My wife and I recently decided to try Dakotas in the Arboretum shopping center. I had been hearing about the the restaurant from Al Gardner a member of Charlotte’s Morning News on my talk radio station WBT 1110 talking about this place.
I listen to these guys every morning on my drive into work. I thought Al seemed to love the place. Of course that was probably advertising. Marlene wanted to go to dinner, so I thought we would try it.
The interior is what you would expect. The soft lighting gave warm tones to the walls making the place nice and cozy. We were seated at a table for two up near the windows.
The table we were sitting at had a wobble. This was rather disappointing in any restaurant, but is by no means an uncommon occurrence. Normally the wait staff would stabilize the table with a matchbook or some other item. Our waitress was clueless. She spent 5 minutes trying to figure out which side was wobbling. This would have been ok if there had not been so many other empty tables about. We were finally reseated at another table 5 feet from this one.
Finally, we could open the menus. To my dismay, it was only two pages. This is a place with dishes in the 15-30 dollar range. I expected a little bit more variety than 6 appetizers, 6 salads, and 6 entrees. Ok maybe I am a spoiled heathen. Marlene ordered the potato encrusted Salmon. I ordered the meatloaf. I had recently had another meatloaf up the street at City Tavern (Sorry about the annoying music) and wanted to compare the two. The meatloaf at CT is GREAT.
The wine list was pretty good. Marlene had a gewürztraminer and I had a Shiraz. The food took a little longer than I had expected with the small crowd.
Marlene loved the salmon. It was very tasty and perfectly cooked. I was not impressed with my $17.00 meatloaf. It was bland and the fork tines were too big for the sides that came with the meal.
Our overall impression is that it has potential, but they need to improve their menu and their service. A place where dinner for two with a bottle of wine cost $100 should have been more spectacular This was our first time there and first impressions are important. Our first impression is that there are too many other good places in Charlotte that we will go to and recommend before Dakota’s
Posted by srivinus at February 3, 2004 07:39 PM