More Baleen Reviews that Make Your Spine Tingle

The Miami New Times Reviews Grove Isle’s Baleen.
The Miami New Times, Miami’s stalwart newsweekly reported the following in its February 24, 2005 edition. Please click here for the story: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2005-02-24/dining/cafe.html.
For those who have difficulties reaching the story at the newsweekly’s website on the Internet, here’s the text:
From miaminewtimes.com
Originally published by Miami New Times 2005-02-24
© 2005 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

Brunch Two Ways: Right and Wrong
By Lee Klein
So I suppose I’ll see you at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival’s “Tribute Brunch” this Sunday at the Loews Hotel. It’ll be great -- Francis Ford Coppola in the flesh to accept recognition for his esteemed Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery, and we, sampling those luscious wines while enjoying Tuscan delicacies divined by chef Carey Savona -- what’s that?

Oh, gee, I’m sorry. I mean, I never would have brought it up had I known, it being sold out and all. And of course you’re right -- not everyone receives complimentary tickets. Well, these gala affairs are overrated anyway. It’s not like Coppola will be sharing salacious tales of his barhops with Brando or anything, and the wines poured will probably be the same as those you can buy in the market -- just better vintages. Hold on a second, I have a call on the other line.... As I was saying, if you’ve been to one of these extravaganzas, you’ve been to them all. You have been to one, haven’t you? Really? Anyway, the main point I meant to make is that even one can be too many if you’re not in the champagne, caviar, and laughter sort of mood. Besides, there are lots of other great Sunday brunches around town to try. The Biltmore Hotel and Ritz-Carlton properties put out breathtakingly comprehensive spreads. Blue Door at the Delano serves sushi and other distinctive items and has that chi chi outdoor terrace. The Rusty Pelican is decidedly less chic but boasts omelet, pasta, and carving stations, along with a beautiful Biscayne Bay setting. And Emeril’s bams out an à la carte Sunday soiree right next door to the Coppola affair, so as we rattle the walls with merriment you’ll be able to feel the vibrations and possibly, in some small way, indirectly share in our unbridled joy.

Come again? No, quite frankly I wasn’t aware that you’re not big on indirectly sharing joy. Surely I didn’t suggest this as a means of rubbing it in, and I’m sorry you took it that way. Heck, just to show you that my heart is in the right place, I’m going to check out two of Miami’s most renowned Sunday brunches, Baleen and Nemo, and report back to you in some detail -- just on the outside chance you’d be interested. These places may not have Francis Ford Coppola, but have a coppola mimosas and you won’t care! Heh heh. Hello?

Nemo’s brunch has long been regarded as one of the very best, and our visit reaffirmed that reputation. As soon as you enter the restaurant the sweet, caramel aroma of Belgian waffles, cooked on a table set up by the front door, caresses the olfactory senses in a most hospitable manner. Accompaniments include butter, homemade marmalades, maple syrup, whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries; people of moderation might consider skipping the butter.

Just beyond the waffles is a carving station with butcher blocks of Indian-spiced pork loin and turkey, while across the room to the right of the door is an area wellstocked with traditional morning pastries: Danish, croissants, muffins, sticky buns, assorted bagels with smoked salmon and accompaniments. Homemade granola can be found here too, yet it’s easy to miss this bountiful buffet upon entering Nemo -- after the brief waffle and carving diversion, the natural inclination is to stop in your tracks at the hammered-copper bar covered end to end, layer upon layer, with Hedy Goldsmith’s bodacious baked goods: key lime squares, chocolate tarts, mini cheesecakes, pecan sandies, peanut butter and banana fritters -- few bakeries exhibit this wide a selection, and it’s no exaggeration to say that if you have a sweet tooth, these sugary delights alone are well worth the $27 price of admission (kids $13.50).

The counter running between Nemo’s open kitchen and front dining room is likewise bedecked with comestibles: breakfast meats, duck confit, hash browns, sushi, and a plethora of ingredients in salad form: white fish, beets, sweet potatoes, couscous, white beans, fruits -- all in all about 30 choices, including a platter of eggs Benedict, which is markedly superior when served fresh. Nemo might consider putting these on the à la carte menu of five omelets that are part of the brunch. The pair we sampled were prepared with aplomb -- one stuffed with goat cheese, oven-dried tomato, and basil; another with wild mushroom, spinach, and fontina.

Nemo’s lush, tree-shaded patio provides a serene setting for alfresco dining, while the interior, with French doors swung open, is breezy and still stylishly bohemian after all these years. Service was sharp, emptied plates swiped from our table immediately and almost invisibly, fresh-squeezed juice and coffee poured with style. Champagne, mimosas, and bloody marys cost extra, as do Nemo’s excellent raw bar selections, so I guess it’s not a perfect brunch.

