Cafe Juanita — Restaurant in Kirkland

First, I want to start out by saying that our service was excellent. After that, dining here with my wife was disappointing on many levels. The restaurant we ate at last night is not the same restaurant that has ever won a James Beard Award. There is no way possible.

We ordered 5 courses (6 dishes), I will note them all below for specificity.

Octopus, Smoked Bone Marrow, Chickpea, Salsa Verde ($18)

This was OK. We’ve had much better octopus recently at the Lakehouse in Bellevue. Cafe Juanita’s version almost seemed overcooked. Normally the challenge is to get it tender enough, but this almost seemed like it had been boiled too long before charred. The flavor was ultimately lost under the bone marrow. I don’t remember any salsa verde, which is unfortunate, as it needed something fresh and acidic to balance the dish out.

Roasted Baby Beets with Gorgonzola Bombolino and Marcona Almond Butter ($13)

As I do with almost all dishes, I start by tasting each of the components alone. The almond butter was delicious, the beets were sweet and very good, and the gorgonzola ‘bombolino’ (like a deep fried sphere of dough encapsulating creamy cheese) was also delicious. However, the cheese took over when you combined them together and the beets and almond butter disappeared. Again, another dish out of balance.

Stinging Nettle Risotto, 30-month Parmigiano-Reggiano, Palouse Pastured Egg Yolk ($19/$32)

We were really looking forward to this. I love stinging nettles, and think they are underrepresented culinarily. The risotto was cooked perfect al-dente, the nettles gave this dish a beautiful green hue with little flowers (onion, I believe) accenting the food canvas next to the yolk. Again, this was all thrown off by the overwhelming amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Parmesan is great in risotto, but this turned into a salty parmesan risotto, and the nettles became food coloring. Out of balance.

Pesce Della Sera ($39)

This was the fish of the day, halibut. The halibut appeared pan seared on a beurre blanc sauce with radishes, watercress greens, and potatoes. This was the best dish of the night but ultimately not memorable, just good.

Miyazaki Prefecture A5 Kuroge Wagyu ($105)

This dish was a crime to beef, dinner, and our palette. It was paired with cauliflower that I will discuss next which we sent back. A5 Wagyu is very special beef. If you have never seen it, you should seek to find a picture of it uncooked and you start to understand why it is unlike any other steak. The marbling is so intense that their most certainly has to be more fat than steak, it is a fatty steak treat. With that fat, you absolutely need something to balance all that fat. Cafe Juanita attempted to put it on a bed of whipped foie gras. I think foie gras paired with steak can be beautiful, especially seared with a nice cut of beef. But, the A5 was way to fatty to attempt this. The foie gras and steak together was like chewing on bone marrow soaked in butter together. It was wholly unappetizing. My wife couldn’t finish it, I couldn’t have a second bite of the foie gras under the steak. Our server kindly deduced half the cost of this from our check. This was the worst balance issue of the night.

Cauliflower, Pine Nut Crema, Cumin, Cayenne, Lime ($13)

We did not taste. They opted to use cheap Chinese pine nuts instead of real Italian pine nuts. They are a completely different species and look nothing alike. Even the Chinese consider them inedible. When the dish came out, we saw these inferior pine nuts everywhere. Rather than risk anything we sent it back.

This could not have been Holly’s menu, I refuse to believe it. We chose Cafe Juanita for a special date night and never expected to be writing this review, we just wanted a nice dinner from a highly respected establishment with a long track record of greatness. This was a 2 star dinner for $100, but at $300+, this was worse.

If you want great Italian food, Vendemmia in Madrona will serve up 5 stars for less than...

Yes - Please eat here at least once. I will definitely come back again this year; worth the splurge imo out of all the time dining I've done in the area over the last decade.

House Focaccia: O.M.G. They have the bottom soaked in a high quality olive oil, and the best part is it's topped with a touch of rosemary and smoked sea salt. Holy cow the smoked version of salt adds a fantastic depth of flavor.

