FORGETA LA FOGATA?

Should you Forgeta La Fogata in Gulfport on the town’s electic, old , old, Key West-like Beach Blvd?  Well, not quite.  I am going back, but not for the $39 chuck-wagon dinner.  I’m exaggerating a “bit” because the décor absolutely envelops you in an enchanting cocoon of another time and place.  It screams, “THIS IS NOT FUNKY GULFPORT!”

The booths are snuggly upscale, black leather semi-circles. The linens fresh and the tableware sparkles. The high ceilings are architecturally exciting, with flowing muted colors and sparkling glazes.  Be careful in the restroom; it is way too pretty. You may want to stay way too long.  The music has a low-key, sexy South American rhythmic feeling, and it’s not too loud to drown out conversation. The lighting was expertly placed to highlight the décor and get you in the mood.  I was ready for a romantic dinner with a boyfriend, but I settled for my husband of 40 years. 

The hostess and servers are smartly dressed and friendly, gracious, and prompt.  Best of all, they never seemed bothered by all the questions I had that they must have answered many times before.  But based on the deplorable condition of the food on the soup and salad bar, the persons in charge, the chef and his assistants, need to care about what they are serving or need a refresher cooking-school course. They have become complacent.

 I did see a manager running around in a sloppy, loosened tie and a working man’s blue-colored shirt with rolled up sleeves, but I guess he, and no one else in charge, checks what is being served up on the community soup and salad bar.  Being that my husband and I arrived early at 6 P.M., should be no excuse, nor is it an excuse for the barely chilled beer that came from their sister business Bellini’s, a tapas bar with “unique beers.” (Do they not know that Americans like their beer cold, especially on a hot Florida evening?) 
La Fogata features a “South American Churrasco style of roasting the finest cuts of meats over an open fire.  Carved table-side, the meats are accompanied by a blend of sophisticated European sauces and fragrant Asian spices. Our cuts of meat include: Picanha, Flank Steak, Pork, Bacon-wrapped Chicken and more.  Your nightly dining experience includes nine to eleven varieties of meat depending on market availability.  Our gourmet salad bar boasts fresh seasonal salads and delectable soups.  All Churrasco dinners are accompanied by a complimentary side order of Potatoes au Gratin and Caramelized bananas.”

Let Me Count the Ways I Fell Out of Love with La Fogata:

1. “finest cuts of meat”  
   To me finest means fork tender.  So the only finest was the chicken cubes and the pork sausages.  The others were good, but this isn’t Bern’s Steakhouse, and for what you are paying you get as much as you want of fire-seared bloody cuts of meat, of fire-seared meat, served at your table by pretty women   (I like Medium rare and hubby likes medium well, so we just had to hunt around the hunk of meat on the skewer and settled for small, thin strips from the outer edges.) 

   Just by flipping a small colored token they keep adding to the menagerie of the animal kingdom. (I lost count, but I don’t think they served any endangered species.)  Being our first time, we forgot to turn the token to “STOP!” and I felt like Lucy in that scene where she is stuffing chocolates from the high-speed conveyer belt into her mouth. We finally settled back to a better pace once we figured out what was happening. 

2. “sophisticated European sauces”
   This is suppose to be a South American dining experience.  Chipotle Mayo, Greek yogurt, and Thai sauces, that I love, just seemed out of place here.  Where is the South American cuisine?  Is anyone checking the business plan?
3. “dining experience includes nine to eleven varieties of meat”
   This is the dining experience of a caveman.  In fact, towards the end of the meal, 6-line backer-types with no dates, and dressed as if they were going to  Hooters after their “fine-dining” experience, plowed in, heading straight for the  food trough, I mean food bar.
4. “bar boasts fresh seasonal salads”
   Being the first person at the salad bar, I had to ask the cook’s assistant, who was standing around, to put out fresh salad dressings.  The containers where barely full of leftover, dried-up dressings from the previous evening.  My family had a restaurant, and I have served and cooked at restaurants, so I know some of the basic food-handling requirements.  Food-bar items are either thrown out at the end of a shift or if salvageable, they are put into clean containers, covered, and refrigerated until the next time you serve them.

   It was apparent that a number of other items had not been refreshed and refilled, such as the mushrooms.  Tomatoes filled with cream cheese, and limp asparagus doesn’t excite me. Where things had been refreshed, such as the couscous, it seemed as if the food was just dumped on top of what was already in the container. It is disappointing that there seem to be little concern to make each dish appealing to the guests’ eyes. (We do eat with our eyes, as well as our noses and tongues.)

5. “delectable soups”
   There was only one soup: vegetable beef.  And I wouldn’t call it soup; it was more of a broth.  There were no vegetables except for a few onions in it and very few pieces of meat. (If I could have drawn on a wall without causing a lot of commotion, I would have used my lipstick to draw some animals in hopes of invoking the gods to bring on some meat for the broth.)
6. “side order of Potatoes au Gratin and Caramelized bananas”
   The servers (I had to ask two because it just didn’t sound right.) explained that these two items are palate cleansers.  Now, I’ve had sorbet palate cleansers to refresh my palate between courses, but cheesy potatoes and sticky sweet, cooked bananas?  We ended up eating the potatoes with the meat and saved the gooey bananas for dessert.
7. Cold food that is Supposed to be Hot
   The roasted potatoes, black beans, and saffron rice on the food bar had not been heated up to an acceptable temperature. It seemed as if they were just put into the steamers with a hope and a prayer that they would be hot by the  time a guest wanted to savor them with his fire-roasted zoo.  If you are open at 6 p.m. for dinner, hot food should be hot at that time. No excuses, please. And if a guest says his food isn’t hot, the server should correct the situation…no excuses, just fix the problem.

Let Me Count the Ways Why I Will Go Back to La Fogata:

1. The exciting décor
2. The Music
3. The helpful, friendly wait staff & hostess
4. The well-made specialty drinks
5. To try some of the South American wines
6. The stuffed mushrooms
7. The variety of fresh fruit
8. The variety of cheese offerings
9. The Potatoes au Gratin (oozing w/caramelized onions and heavy cream)
10. To try their tapas & appetizers such as Pulled Duck w/ Spicy BBQ Sauce  & Goat Cheese, Gambas Al Ajillo, Smoked Salmon, Scallop Sliders, Beef  Bourekas, and much, much more.
11. To try their desserts (Homemade chocolate creations that made my heart melt.)

To conclude, I ask, who is in charge here?  The rumor is that La Fogata is the first of a possible chain of pit-cooked, meat-lover paradises. But successful chains have consistency. Successful chains have clear, high standards that their well-trained managers and staff follow.  You join them and you join a religious commitment to the “how- to book” of that business.

My husband and I had an uneven, expensive for us, dining experience at La Fagota. Everything is pretty much in place for a memorable dining experience, except the food…duh!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Foodie Alert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.