Prefixe Failures...

Twenty Manning

261 South 20th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.twentymanning.com/

I received a gift card to Twenty Manning for my birthday, so my fiancé and I decided to give it a try on Friday evening. It happened to be Valentine's Day, which we don’t celebrate, but we went out anyway. They had a prefix menu of course as most places do for that evening, and a lot of the options sounded pretty tasty. 

The drinks we ordered were pretty good, a mezcal cocktail for me and a bourbon drink for my lady. The meal started off right, but it went downhill quickly from there. It was a four course prefixe menu for 65 dollars. First up was a trio amuse bouche of tuna tartare, an oyster shooter and an avocado mousse. None were particularly satisfying. I liked the tartare best, because of its fresh clean flavors, but it was not seasoned enough. The oyster shooter was far too acidic, and the avocado mousse was just bland. 

For our second course we received a "rack" of lamb and haloumi salad. My rack of lamb was actually one lamb chop with enough English pea purée for an entire rack. The pea puree was good, but there was far too much of it on the plate for the measly amount of lamb that was with it. The lamb chop also lacked a good sear on its exterior. I was severely disappointed by the size and execution of the plates because at 65 dollars per person, I was expecting a lot more. The haloumi was lukewarm and actually kind of difficult to chew. It was really going downhill quickly.

The third courses were the seared tuna and the surf and turf. My tuna was ok, but very bland. That seemed to be a common theme of the night. You would think that these prefix menus for holidays would be easier to execute because the options are limited, but the execution on this particular night was way off. The soba noodles that came with the tuna were also bland. They needed some soy or garlic and ginger or something to else to season them.  It was all very disappointing. I liked the flavor of the steak in the surf and turf, but the shrimp were tough and very overcooked. 

Dessert was a throw away course. There really was not one good bite amongst the three. I really enjoy when you have a few different small bites to choose from on a desserts plate, but this was just poorly executed. The pastries were dry. The best of the three was the raspberry cheesecake, but it wasn't very good in its own right. The raspberry flavor was so faint, you almost couldn’t tell what it was.

One and a half pints for Twenty Manning Grill. We were so very disappointed in our experience here. I really wanted to like this place, but the food and the price were really not up to par. The service and drinks were pretty good, but to be charged 65 dollars per person for the quality and amount of food we got was really disappointing. I hope Audrey Claire is a better experience than this. I would avoid this one. Cheers!