Amuse bouche of the night: !! One of the best flavor journeys I've ever been on. 3 items on a wood board = mini pastry with caviar and lemon yogurt - light and amazing, hint of tangy and sweet. A hunk of super legit high quality parmesan D.O.P. - started out classic flavors and blooms into a pear flavor. Last, a heirloom gazpacho - OMG the flavor was so balanced and on point, the garlic was best friends with the basil and the tomato, they all got a long as one balanced happy family with the depth of ones eternal soul haha

Next: WOW. Ok full disclosure, I'm a medium cooked steak girl and tonight was my first raw beef experience -- raw A5 Wagyu on a toasted crostini with light chive butter, hint of jalapeno and was topped with cooked shallots and petals. In layman terms, it tasted like amazing pizza.

Burrata with stone fruit puree and charred endive and pistachios: It was alright. The burrata quality was very good. The stone fruit puree was not too sweet and complimented the sweetness of the burrata well. The texture of the pistachios were a little too taffy textured for my preference.

Ooh ok ... 2nd round of house breads... Holy cow. The potato bread melted in my mouth, the rye bread was incredibly earthy and (see pic) the world's fanciest cheeze-it with that aged 1000 days D.O.P parmesan they featured throughout the menu. All really well done.

Tagliatelle w/chanterelles: The flavor was earthy and a little brighter/ tangier than I was expecting. The fresh noodle texture was on point. Tho, I only found this flavor profile ok.

Fancy Beets with a bunch of words I don't remember: Mmmmm yes! Very much like. Perfect texture. The Vermont goats cheese adds the foundation base flavor to the bright, slightly sweet and tangy beets and aged sherry balsamic

Venison Loin with charred cabbage and huckleberry sauce (I added the Black Truffle to mine ($20 4 grams) -- HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Hands down the best venison both me and my friend have ever had in life. And the truffle on top compliments the depth of flavor perfectly. The whole combo melts in your mouth in a warm comfy arm chair by the fire type of way.

Dessert: I don't remember all the words but chocolate with hazelnut and apricot puree with porcini ice cream - it's ok. Not my fave dish, kind of sour and tart (I'm more of a sweet girl). Great combo of crunches and caramels tho and still very well made and high quality flavors. My friend really enjoyed...

As a fine dining experience our meal was very good indeed, but not mind-blowing.

We had the Omnivore tasting menu plus the "supplemental" A5 Miyazaki Wagyu steak shared with the table. We did not have the wine pairings, but shared a bottle of champagne and a bottle of a decent super-Tuscan red. The menu included some very innovative ingredients and creative dishes, beautifully plated, but with occasionally inconsistent or clumsy preparation. Service was very good, as would be expected at this level of dining.

The amuse bouche Pappa al Pomodoro stood out for delivering a great punch of flavor, but the accompanying summer melon with Parmigiano-Reggiano was surprisingly bland.

The Cruda Misti was very good, but again not amazing, consisting of three components. I liked the sea urchin best. Hokkaido Sea Urchin, chili fermented butter, pumpernickel, Hokkaido Sea scallop, toasted horseradish Yellowtail cruda, avocado, passionfruit, brown butter citronette

Sweet corn sformato, chanterelles, cipollini, huckleberries showed great elegance and sophistication, very nice indeed.

The Risotto Verde, with basil-fed escargot was well made but the flavor surprisingly bland and underseasoned, with the snails not really adding much except a different texture.

The Iberico de Bellota with cipollini crema, pickled cherries, broccolini etc. The pork itself had very good flavor, but the cook was extremely inconsistent across the four servings. One plate was cooked to medium, one to medium rare, and two others to rare with barely warm red center. This issue was addressed with our server, but it was a disappointment.

The star of the show was the 5.5 ounce A5 Miyazaki Wagyu New York steak with Jade beans and chanterelles. It was cooked perfectly to medium-rare, and very flavorful.

Our dessert choice was the Bittersweet chocolate tortino, Reishi- milk chocolate mousse, Black truffle, olive oil chiffon, Laudemio, smoked Maldon sea salt (see photo). Both the dense chocolate tort and the chocolate mousse were very good, and the chocolate brittle with smoked sea salt was excellent. But the beautiful perfume that I was expecting from the shaved black truffle resting on top of the mousse was surprisingly absent; it was almost odorless -- another disappointment.

Clearly Cafe Juanita is in the top echelon of fine dining establishments in this area. Judged against this very high standard, I would rate our dining experience as a solid...