For our latest Roulette we tried a place that was new to all of us: Public Provisions. It hasn’t been open for too long, so buoyed by the great Google reviews we were super excited to try a new Roc restaurant. Boy, were we disappointed. In our usual fashion we ordered all of the small plates and then filled up the rest of the meal from the medium and large plate sections. There were six veteran Rouletters from our roster on this one and all of them turned in their reviews.
The first dish of the night was one of my favorites: the Parker House Sliders: Brie | Pepper Marmalade. Some of us loved the mix of flavor profiles: the earthy, salty creaminess of the brie coupled well with the bright bite of the pepper marmalade. One Rouletter even ranked this one at a tie for their top dish of the night. However, thinking about how this was something we could easily throw together in a few seconds at home for a fraction of the price took away some of the appeal. We all agreed that the bread was too bulky for the fillings and created an unbalanced ratio. The most common feedback though was that these were billed as sliders and so folks expected meat (given the price and failure to indicate that these were vegetarian sliders on the menu). As you’ll see throughout the reviews, the menu tends to not tell you anything about the food, so we expected the same with this dish. Nope. It was very accurate. It was a little brie and some pepper marmalade on a bun. If they had slid some DM (Damn MEAT) into the slider or billed these as vegetarian, the score would probably have been quite a bit higher.
The Crunchy Cracker: Seasonal had the second lowest score of the night. See? This is what we mean. The menu was super vague. Well, it wasn’t even a cracker. When the server set the food down they said it was a vegetarian Chicharrón, which it turns out is a fancy way of saying “corn puff.” It had something strewn over the top and no one could quite determine what it was. Some thought it might be nacho cheese that lacked any sharpness and others thought it tasted more like Ken’s honey mustard. Yeah. Those things are definitely not even close to each other. Rouletters found these to be a failed attempt at nachos that tasted like something we may have eaten out of a bag once and never bought again. The texture was nice though. ⭐ 1.8
If you order a Beet Falafel: Za’atar Aioli, you expect it to taste like…beets, right? At least a little. We expected these to be reddish-purple but what came out looked like every other falafel out there. “Okay, maybe they used white beets” we thought as we bit into them. They tasted…like falafel. So, we asked the server what was up. Are they white beets? He said no, they are regular beets, but they don’t put too much in so it doesn’t overpower the falafel. Query: how light do you have to go on the beets for the falafel to have NO purple or red hue at all? I don’t have an exact amount, but I had the falafel, so I’m confident the answer is: light enough that you can’t taste beets at all. One of our Rouletters noted that this may have been made with beet greens, but who knows? Overall, this was a perfectly average falafel (but absolutely does not taste like beets, so that part was a fala-fail).
Next up was the Chips & Dips: Fries | All Dips. The fries were nicely cooked: crispy on the outside with soft fluffy potato inside. Let’s talk about expectations (again). So, if you’re a restaurant trying to do elevated dishes, maybe dress up the mayo or the ketchup that you serve as a “dip.” Folks loved the lemon carraway dip, so that one was a winner. The final dip was maybe pimento cheese. We aren’t 100% sure. Some Rouletters think it was and others thought that it looked like pimento cheese but was something else. Maybe it was just elevated pimento cheese. Anyway, one Rouletter ranked this their top dish of the night.
The most polarizing dish of the night was the Tender Leeks: Pistachio Romesco. Look, if you’re going to put a bunch of mint into your Romesco sauce, mention it on the menu. I’m pretty sure there was cilantro in there too, which should also be noted. These are polarizing things. I bit into this and spit it out. I hate mint and I’m one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap. So, here I was all excited about leeks (love them!) with pistachio (yum!) and Romesco sauce (peppers and tomatoes with nuts or whatever – delightful) and then I bite into minty soap. If the menu had mentioned either of these items, I wouldn’t have tasted this dish and the score would be higher. Plus, I’m not convinced that was a Romesco sauce. There was no hint of red or orange in it, so you know…we are back to how few tomatoes and red peppers do you have to put into a sauce for literally no red or orange color to show up? Just call it a mint sauce. Anyway, the Rouletters who like mint and cilantro found this to be a very nice dish! Two noted it as their top dish of the night. Here’s one place where all Rouletters agreed: if you’re serving a mushy leek dish, give us a sharp knife to cut it.
We followed this up with the Garlicky Greens: Chinese Secret. The secret seems to be soy and vinegar. This dish was trying to be East Asian but didn’t quite hit its mark. Rouletters found the greens a bit stringy and the dish a bit salty.
The Compressed Salad: Arugula | Cucumber | Zucchini | Watermelon | Beets | Chili Crunch | Sesame Seeds seems like a dish where all the ingredients are mercifully listed. But they forgot to mention the fennel. The FENNEL. Which is, you know, a polarizing flavor. And there were big ol chunks of it in there. “Watermelon” was a bit misleading because it actually appeared to be watermelon rind pickles. Anyway, we aren’t really sure what is meant by “compressed.” We think it must mean that all ingredients are shoved into large compression socks, which the chef grabs and then whips around above their head until all ingredients are sufficiently soggy. The beets (ironically) overpowered everything making this taste more like a beet/fennel dish than a refreshing salad. While I was looking forward to this one based on the description, I tossed this one on my wife’s plate too. Raw chunks of fennel taste like anise to me. So, you know, would have skipped this one too if the menu was accurate. Rouletters found that the mixture was overall wilted and unbalanced.
