Boo's

Madeleine Rayner

Jul 1

It was a beautiful night when I went out tonight. It was cold, but the stars were twinkling. So I parked a considerable distance from this restaurant on Victoria Street and walked. A couple of hours later when it was time to return to my car, the stars had vanished and the rain was heavy. I was a bit wet by the time I got back to the car.

It's been years since I've dined at this restaurant - which was then called Boo Radley's. It used to be a regular before the earthquake, but not so much in recent years. I suspect it's in need of refurbishment - the seat cover was torn - but because it's quite dark, it's hard to tell.

I chose one of the salads - grilled romaine lettuce topped with cowboy caviar (all the bits and pieces on top of the lettuce apparently), bacon, garlic croutons, roasted pecans & blue cheese dressing. It was all right. It seemed to me that the romaine lettuce was "grilled" possibly to cover up the wilted browning nature of the leaves . . . . It wasn't until I re-read the menu to write this post that I realised the dressing was blue cheese. It certainly didn't taste like it.

The steak was evidently amazing - the potatoes with which it was served certainly looked fabulous as the were crispy chunks of deliciousness. The crispy chicken with waffles was evidently good too.

There were only 4 of us dining tonight and it was really pleasant being able to chat with these people whom I've known for more than 15 years.

The singer with his guitar and amplifier ruined the conversation. The room is really small - the size of my living room which isn't small, but neither is it large. The noise of the music was overwhelming. We hoped that he would stop for a break, but it was an hour before he did so. And the songs he sang were depressingly minor key songs. Sigh!

The service was good - lots of checking, lots of water, and when we asked if the music could be turned down a little, it was!

Service: 4/5 Food: 3/5 Ambience: 3/5 Total 10/15

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