A second chance for Shaun's

I've been holding my breath, hoping that the not-so-great experience we had at Shaun's for our anniversary back in October was a fluke. I'm pleased to say that I'm glad we gave you a second chance last night, Mr. Doty!

I fell in love with Shaun Doty through his menu at Table 1280, and I was more than a little disappointed when our first trip to his eponymous establishment was less-than-stellar (to say the least), all of our friends (including belles mangeuse and bleue) love this place and keep raving, so we gave it a second shot -- this time on Friday night instead of a Sunday (when the service was mediocre, we waited for ages for our drinks and each course and our food came out cold -- my shrimp and grits were kind of rubbery. Yuck! We got the impression that perhaps there was someone in the restaurant more important than us.).

I grabbed a reservation on OpenTable yesterday afternoon for that evening on a whim. I love restaurants that are on OpenTable as I have a weird phobia of calling strangers on the phone. We parked on the street (no need to tip the valet!), I gave the host our name for our 7:15 reservation, and we were seated immediately way back in the cozy dining area past the restrooms which I didn't even realize existed the first time we ate here. Our table was directly under a sort of ominous, though quite lovely metal sculpture of autumn leaves. The effect of the art in the simple, masculine room was really nice, and the room was very romantic and intimate.

We were a bit dismayed that we had the very same server from our first visit, but her perky blondeness was the only similarity between the two trips. We ordered cocktails -- him, the Ruby Red Eye, and me a concoction of pine-flavored liquer, salt, pepper and gin (I think) whose name I don't recall. I'm clearly a sucker for the bizarre cocktails. It was really very tasty and didn't make me think of cleaning the kitchen floor in any way.

We noted immediately how many duck dishes were on last night's menu...a good thing since the Boy loves duck. It made me wonder if they have to prepare so much of it to use up the rest of the duck in whose fat they cook their frites? Anyway, no complaints here. He had the duck sausage bangers and mash which were really solid with just the right amount of spice. I was intrigued by the mustard in the mashed potatoes as well -- a well-constructed dish. I had the fish and chips, and experienced the food orgasm I'd been hoping for from the duck-fat fries that everyone has been raving about. I also really liked the tartar sauce, and I actually hate tartar sauce and anything generally resembling mayonnaise.

We finished off our meal with a late harvest Zin for him and a limoncello for me. We also feasted on people watching -- I have a nasty habit of creating complex stories about the people who are seated near us in restaurants. Last night's was a particularly amusing tale of a first date going very badly. Good times.

We got out of there for about $90, including the tip, which seemed utterly reasonable to me for a restaurant that my brain puts in the "special occasion" category.

Keep this up, Mr. Doty, and you might make me forget all about that bad first impression!