The prize for highest rated dish of the night goes to the Crispy Calamari: Pickled Peppers | Smoked Paprika! The calamari was nicely battered and lightly fried – there was no oily taste or overpowering breading. The pickled peppers added a good amount of accent bite to the dish, and the smoked paprika pulled it together well. While one Rouletter ranked it as a tie for their top dish of the night, there just wasn’t enough there to set this meaningfully apart from other calamari in town.
The lowest scored dish of the night (and ever on a Roulette) was the Vegetarian Bibimbap: Gochujang Cabbage | Shiitake | Zucchini | Cucumber | Rice | Egg. We don’t know why the chef would throw this dish in the mix; it seemed like an unnecessary reach. This was not bibimbap. If you’re going to bastardize this dish at least make it taste good. Bibim-NO, the first ingredients it listed was gochujang, more like NOchujang. This was a textural travesty. The rice was overdone. The soy egg or soft-boiled egg or whatever that was would have been fine in ramen maybe, but the egg on bibimbap needs to be a fried egg with a runny yolk. Come on, spreading that yolk all over the rice dish is an obvious must. Where are the bean sprouts? Bibimbap mainly has veggies, egg, and bulgogi, so all they had to do was make it without the bulgogi.
We planned to close the meal with the Crispy Chicken Circle: Butter Potatoes | Braised Kale | Scallions. We were between this one and the burger for a main course to try. But, we wondered, what is a chicken circle? So, we asked the server. He said it was chicken flattened and rolled up. “Like a roulade?” we asked. Yes, like that. Maybe I should start using emojis in these reviews. Never mind. It’s better that I don’t. Why is the ball constantly hidden at this place? Anyway, we were like “okay cool! We’ll try that.” So, it comes out and I bite into it all excited because it’s chicken and potatoes! And I’m actually hungry since I had to now toss two of the tastings onto my wife’s plate. Guess what? They rolled mint into the chicken. Like. What is even happening? We called the waiter over and asked what was in the chicken because it tasted minty. He checked with the kitchen and came back to tell us it was just chicken. A Rouletter split some open with a fork, pointed to the bunch of green stuff, and asked what that was specifically. He went back to the kitchen, came back, and told us it was herbs and…mint. The kitchen misunderstood the first question and thought we were asking if there was other meat involved. I tossed it on my wife’s plate and sat there wondering if I’d passed into an alternate dimension. We figured this was probably sous vide, but it was somehow over cooked and a bit dry, so maybe not. We guess what they got right here was it was a circle.
My wife and the other Rouletters felt so badly for your Roulette Croupier that we ordered the Smash Burger: Gruyere or Cheddar | Lettuce Pickles | Onions | Vision Sauce | Fries so that I didn’t leave hungry and sad. Good thing we did – this puppy had the second highest ranking and brought in two votes for top dish of the night. Overall, it was a good burger that actually fit the menu description (apologies for forgetting to snap a pic of this one). The fries were again very nice. That being said, what waiter doesn’t ask you how you want a burger cooked? Vision sauce seems to simply be Mayo, ketchup, and mustard. We don’t really see how that combo is “visionary,” but it was tasty. ⭐ 3.6
Moving onto the drinks we have…more menu confusion! The wine section notes that you can order wines by the glass, carafe, or bottle and then the types of wine (sparkling, white, rose, red). So, a couple folks order the prosecco carafe. We get a couple of them and then the server tells us this is a mistake, and the prosecco is not supposed to have a carafe option. We can only get it by the glass going forward. What? The prosecco itself was good, but this inconsistency left a bad taste for Rouletters. The beer selection was really nice and had some malty options instead of just a pile of IPAs with one light lager option. We note that there is beer and wine only and not a full bar.
The service score on this one needs a bit of explanation. The server was attentive, friendly, and kept our drinks coming. He seemed unsure about the food and what was in it, which is actually likely the fault of the kitchen since they didn’t really seem able to answer his questions. Also, the weirdness with the prosecco was a bad look. We get the feeling someone told him the carafes were a no-go halfway through the meal even though the menu was set-up in a way that showed that as an option. That wasn’t his fault either. Some of the service ranking was based on this stuff, but it seems a bit like the guy was set-up to fail. That being said, we need to rank based on our service experience as a whole.
Whew boy. Time to rank the restaurant overall. For a new-ish restaurant trying to find its groove, it seems to be really all over the place. Any attempt to create mystery and intrigue by giving the absolute minimum information on each dish was confusing at best, and negligent at worst, given the types of ingredients that the diner would unknowingly bite into. This restaurant doesn’t know it’s identity and seems to be trying to be mysterious and intriguing, but their two-word descriptors (and failure to mention key polarizing ingredients) just made everything disappointing. If the descriptions would have been more accurate, these ratings would have been substantially higher because we would 1) know what to expect and 2) folks who don’t like the polarizing ingredients would not have tasted and reviewed the dishes containing them. The restaurant itself was nice and seemed to have ample space. The outdoor seating at the Public Market is always lovely. As long as there isn’t something special going on at the market, the parking for dinner is plentiful. Note, GPS can sometimes get confused between this place and Provisions on Culver. You can also just put in Flower City Bread or Cure to get there.
While we are hopeful that this is a case of new restaurant growing pains, there were enough structural failures to have us worried for this place’s future. If it were just bad food, we could think maybe it was an off night (though they weren’t busy at all) or perhaps the chef had an emergency and a back-up was cooking the food. But at the end of the day, the menu choices and descriptions coupled with confusion that even melted into the drinks and service leads to us having much larger concerns.