Hatfield's Private Dining

I was again lucky enough to be part of a private dining party at Hatfield's on Melrose.  There were 14 of us and we had a 3 course feast in which I had to pick what we wanted on our menu.
I have never been to this restaurant though  I have heard nothing but good things about it. This was my chance to prove or disprove the "goodness" of it all. The ambiance is very much conducive to fine dining.

For our first course, we had a choice of Japanese Octopus A La Plancha. I had this on the menu since most of the people in our party were adventurous foodies. The second choice was a Croque Madame. I had the octopus with green garbanzo, roasted globe carrots, asparagus and ginger chermoula (Moroccan marinade). I loved this dish. It was nothing but delicious. Most of us had it. A couple had the croque madame. This is unlike any other you have had. This was Yellowtail sashimi with prosciutto, sunny side up quail egg on a grilled brioche! It looked great. Unfortunately, I was sitting next to Elliot who never shares and by the time I thought of trying it, his plate was cleaned off.

Our second course were choices of either Slow Cooked Branzino or Prime Dry Aged N. Y. Steak.
It was not easy to make up my mind even if I usually go for the meat. The branzino looked interesting with red onion soubise, sauteed haricot vert, and dried apricot almond caper crunch. Alma was willing and able to part with a bite of it....loved it!  I ended up with the N.Y. steak which was pan roasted with salsify  root (similar to parsnip) and puree, Swiss chard, brown butter sauteed with shimeji mushrooms. It was cooked medium well; the flavor of the brown butter with the Swiss chard and whatever else that was pureed made a nice creamy supplement for the steak.

We had 2 choices for dessert. The first one was Sugar Spice Beignets which came with Venezuelan chocolate fondue and a side of vanilla malted milk shake.  This did not impress me though it was good; I did enjoy the malted milkshake. The other dessert was a Banana Custard Pie. That was a lot better as it had caramel and bitter chocolate sorbet. They also served tiny cupcakes which didn't excite anyone.

All in all, Hatfield's does have very good food and service. In my opinion, they will just have to improve their desserts. Oh...almost forgot to mention the cheese rolls they served with the ciabatta bread in the beginning. They were warm, crusty and cheesy outside and soft inside. I had 2 of them!