San Diego Restaurant Week 2014: Tapenade

Our third and final stop for Restaurant Week was at Tapenade. We opted to get the wine pairings with our meal which even though on the online menu states $58, turned out to be $60 (which is really a steal since our cocktails at The Marine Room were $15 each). 

For our appetizer, we got the soup and the duck pate. The soup was really interesting tasting. It tasted like some of those herbal remedies my mom used to make me drink when I was a child. I couldn't put my finger on what it was though.. The duck pate was actually quite tasty. The only thing that I didn't really like was the nuts in the pate. Other than that, it was pretty tasty. The pickled vegetables were really good as well but I'm a fan on pickled anything so.. lol. 

For our main entrees we got the Wild Boar and the Maine Diver Scallops. I had a small forkful of the Wild Boar and it tasted super homemade. If you've watched Ratatouille, it was like the end of the movie when the guy eats the Ratatouille and has those visions of his childhood. The scallops were COOKED TO PERFECTION. Honestly, when we went to The Marine Room on Sunday and had the scallops, I thought they were slightly overcooked. I wasn't completely sure until yesterday night when I had these scallops. They were 100x better than The Marine Room (although The Marine Room might have been having an off night? They looked completely slammed.). As soon as I pushed my knife and fork through the scallops I knew they would be melt-in-your-mouth good. The risotto was not extremely flavorful but it went well to not overpower the taste of the scallops. Would highly recommend getting the scallops here.

For dessert we got the Petite Pot au Chocolat and the Profiteroles (which I had to Google to find out what it was lol). I'm not a huge fan of sweets especially chocolate pudding of sorts so I didn't have much of the Petite Pot au Chocolat. The small spoonful that I had tasted like melted Ghiradelli's chocolate. The Profiteroles were actually quite tasty despite the fact that I didn't enjoy the Grand Marnier ice cream. I think it was the slight hint of orange-flavor that just confused my taste buds a little too much. I would have much preferred the cream puffs with French Vanilla ice cream or even Butter Pecan (lol I like the old people ice cream flavors lol. So sue me :P).

Overall, I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5. The wine pairings were a bit mediocre, especially the dessert wine. I don't remember specifically what the wines were since they did not put them on the menu (that may have been a red flag lol). The duck pate and the scallops were my favorite part of the meal. I would probably come back to try some other seafood dishes since I was super impressed with their scallops. Again, for the price of $45/person and $60/person with wine pairings, I would have much rather spent it at Amaya. Nonetheless, it was nice to go out and try out a different place. 

That concludes my San Diego Restaurant Week posts! Hope you enjoyed them and aren't too hungry! I hope you all have a great weekend!