Good Luck Review

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Whether you want to admit it or not, for years the standard for restaurants in Roc has been Good Luck.  There are two restaurant collectives in Roc that own some of the most sought after destinations for foodies: the luck group and the swan group.  We will eventually work our way through all of them!  We had seven Rouletters at this one.  A whopping three were first timers from the Roulette roster and the rest were old hands at Rouletting. �

We kicked it off with the warm olives: citrus, herbs.  This was a simple dish of pitted olives that was wisely avoided by the olive-haters in the group.  We like pits in our olives but are aware of the legal cantilever that exists between olive pits and liability insurance. The olives were copious, oily, warm, and well-seasoned.  Nice variety of not only colors and intensity but also textures. �⭐ 4.1�⭐

Next up was the white bean hummus: prosciutto xo sauce & house pita.  Everyone loved the prosciutto xo sauce (one Rouletter noted it was worth bathing in and no one disagreed).  We all found the hummus delightfully creamy and smooth and tasty.  The pita was a well-flavored bread, but the texture is where folks began to disagree.  If you wanted it to be soft and fluffy  you were disappointed.  If you are a toasted pita lover, you dug the crunch. �⭐ 3.8�⭐

The scotch olives & burrata: spicy sausage, serrano ham, balsamic, charred sourdough was delightful.  The scotch olives?  Crispy and flavorful brilliance.  The ham, balsamic, sausage combo with that beautifully charred sourdough?  Perfection. For many of us, this would have been a 5, full stop, if paired with a different cheese. With Jamon Serrano and olives, it’s almost confusing it didn’t come with manchego. Burrata, we love it, but it was completely irrelevant in this otherwise revelatory dish. To be honest, it sort of disappeared.  Very cool idea and beautifully executed otherwise – one of our Rouletters ranked this as their top dish of the night.  Even our two olive haters gave it 3.5 between them – which is a wildly high compliment. �⭐ 4.2�⭐

Turning to the salad, the chicory salad: pear, turnip, candied walnuts, maple-farro vinaigrettewas totally nondescript. We didn’t hate it.  We didn’t love it.  For what it was, it was well- balanced: the refreshing bitterness came at just the right time and was a nice foil to the sweetness of the pears and the walnuts, as well as the earthiness of the latter. �⭐ 3.2�⭐

Ah, the beets & watercress: crostini, olive tapenade, lively run goat cheese, red wine vinaigrette.  This one was just a lovely and well-composed snack with very tasty beets.  The olive tapenade and crostini were a bold choice to pair with the beets and goat cheese, but dang was it good!  We have a tie for first place, but this dish came in second. �⭐ 4.3�⭐

In a tie for the top dish of the night was the shaved summer squash: whipped ricotta, cashew-chili crisp, crunchy ramen, lime.  The dish it tied with was a dessert, so we can safely say that this is the top dish of the main course.  This perfect early fall dish had a great (and inventive) combination of ingredients. It was a symphony of textures: The crunch from the noodles, the freshness of the shaved zucchini. And YES YES YES this is how you serve ricotta.  To be honest, some of us were skeptical about the whipped ricotta but it contrasted perfectly with the crunch from the ramen and squash.  Four Rouletters voted this as one of their top dishes of the night.  What’s that?  We have another Shrimp Toast Award winner?!  Excellent job, Good Luck. �⭐ 4.7�⭐

The red lentil curry: sweet potato, swiss chard, house pita was quite good.  Some Rouletters found this lentil curry absolutely delicious with a lovely texture and standout flavors that served up well on the tasty pita.  Two Rouletters even had this as one of their top dishes of the night.  One piece of feedback: we wish this one was a little more well-salted. �⭐ 4.2�⭐

This wasn’t a good night for seafood and the pickled shrimp tostada: charleston-style shrimp, garlic scape pico, roasted corn aioli came in second for worst dish of the night.  The issue was in the shrimp size, composition, and setting of expectations.  The shrimp were very small.  It felt like we were eating baby shrimp, which bothered us a little (but not enough to not eat them).  If this had been called “ceviche” – which in truth it kinda was – and served with chips, OR, if it had been a toastada that can be picked up and bit directly into, like… well, like a toastada, this would have been at least a point higher.  There also wasn’t enough garlic scape to mention it in the description.  Overall, we would say it was quite well balanced, but strangely composed and titled.  As we have seen with other menus, a failure to set the accurate expectations can really tank a score. �⭐ 3.1�⭐ �

The most contentious dish of the night was the walnut pesto gemelli: rapini, toasted walnuts, oregano, parmesan Reggiano.  Some Rouletters emphatically clapped: “Yes, this is how you do this.”  This isn’t an earth-shattering, wheel-reinventing idea, this combination, but it is a revelation for a restaurant in any midsize city to excel at executing it. Very pleased with this dish and would absolutely order it again. JUST enough bitterness left in the rabe for it to read, and perfectly dressed.  Other Rouletters rolled their eyes and said “I wanted to love this, but it just didn’t come together.”  They felt the walnuts were overpowering and stopped the other flavors from coming together well. �⭐ 3.4�⭐

