Eating at Sea Saw and drinking the 2003 Clos LaChance Pinot Noir and 2004 Turley Zinfandel
Sea Saw is a restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, with very good food and an annoying Web site.
On the last night of my trip to Phoenix (last night, in fact), I went to Sea Saw and tried a whole mess of different foods. The place has an interesting concept: Japanese “tapas.” Some call it “Tapanese.” I call it “expensive as hell for what you get.” But it is a really fun place.
Or it would be, if they could iron out a few of the details, such as providing timely and knowledgeable wine service, or including more than 2 tables in the entire restaurant (much of which is taken up by the grill and kitchen area), or recognizing how long it should take to eat all the little courses and then balancing that time requirement with the patrons’ need for a coveted table. Anyway, it is hard to complain when the food makes it all worthwhile, so I will simply say that Sea Saw has pretty good food for the most part.
Sea Saw is one of a few restaurants in a little cluster right in downtown Scottsdale. Each restaurant features a different cuisine and theme; the theme at Sea Saw is one of minimalist elegance, stainless steel, soft lights, and a gigantic open kitchen that dominates the space. All of the restaurants in this quadrangle share the same immense wine cellar, which contains at least 2,900 bottles of wine. But apparently it was 2,899 bottles of wine last night….
We ordered the following food and shared it all; refer to their menu for all the little tiny bits of flair they included with each dish (there were a lot; too many in some cases to make a cohesive tasting experience):
- Edamame soup (good soup, thick tapioca-like consistency turned off some people)
- Hamachi with about 8 other things on top and below it (this tasted way too confused to me)
- Soft shell shrimp fry (delicious!)
- Mushroom melange (also delicious)
- Seared tuna tataki in pureed beet (highlight of the evening for me)
- Steamed sea bass in broth (not all that great, way too watery and bland)
- Seared miso-marinated foie gras (my favorite but a little rich to serve at the end of the meal)
- I think I forgot a course in here, but overall the food was good…some hit or miss dishes, though
The real fun began when I had a question about the wine list. The waiter at Sea Saw was quite good, but he was not a sommelier. So I was handed this tome through which I flipped hungrily for several minutes. Once I knew we were going to spend $40-$50 for a bottle of wine, I honed in on that section of the wine list since the wines are arranged by price. First, I asked if they had anything like a Hirsch Pinot Noir but cheaper. That drew a blank stare. So I asked about a specific wine, which elicited this reply: “Uhh, I don’t know, I don’t get to try all of the wines.”
Now, at this point, I totally understood that the waiter was just that: a waiter. Why did the establishment put him in this position? Why didn’t he go and get the sommelier for all of the restaurants? I don’t know, I probably wasn’t going to spend enough money to justify a sommelier’s time anyway. But when I let the waiter ask the chef for a wine recommendation, he came back with a 2005 California Pinot Noir, a Melville from the Santa Rita Hills. Seemed too young to me since we didn’t have time to decant the wine, but I went for it.
Only the waiter didn’t come back with that wine. They were out. Now that’s a funny situation: The restaurant recommends a specific wine only to tell you, no, we don’t actually have it. But we recommend it. I thought it was funny, anyway.
Instead, the waiter did something admirable: He returned with a taste of an Oyster Bay Pinot Noir (because I was asking for something outside of the US) and a bottle of 2003 Clos LaChance Santa Cruz Hills Pinot Noir. I went with the Clos LaChance as the Oyster Bay tasted like confectioner’s sugar and kirsch, so it was a little too sweet. At this point, we were already into our 3rd or 4th course out of 9 or so. That’s entirely too long to wait for a bottle of wine, particularly when the restaurant wants to sell wine to its customers!
The 2003 Clos LaChance Pinot Noir was quite a good wine; here are my notes:
- Aroma: Earthy, faint essence of mushroom, strong cherry and raspberry bouquet at first. A very fruit-forward nose with occasional hints of kirsch and red plums.
- Flavor: Big ripe cherry flavor, extremely succulent and mouth-smackingly tasty. Slightly sweet, slightly jammy, very smooth. A definite crowd-pleaser.
- General impression: A delicious wine, one that left me wanting another bottle immediately. Lots of great Pinot Noir essence with some nice character to boot. Worth seeking out!
I finished off my portion of the bottle and I wanted something more. So I got a 6-ounce pour of the 2004 Turley Zinfandel. The menu didn’t say which Turley Zin I ordered, so I assume it’s their most basic release. Here are my notes on that wine:
- Aroma: Blackberry and bramble with peppery spice. A good Zinfandel bouquet.
- Flavor: Lots of smooth blackberry and black fruit flavor with some blackberry vine undertones. Nice balance of fruit and tannins.
- General impression: A very lucid, well-balanced wine. Smooth, but spicy; tannic, but drinkable. Quite good, but for the price I think I’d keep looking for another wine (such as that Peter Franus Brandlin Zin I just tried).
In short, the restaurant was good but a little mixed up. The wine was good but a little expensive. The atmosphere was good but a little snobby and uptight. Everything was good, but it’s a qualified “good” I suppose. Ahh well, I love business trips….