Stonegrill

I've always wanted to visit Stonegrill but they've been under renovations for a bit. At first I thought that they had closed down, which scared me a bit since I've been hearing rave reviews about that place, thank god it's only renovations. Anyway, Jasmine too has been wanting to try out that place, and there were we!


Stonegrill, with the slab of stone in all glory, mash potatoes and salad by the side, with red wine sauce for the meat. I had the sakura chicken, she had the steak, I ordered another portion of portobello mushroom which Jas took a few slices of.


Portobello Mushroom.
Although it was only a head of mushroom, it was great. Very juicy, very sweet, very nice. Unfortunately, it only came as a mains which meant that it was a tad expensive and it came along with the mash potatoes and salad which we already had enough of. It would be much better had it came as a side, maybe with other types of mushrooms. I guess, if I return I won't be ordering this again. I'd be wanting to try out the other side dishes in the menu, the proper side dishes are kitchen prepared food, without the hot stone.


Sakura Chicken.
With such a fanciful name, I didn't know what I was expecting, but well chicken is chicken. For the price, it's really worth it. Other than the two thin strips of meat you can see above, there's actually another thick slab of meat, equivalent to the two thin strips which there wasn't enough place on the stone for. Yup, the chicken alone was very much enough filling. And it goes really well with the red wine sauce. I had so much of the red wine sauce that I was served another portion of it. Yup, this is really good service, I got extra sauce!


Jasmine's steak.
I'm not a steak eater, and I didn't try the steak, but according to Jasmine, it was really juicy. I think one thing great about steak on the hot stone is that you can control the degree of cooking of the steak.

A little talk about the sides, the mash potato was nice and chunky, but unfortunate had too little gravy on it. On the plus side, it was topped with bacon bits so it was nice and crunchy and very tasty. I'm not a salad person and seldom touch my side of salad, but this salad was very tasty! I especially liked the dressing which we later found out from the waiter that it was tossed in lemon oil, hence the sourish yet tangy but very light taste. Unlike other sourish dressings using vinegar, the lemon oil made it very light and just great for snacking.

I seldom like to go to eating establishments where I'm required to cook my own food (because I suck at it), but there's this novelty factor for Stonegrill, and that the food here was really good despite my less than great cooking. Service was perfect too, and I had the help I needed to properly do the mushrooms. Another thing I prefer Stonegrill to other self-cooking establishments is that the food won't be overcooked. The temperature of the hot stone seemed to won't burn my food despite leaving the food on the stone for too long. So there wen't any chao tar bits at all, all was properly done.

Also, I notice a couple of air vents on the ceilings, so the place was nice and airy without any greasy smell. Also great was the walls, covered in a very artistic red and black pattern. And to top that all, two LCD TVs screening ESPN and StarSports. All you need is a couple of beers to complete the nice laid back experience living in East Coast.