Atmosphere: Last time I was at the Westin, I was the drunk guy at the wedding dancing inappropriately with the grandmother of the bride. In the intervening stretch of time, one of us has cleaned up its act: The space is now more modern and a bit more slick; think gold-lamé-looking booths, red-and-wood banquettes, and modern art of the bright-colors-and-Rorschach-test variety.
Crowd: The few people who were there the evening I visited looked, more or less, like quintessential conventioneers and hotel guests. Men dressed in oversized suits with dropping shoulders, women in outfits that hid nearly every ounce of whatever sexuality they had left, all in an ostensible effort, I’m guessing, to get ahead of the guy in the next cubicle over back at the home office.
Service: Our waiter was pleasant, had a ready smile, and didn’t engage in the sort of awkwardly personal conversation that so many servers seem to insist on these days. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he didn’t tell us how we should have ordered, which meant that we were left to fend for ourselves in the face of a menu that was, unexpectedly, far more complicated that it initially appeared. (More on this later.) But at least he was nice. The hostess, who was also our busser and food runner, was miserable. And I don’t use that word lightly: She couldn’t muster up so much as a hello when we walked into the restaurant, dropped of the bento-esque box of bread, nuts, carrots, and plums without explaining what anything was (there were three types of bread), and could hardly manage to make either eye-contact or that corner-of-the-mouth twitching motion that, when done correctly, leads, ultimately, and apparently painfully, to a smile.
What to Get: The Baileyana pinot noir, a wine that seemed to embody everything that California’s Central Coast does right. It tasted of cherries, cocoa powder, and something vaguely smoky, all of it supported by a surprisingly lithe frame. Fourteen bucks isn’t cheap, but this was a delicious pinot. And the organic pan-roasted Amish chicken, while a bit on the dry side and possessed of an only questionably crispy skin (usually the best part), was served in a pleasant maple-vinegar glaze with toasted almonds and dried cranberries.
What Not to Get: Where to start? There was actually a very good macaroni and cheese casserole hiding beneath the uber-thick crust, but you had to dig through an oddly persistent layer to unearth it. The dry-rubbed Atlantic salmon with peach-apricot chutney seemed to have been mugged by said rub: It was so overwhelmingly salty, and so overpowered by the other constituent seasonings, that it was virtually inedible. It was also a bit on the dry side. And not that you have the chance to order it—it automatically arrives after you’ve been seated—but the bread that in hindsight turned out to be more omen than starch was frighteningly similar to a roll I had last month on a cross-country flight: stale, gummy, and possessed of a texture somewhere between foam rubber and a Starburst. At least the butter was good. As far as the wine list goes, it’s a potential mine-field: The Baileyana is justifiable at $14, but the glass of Korbel Brut, at the same price point, is not. For that kind of money, you’re better off getting a glass of Schuylkill Punch and a bendy straw, making your own bubbly, and getting on with your life. It might even taste better. And as for that previously-mentioned lack of menu-explanation: Citygrange seems to take its cues from old-fashioned steak houses. Entrees are exactly as they’re described on the menu—accompanied by nothing more. And because we weren’t told that this is how the dishes were prepared, out entrees were little more than plates of protein, and arrived wholly denuded of the starch or veg that I had erroneously assumed was their birth- (or slaughter-) right.
Verdict: Citygrange is a new restaurant, and I hope that these issues were just the early-in-life jitters of a staff—both front of the house and kitchen—that hasn’t quite gelled yet. But the depth of these issues, and the egregious nature of so many of the problems we experienced, gives me pause. Best to take a wait-and-see approach before parting with your hard-earned money.
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