Nectar
28.Sep.09
1091 Lancaster Ave., Berwyn, PA
Nectar had been a place I had long considered an attractive option, but hadn’t quite found the reason to go there. Certainly the lineage of the place, along with the “Buddakan in the Burbs” description, made it attractive. However, I’d also seen the pricey menu and read some middling reviews, so I hadn’t felt the need to beat down their door.
However, it was my birthday, and we wanted a good place in easy driving distance, so this seemed like a good option. We arrived at the appointed time (done through Open Table, where I included in the notes that it was my birthday) and were seated immediately in the room off the main, expansive room, which was nice, since I could see that room — with the sushi/alcohol bar a main fixture — becoming loud very quickly.
It took me a while, but I think we had two servers — one for drinks and one for food — but I’m not quite sure about that interpretation. Anyway, the first server appeared brusque, but she warmed over time; the other server was serviceable. Overall, the service was fine — nothing fantastic, but nothing was amiss.
We ordered cocktails (Rick’s Beefeater martini and I tried the blood orange martini, which was nothing special) and then set about figuring out what we were going to do with this menu teeming with possibilities. We ultimately decided on sharing the dim sum bento box, as well as a special side of lobster risotto; Rick then went off on his sushi bender, while I tried the crispy duck.
The dim sum bento consisted of an average spring roll, decent mushroom dumplings and quite nice chicken curry dumplings and lovely pork pot sticker dumplings. It was fine, as far as it went, but certainly not transcendent, nor not necessarily worth the $18.
The same largely went for the rest of the meal: fine, but not necessarily worth all the hype or expense. Someone here can do sauces: the risotto was full of flavor, and the crispy duck sat in a sauce that was spicy without being overpowering and relatively rich, but not congealed. The problem for me was in the cooking: my crispy duck was indeed crispy, but tough in parts and slightly undercooked in others, and the risotto had a bit too much of a bite for my tastes (I don’t want my risotto gummy, but not quite as al dente as they were pulling off here…and one might legitimately ask as well what the hell risotto was doing on the menu, but that might be another conversation).
As I intimated, the service was slightly odd — myriad people arriving at various times with various items with varying degrees of pleasantness. They did provide a nice touch by accompanying my ordered mini donuts with their ice cream birthday cake (I’d alerted them in the memo for my Open Table reservation, but have found those memos to be largely unheeded). The desserts were delightful actually, so the evening ended well. However, I just feel like the place wasn’t nearly as good as it thinks it is, but I sort of got the feeling that it didn’t matter to the throngs of people on expense accounts or dates.
