Ah, Lucky’s. A great little place in the Good Luck family that’s open 7 days per week. That’s how we ended up there for the ultra-rare Monday Roulette. There were six veteran Rouletters and one first-timer from our roster. All seven turned in their reviews (in a timely fashion even!).
The night started with the Curried Wings: pickled carrots, spiced yogurt, cashews. Rouletters overall found these (un-separated) wings to be crispy and flavorful: Cinnamon! Heat! We feel like we’re at Burning Man. The pickled carrots and spiced yogurt dipping sauce were a lovely accompaniment. Now, if you’re a wing purist: you like your wings separated into drums and flats, fried crispy, and slathered in sauce, then this isn’t the wing for you. Particularly, there’s a ton they could have done with curry other than buy curry powder and put it on top. For example, make a curry and stew wings in it…then fry those.
Some of us thought we didn’t like lamb, but the Lamb Kabob: roasted carrot hummus, harissa, fresh chickpeas, yogurt, cilantro, was the second lamb dish to impress us. It was surprisingly light and lifted for lamb – enough so that one Rouletter ranked it top dish of the night. We were huge fans of the carrot hummus and harissa combination that turned this towards pub food. A truly butch bite. The criticism on this one is that it was a bit dry. Also, these were actually kefta kabobs, which is what this should be called, since that’s what it actually is; simply “Lamb” implies pieces of lamb meat.
The Marinated Melon Salad: cucumber, chili, basil, lemon vinaigrette was a pleasant surprise. The cantaloupe was sweet, the combination was fresh and tart with crisp and ripe fruit, but the vinaigrette was a bit heavy-handed and distracting. That didn’t stop us from going back. It had one Rouletter humming “How Lovely to be a woman” from the musical Bye Bye Birdie, so that’s gotta mean something.
In a tie for second best dish of the night is the Heirloom Tomatoes: grilled bread, Stracciatella, e.v. olive oil. Is there anything better than homegrown August tomatoes in Rochester?! It was a simple and effective combo, seasoned correctly, with perfect tomatoes. Two Rouletters had this on their top dish list.
The winner for top dish was the Lucky’s Fish & Chips: dayboat hake, vegetable slaw, gribiche, fries. There were two of us who don’t generally like fish who rated this top dish of the night. The choice of hake was well-made; its delicate texture yielded beautifully in the fry, and its subtle, sweet flavor allowed cohesion in the dish. This was surprisingly good. A MAJOR note is that there was a true abundance of tartar sauce (you can call it gribiche all you want: that was tartar sauce). Several Rouletters applauded this – restaurants, take note! This is perhaps the first time in our lives where we didn’t wring our hands with concern that we were going to be left wanting more tartar sauce. That was wisely done. Nobody is afraid of too much tartar sauce, and the generous bed of it upon which the fish was laid spoke abundant warmth to us. The fries weren’t as loved, which lowered the score a touch.
The Daily Steak: butcher cut, beef fat fries, berb butter, daily sauce was a ribeye. We may have had a couple too many of the above because we…forgot to take a picture of the steak. This happened with a burger at the last place we went. Maybe a nice serving of beef drives us to distraction. Anyway, this was a solid steak entry with the rarity of well-seasoned meat, cooked the way you ordered it, and it was not lost on us. Folks found it tasty, but the fries accounted for a little dip in this one as well. Overall, it was a very nice steak, but there was nothing spectacular about it.
Oh, the Smoked Salmon Patty Melt: kewpie ramp mayo & cream cheese on sourdough. Sigh. Last Roulette when we were writing the review for the ill-fated bibimbap from Provisions, we wrote this next section but ultimately cut it from the review because we didn’t want to end up just dunking on that place: This dish was so bad that we have decided to name a dishonorable mention tag in this blog after it: the Bibimbust designation. We will give this on the rare occasion that a dish is so universally ranked as a travesty across individual Rouletter reviews that it bears a special warning. The Bibimbust designation is the exact opposite of the Shrimp Toast Award.
See? That seems a bit harsh. Plus, what are the chances that we will encounter dishes where the rating is a) overall under 1.8 and b) just talked about in revulsion for the rest of the night and beyond? Well…here we are. Swing and a huge miss here. It was sloppy and goopy and while we can really get behind a pile of mayonnaise, this is something we generally do in private, and certainly not in what appeared to be a napkin deficit. Hot smoked salmon (whether hot-smoked and hot or cold-smoked and heated) is akin to navigating the eel-infested waters near the coast of Florin at night: There’s really only one way through, and if you don’t find it, you die. Warm smoked salmon is perfect and ethereal, or it’s a pile of disgusting textureless fishy nonsense. We think it’s clear which one this was. Thanks to this fishy goopy mess we officially have instituted the Bibimbust designation, and this is the first designee.