The parisian gnocchi: roasted corn flour, charred sweet corn cream, local mushrooms, sherry, ricotta salata was another contentious one.  It was cooked perfectly but left us asking: “Are they parisian?” What makes them parisian? The touch of corn flour? We loved that touch, it added a fun texture for sure to these little pillows of happiness. Maybe it’s too hard for me to look past what seems to be the area’s 2023 late summer food trend: Sprinkle Corn On It And Everything Will Be Fine. If they’d left the corn out (apart from the corn flour), and really amped the mushroom, this would have been astoundingly delicious. As it was, it was just regular-delicious, and Good Luck did so well at this meal overall that this kind of performance no longer stood out. �⭐ 3.8�⭐�

Ah, the good luck burger: 1LB. house-ground, FLX beef on brioche with NY cheddar, vegetable slaw & fries.  It’s what this place is famous for –  and it survives every new cook’s cuts and tweaks to the menu.  It even survives every season of this seasonally menued restaurant.  The behemoth of a burger was cooked perfectly (medium rare), well-seasoned, and had a good char on the outside.  We loved the clever idea of the tomatoes and lettuce being a “toppings-slaw” that only needed a bit more salt to rise to the very top of the food chain.  Where it fell short for some Rouletters was the cheese.  Don’t get us wrong – the flavor was there, but it was served cold and was not able to reverse the position for many of us that melted (or at least very warm cheese) is the only appropriate way to serve cheese on a meat patty.  Finally, The deconstructed idea might make you roll your eyes when described (we have deconstructed food all OVER our kitchens at home, I’m here so you can CONSTRUCT something for me, dammit), but it actually ended up allowing the cooler ingredients to stay cooler and crisper, Mc-DLT style, for those who remember.��

Finally, we move on to the fries.��This was contentious.��Either you love thin fries (and if that’s the case, Good Luck does a damn fine job) or you don’t.��Even if you don’t like the quality of  thin potatoes because you like the balance of crisp with creamy on a bigger fry, they more than make up for it in quantity: this is a mountain of fries.��Plus the awesome sauce is…awesome.��⭐ 4.1�⭐

The least enjoyed dish of the night was only tried by three Rouletters: the pan-roasted halibut: bouillabaisse jus, fennel, chilled mussels, rouille.  Fish is always overcooked, and Good Luck does not deviate from this industry standard. (Indeed, dining out in NYC for 23 years, one of our Rouletters experienced not-overcooked fish maybe 5 times). We like to order fish in the nicer joints owing to our unsquashable optimism that someone will execute it correctly and not overcook it. We maintain that this optimism itself is the gift, we guess. We would much rather have the fish fry at another restaurant owned by the lucky group, Lucky’s, which serves up a stellar fish fry that is moist, succulent, oily, and indulgent. At the end of the day, this dish looked like sunburnt feet and tasted bland. �⭐ 2.2�⭐

In a tie for top dish of the night was the fig brownie.  Why fig brownie? Who needs that? UM YOU DO. YOU REALLY DO NEED IT. There is something about the subtle sweetness of a fig that just barely and appropriately enhances the chocolate. And texturally, it was a huge win, the gooey character of the brownie echoing and dancing with the texture of the fig itself. It surprised us how much we liked it. The�crème anglaise was nice as well.  Our only notes are that we would have liked more figs on top instead of a single fig and port wine sabayon instead of the crème anglaise would have been a touch more exciting. �⭐ 4.7�⭐

Turning to the drinks, we should note that Good Luck’s bar has Roc fame in its own right.  It is a place to be and to be seen.  And the only way to get a chance at a last minute meal at Good Luck.  This place has one of the best French 75s in the city, but they took it off the menu, so you’ll just have to trust us and ask for one.  The folks who tried the cocktails on the menu loved them too.  The Peach in the Streets: brown butter bourbon, brandy, grilled peach-grape syrup. Frangelico, brioche breadcrumbs had a lovely combination of flavors and the strength was on point.  If you like peaches and bourbon, this is your huckleberry.  The Rouletter who tried the La Escopeta: tequila blanco, ancho reyes, mango cordial, serrano chili, Bermuda peppers, orange dust highly recommends it. You can choose your spice level (from 1-5). They went with a 5 (they’re all in). It was spicy but not overpowering. The mango cordial cuts down on the heat, and pairs excellent with the tequila. �

On the beer side, they have a strong enough draft list that they can keep their malty and hoppy customers happy (this is rare around here – most draft lists are wicked IPA heavy).  The wine by the glass list is also very robust and has some truly interesting options. �⭐ 4.6�⭐

Moving on to the service, our server and team were impeccable in every way. Loved it. Cordial, affable, engaging, socially sensitive, efficient, responsive. We didn’t just experience this brand of service from our actual server, but with the whole place. It gives us the sense that their culture is in the right place. The only drawback we had was that the drinks could be rather slow – this was clearly more a bar problem than a server one, however. Unfortunately, it hurt the score a bit. �

⭐ 4.5�⭐

Overall, Good Luck is back to its former glory.  It was rocky there for a bit when they changed chefs a couple years back, but it has once again hit it’s stride.  A couple of quick notes: the parking can get a bit tight on a Friday/Saturday night, but they provide multiple lots.  There are stairs to get in the front door, so if you need an accessible entrance, I believe there is one past the bar that goes into the back parking lot.  The restrooms are gendered, which can cause some stress for folks.  Otherwise, what can we say?  Good vibes, great food, and the service was top notch even on a busy night (well, they’re all busy nights at Good Luck).  This is still one of the places you bring folks when you want to show them that Roc can hold its own in the national culinary conversation. �⭐ 4.5�⭐