Our Florida trip was going to end with taking in a pre-season Mets game in Port Saint Lucie. As we drove up in torrential down-pouring rain, I had a feeling the game wasn’t going to happen. Sure enough, just as we were passing the Palm Beach area, the game was cancelled. Since we were flying out of the West Palm Beach area airport, we decided to kill some time at the movies and the mall. What else are you supposed to do in a Florida beach town in the pouring rain? After a lovely indoor day, we had about 3 hours before our flight and found ourselves in search of a nice place to have dinner. A few cross-checks via Yelp and OpenTable sent us to Cafe Chardonnay in Palm Beach Gardens.
Here is a peak at the menu:
This place was having a bit of an identiy crisis. It was called a cafe, had a cheesy graphic logo that looked like it was made in MS Paint, was decorated sort of high end French and sort of street cafe, and had an elegant sounding menu.
We started with Warm Almond Crusted Goat Cheese to share. It came with figs and a raisin bread.
And it was fantastic. The goat cheese was perfect, the figs were a great sweet compliment, and I liked that they crisped up the raisin bread so everything spread well on it.
Mike had a wedge salad. The blue cheese was chunky and very good.
Then he had the Prawn “Scampi” over fresh linguine.
We both agreed that it was just okay.
I made a combination of specials (to avoid peppers) with the Sea Bass over the side dishes that were originally to come with the crab crusted flounder.
Braised artichokes, mushrooms, gnocchi… all the makings of a great dish. But it just wasn’t. It was okay, but also lacking. (Is there a lack of flavor problem in Florida?)
I was kind of surprised that the entrees were just bland, but dessert looked promising.
We chose the pecan pie.
AND the cheesecake (hush… it was “vacation”)
Both were totally “ehh.”
I think the best description for this place was “ehh.” Everything was just “ehh.” Which basically described most of our “high-end” Florida dining experiences on this trip… “EHHH”
Total Nom Points: 6 out of 10
