: choose 4 items and pay a single per-person price. Unlike a fixed menu, you have choice and the dining experience is communal.

All the dishes were top-drawer so nothing to really critique. The kitchen did enough to provide contrasting flavors via sauces yet let each dish's ingredients shine through. And the service was knowledgeable and fully capable.

Izakaya Rintaro

Last month, I ate dinner an early dinner at Rintaro. I scheduled a 6pm dinner for 1 and asked to sit adjacent to the pass so I could watch the chef de cuisine (CDC) and kitchen staff (it's an open kitchen). Both the food and experience were fantastic.

Food: I ordered the fresh tofu (yosedofu), chicken katsu (chiizu tori katsu), and a few yakitori. I appreciated Rintaro's focus on fresh, high-quality ingredients with very little seasoning and flavor enhancers. For instance, katsu can often include significant salt, togarashi, and other things in the coating. This was the opposite; a very clean crisp coating surrounding very flavorful chicken with a strange and wonderful cheese additional within the chicken. The heart and chicken oyster were especially delicious yakitoris.

Experience: This was a lot of fun for me because I could sit and what the CDC work with the staff and observe how she plated different dishes. And as a bonus, by 6:30 the GM and CDC were having a very real argument about pacing for two or three larger parties seating in the lovely front patio.