Skip Park Ave Summer For Restaurant Week

To kick off Restaurant Week, I headed to Park Ave Summer on Monday with a few of my girlfriends.  I’ve raved about Park Ave Winter before and have claimed that it was one of my better Restaurant Week experiences.  As a result, I was looking forward to trying their summer menu, since the menu happens to change seasonally, as does the decor.

Unfortunately, we were placed towards the back of the restaurant, and I honestly feel like if you aren’t in the

This is the main dining area

front room facing Park Ave, you don’t get to enjoy the decor as much, so I was kind of disappointed.  We kicked off the meal with glasses of red sangria (which I picked based on the fact that I liked the fruit in this sangria better than the white sangria) and dove into the menu.

For the appetizer, I went with the butter and sugar corn soup, expecting it to be a lot like a corn chowder.  To be frank, I was kind of disappointed that it was more of a corn soup (like a tomato soup would be), with tomatoes and a few bits of corn tossed in (yes, I realize now that the menu said corn soup, but I think I had my heart on corn chowder).  It had a Mexican flavor to it that reminded me of a thicker tortilla soup.  It was definitely okay, but wasn’t the best appetizer at the table.  Those honors went to the salmon tartare, which was delicious and had a great citrus-y flavor.

I couldn’t decide between the Dr. Pepper ribs and the pesto pasta, so my friend Alex and I decided to split both.  The pesto pasta was like someone dumped a good quarter of a container of Morton salt on it, and then decided to cover it up by putting a ton of basil into it.  Let’s put it this way – I’ve had much better jars of pesto from D’Agostinos.  The Dr. Pepper ribs though were outstanding, falling off the bone and melting in your mouth.  The peach coleslaw served on the side was very refreshing and was paired nicely with the ribs.

For dessert I went with my favorite dessert that I’ve had twice at Park Ave Winter.  Basically, the dessert is a banana parfait, with chocolate crunchies, bananas, whipped cream and toffee.  Some of us at the table couldn’t finish it, but as one of my favorite desserts, I easily polished it off.  I loved the chocolate crunchies, the surprise of the toffee at the bottom and the refreshing cold banana.  As soon as my friends Dory and Colleen mentioned that they tasted burnt chocolate crunchies though, I suddenly could taste it too.  A few mouthfuls of my crunchies were a tad more cooked than I would have liked.  I also tried the panna cotta with the basil cream and just didn’t not like the flavor of the cream at all.  Maybe I was on a basil overload from the pasta, but my friend Alex seemed to enjoy this as well.

Overall, there were some standouts during the night, and then some lows.  I left Park Avenue Summer disappointed, as this was usually one of my better Restaurant Week experiences.  While the meal was average, if you are going to try to find a place to dine over the next two weeks, I’d suggest trying some place else.