Lucky’s does daily specials and Monday is Bangers & Mash day. This one was the most polarizing dish of the night. First, some Rouletters said, “don’t say that the bangers come with mash and then serve them with crispy rounds of potato that appear to be impersonating fried sausage slices.” The purple ones looked like blood rashers. The red ones looked like kielbasa. Other Rouletters loved the potatoes and were delighted with the fried potatoes that were not at all mashed. At the end of the day, you were either like “Sustenance. Fine. Don’t lie to me about the potatoes.” or “WAIT THIS RULES. Corn was seasoned well, meat sauce at the end of was perfect to dip fries into. Incredibly crisp potato rounds, melty bite of banger. Salt n’ bite through it all. Is that our friend mustard visiting?” There is no in-between, and one Rouletter loved it enough to rank it top dish. ⭐ 3.5
We decided on dessert at Lucky’s and it was the right choice! We started with the Strawberry Shortcake with lavender whipped cream. Oh wait. There was no lavender (which is, however, inarguably better than too much lavender). If they’d just said “whip” this one would be in a fight for top dish of the night because the cream itself was lovely. Then there was the perfectly crisp and tender biscuit (the inclusion of cornmeal was wise) – this was a game changer and sets a standard for all future strawberry shortcakes. Finally, there were the good quality and impeccably treated strawberries. On a side note, wtf? Get those shreds of mint off there, there’s no reason for them. Tarragon, maybe. But c’mon, it’s not 1986, sprinkling mint on things doesn’t make it fancy.
In a tie for second best dish of the night is the Profiteroles with Malt Ice Cream. Rouletters found this very tasty: we loved the choux pastry and the chocolate was perfect (a nice level of salt and the dark chocolate depth kept things from getting silly-sweet). One Rouletter even named this dessert as top dish. Where we diverged is with the malt ice cream. Let’s say you really love malt ice cream. You might react this way: I’m angry someone would tempt me with the idea of malt ice cream and then deliver one that completely does not taste like malt, at least not when covered by a big goopy chocolate sauce. But if you’re a little less hurt by the lack of malt flavor, you might just note that malt ice cream isn’t really necessary for this dessert and a simple vanilla would have done just fine.
The Basque Cheesecake with Rhubarb was the second most polarizing dish of the night. Overall, it was a decent entry into Basque cheesecake if you REALLY like rhubarb. We respect that they were unashamed of the rhubarb’s tartness. This dish’s pants are down because it knows its…um…basque should be seen and appreciated. And if you love rhubarb, this dessert made your night – for one Rouletter there was enough joy for it to be top dish.
For drinks we begin with the cocktails. The most popular drink of the night with four Rouletters choosing it was the Purple Haze: empress gin, lavender syrup, lime, cava. This was a very good gin cocktail with an interesting chalky character that served as a drying agent. Gin was the spirit of the evening with the other cocktail folks tried being the Pegu Club: askur gin, curaçao, lime, demerara, bitters. As with the Purple Haze, this was a beautiful drink that was nicely balanced with a pleasant flavor. For wine, there was a dry Tokaji, which was unique and fun to try. For beer the selection is a bit lacking with so much of the draft menu taken up with IPAs and hipster selections like Blue light. They still managed to have one decent (though a touch hoppy) lager on the menu, so I was happy.
The service situation was a bit unusual. Our server truly seemed to hate us at the beginning. Yes, more than one Rouletter used the word hate. We worked hard to make her like us. When one Rouletter asked you how her night was, she exasperatedly said “busy.” The restaurant was clearly packed to the gills (Monday in Roc has very few decent restaurants open), but it seemed like something was going on behind the scenes to create such stress / agita in the front of house. There was another server with a strong Freddie Mercury vibe that helped her out, and he was super friendly and schmoozy. We always want to respect how difficult the service industry can be, but something felt off, if we’re being honest.
Overall folks enjoyed themselves and like all the Good Luck family of restaurants, Lucky’s has their signature funky artsy hipster vibe that likes to scream “I’M NOT TAKING MYSELF SERIOUSLY” while taking itself very seriously. The food was quite good overall, but the menu lacked cohesion – most dishes pointed toward Irish Pub but there were some challenging pairings. Meanwhile, the Greek and UK influences veered away from the feeling of comfort and recognition that this “neighborhood joint” was trying to achieve. In addition, every dish had one or two things too many. It’s like the kitchen likes a lot of STUFF, which muddled flavors a bit. Kudos to the guy that we were all picturing in the kitchen spritzing fresh corn on most of the dishes right before they came out though – the corn situation was sort of delightful. The parking is plentiful in the lots next to the restaurant and the street in front. The bathrooms were gendered and it can get pretty loud with the acoustics, both of which can be a challenge for folks.