Last week, I went to Mullets in Des Moines. It’s my hands-down, all time favorite summertime bar in Des Moines. I love to head down there on a mild summer night, grab a seat their patio at a roughly built wooden picnic table with some friends, order a cold beer, and watch the sun sink below the skyline of the city I love.
Mullets is the newest bar in the Full Court Press family and it lives up to the standard of its brothers and sisters. All the Full Court Press bars have the same characteristics: Great location, unique theme/concept, interesting food on the menu, a drink menu that offers more choices than Bud and Bud Light, and an easy transition from daytime family restaurant to Des Moines night life hot spot. Every bar that they open is an instant home run and Mullet’s is no exception.
Except one little thing. One tiny, itty bitty detail that Mullets, along with A LOT of other restaurants, overlook. The salads.
Welcome to my first pet peeve of the restaurant world. Lackluster salads on an otherwise great menu.
At Mullets, I ordered the Grilled Tuna Salad. The menu describes it as Grilled Ahi Tuna slices over a bed of iceberg lettuce, spinach, walnuts, dried cherries, and Maytag blue cheese. Sound good to you? Eh. It was okay, almost disappointing. Let me point out a few components that this salad had that annoy the crap out of me about restaurant salads.
#3. Iceberg Lettuce
Can you point out a more pointless ingredient in American Cuisine? Seriously. Although it is the most popular lettuce and most commonly used lettuce, it is by far the lettuce that is the dullest in flavor. It brings nothing but a crunch to the plate. With so many other types of lettuce, it annoys me when restaurants default to iceberg. Thanks for not even trying to make this an interesting plate.
#2. Blue Cheese
I’ll admit that I’m not head over heels in love with Blue Cheese but I do love it in small, well executed amounts. However, it keeps popping up on menus all over the place. Even where it shouldn’t. Like on a salad with SEARED TUNA. Seared tuna is a delicate flavor and the blue cheese completely overpowered it. The tuna could have packed its bags, left the salad and nobody would have ever noticed. Blue Cheese is a bully. If the other flavors on the plate don’t compliment it, then the blue cheese flavor takes over. I don’t know where this trend of sprinkling blue cheese on everything started but I wish it would stop. I think it’s one of those things where places are trying to be “fancy” and use more unique ingredients, even when they don’t need to. I can see the logic that they use. The chef felt like they need a cheese on the salad because that’s what the public expects, but they want to be cutting edge and use unique ingredients, so instead of using the standard shredded cheddar, the chef slaps some blue cheese over the top. On this particular salad, cheese wasn’t even needed! Don’t add ingredients just because you feel that’s what the dish is supposed to have, add it because the dish wouldn’t be complete with out it!
And my #1 pet peeve for restaurant salads:
The salad dressings.
In my opinion, if any thing, salads included, is on the menu, it should receive as much consideration and planning as an entrée. The ingredients should be though out as to how the flavors are going to play together. Salad dressings can alter the taste of a salad completely. I don’t understand why a chef would let the patron choose such an important component of the dish themselves. I don’t pick the seasoning on my steak or the sauce that the pasta comes with, so why should I pick the salad dressing? This salad from Mullets had the option of all the standard dressings, Ranch, Italian, Honey Mustard, Blue Cheese, or a Raspberry Vinaigrette. The thought of taking a beautifully piece of seared tuna and pouring ranch dressing all over it makes my skin crawl. Disgusting.
I don’t mean to give Mullets a hard time. I know culinary excellence is not their main priority. They happened to be the last place I ordered a salad.
I really wish chefs would not skip over the salads on their menu. Do them well or don’t do them at all.
And if you’re in Des Moines and want an example of a restaurant that does salads well, even their side salads and house salads well, go to Centro. Amazing. I’m almost drooling thinking about their house salad. Maybe I should go pick one up before going to work…
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