I had been dying to try Smith & Jones Bar and Grill since it first opened in November. I heard mixed reviews and wanted to check it out for myself. It was opened by Johnny Vinczencz, a famous chef in the area, who has an outstanding fine dining restaurant, Johnny V's.
It was Saturday afternoon, and it was a great day to sit outside. We were greeted right away by the hostess and waited for a couple of minutes while an outside table opened up. She was very friendly and mentioned how great it was at night too, they have live music Wed - Sat night. We sat down and looked at the menu, and everything sounded mouth-watering! We ordered some wine (wine list is okay) and waited for the food... we were hungry.
Our starter was the Alligator Cakes. My friend Chris had never tried Alligator and he really enjoyed it. The cakes had a nice sear on the outside and every bite and a big chunk of alligator. It was well complemented by the mustard sauce and the freshness of the salsa that accompanied it.
Alligator Cakes
Then the only problem of the day occurred.... our sandwiches took forever. Our server obviously took too long to put the order in for those. Chris got the Cuban Sandwich, which was great. It had a perfect amount of meat, and the bread was soft with a nice crunchy crust, just like Cuban bread should be. I also really liked how they thinly sliced the pork. The fries were also good, crispy but soft in the middle.
Cuban Sandwich
My order was the Philly Cheesesteak, and it was a good choice. The bread was soft and absorbed all the juices, but didn't get soggy. It had a lot of thinly sliced, chopped rib-eye. I ordered my cheese steak with "cheez-wiz", which was a home made cheese sauce. The sauce had good flavor, but it was a little runny and there just wasn't enough on the sandwich. I got mango coleslaw as my side. Good flavor...but it was a little bit too drenched in the dressing.
Philly Cheesesteak & Mango Coleslaw
The food was really good, but the service needs a little work. It seemed after our order was taken, our server didn't make too many appearances. The prices are very affordable. Sandwiches are in the $11 range, entrees in the $15 range. I will definitely be coming back! Next time I'll try to catch their live music.
Service: 2.5 out of 5
Food: 4 out of 5
Playing Tour Guide
15 minutes ago
1 comments:
We stopped at S&J on the fly on my way outta town.Food was wonderful as was the service. The Reuben was perfectly done with the bread perfectly crispy for the nicely cooked corned beef and kraut. The Philly cheese steak was also one of the best I've had outside of Philly. Bobby was our server, what a great find for this restaurant - a server who has as much personality as knowledge of the food, and a guy who acts like he en joys his job. Two thumbs up for this restaurant and Bobby
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