With its billowy white curtains and supple views of Biscayne Bay, Baleen, too, has long been a favorite brunch destination. Unfortunately during a recent visit the vivacious vistas stood in stark contrast with shockingly shabby fare. Things began in surprising fashion when I discovered my opening salvo of coffee came with a $3.50 surcharge, which means this becomes a $41.50 brunch for most diners. A gentleman seated at a nearby table experienced an even shakier start when he politely asked for a glass of white wine in place of complimentary champagne; he claimed to be allergic to the bubbly. The waiter initially told him that no substitutions were allowed, but at the diner’s behest checked with management and returned a short time later to say the switch was approved -- “but only because you have an allergy!”

Why display a grudging attitude over so simple a request? Because Baleen does everything wrong at brunch. The buffet table in the main dining area was so sparse I was sure we were missing a second room, one where, as I assured my wife, “they display the good stuff.” There was no second room. The parsimonious picks included caesar or regular salad; tomatoes and mozzarella; chicken, potato, tuna, and egg salads; artichoke salad that appeared to be canned; mussel and shrimp salad; insipid grilled vegetable platter; similarly insipid fruit plate (grapes, watermelon, ghostly pale cantaloupe and honeydew); smoked salmon (same color as the cantaloupe); supermarket quality bagels (plain only); supermarket quality croissants (or shall we say “crescent rolls”).

A few scrawny little muffins rounded out the baked goods. If you want granola or yogurt, sorry. Bacon, ham, sausage? No dice. Hot foods are only available from an à la carte menu that, as at Nemo, comes with the brunch. Main course choices are Belgian waffles, eggs Benedict (topped with what tasted like powdered Hollandaise, only worse), French toast (soppy white-bread version), salmon-asparagus omelet; pasta with vodka cream sauce; and a succulent square of herb-crusted sea bass, which is your best bet -- at least you get a tangible meal with intrinsic value for your otherwise misspent money. The “Viennese Table,” a meager three-dessert selection of napoleon, chocolate bread pudding, and chocolate cup with piped-in mousse, is a slap in the face to the good people of Austria.

How can there be such a disparity between Nemo and Baleen? Apparently only one of the two places has pride.

Nemo,100 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-532-4550. Sunday brunch from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Baleen, 4 Grove Isle, Coconut Grove;305-860-4305. Sunday brunch from 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

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The Miami New Times Reviews Grove Isle’s Baleen.
The Miami New Times, Miami’s stalwart newsweekly reported the following in its May 26, 2005 edition. Please click here for the story: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2005-05-26/dining/cafe.html.
For those who have difficulties reaching the story at the newsweekly’s website on the Internet, here’s the text:
From miaminewtimes.com
Originally published by Miami New Times 2005-05-26
© 2005 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

Lost in Translation
Suffering from a stifling case of Wynter blues
By Lee Klein
Not too long ago an unflattering review of Baleen’s brunch adorned these pages. The oak-paneled, forest green, chandelier-sophisticated dining room (curiously themed with monkeys) didn’t bother me, nor did the circular, fully foliaged outdoor patio, whose Biscayne Bay backdrop makes Baleen one of the area’s most romantic locales. Rather it was the skimpy, third-rate buffet that caused my jaw-dropping shock, considering the high repute this Grove Isle establishment has enjoyed since 1999, when current Chispa whiz Robbin Haas took control.

By merging classic American steak house with South Florida fish house, Haas managed to create a menu featuring a superb selection of oak-grilled meats, seafood, and specialty plates such as lobster bisque, Asian bouillabaisse, and Chinese fried snapper. Since then Baleen has developed into a national restaurant chain with locations in Naples, Daytona Beach, San Diego, Scottsdale, and Santa Fe, all of which are run by Noble House Hotels and Resorts. Haas has long since moved on, but many of his hits still inhabit the menu at Grove Isle (and other locales), accompanied by contributions from his successor, Arturo Paz, whom I wrongfully assumed was still gainfully employed at the time of my brunch.

Not until I caught chef Donna Wynter on WSVN’s “A Bite with Belkys” preparing one of Baleen’s new specialty dishes -- grilled sugar cane shrimp and scallop skewers -- did I realize she is now in command of the Baleen kitchen. I felt slightly bad for not having allowed Ms. Wynter more time to revamp brunch, considering her rather heralded career history: She helmed Satine and Nikki Marina at the Diplomat in Hollywood, Palme D’or at the Biltmore, and Donna’s Bistro at the David William Hotel.

Before judging Wynter’s impact on dinner, I made a point of allowing a few months to elapse. I might as well have been waiting for a Baleen in Baghdad, because the menu has hardly changed a whit, without even a whiff of those grilled sugar cane skewers Belkys enjoyed. Evidently Ms. Wynter isn’t entirely free to fiddle with the now-franchised formula.

When Robbin Haas first crafted the menu, items were fresh, innovative, and produced by a caring chef whose rising reputation was directly linked to the warm reception with which the menu was received. However, much like the child’s game of telephone, every time his recipes are whispered to a new chef, they lose a little of their magic in translation.

Baleen now offers a monkey-see, monkey-do menu whose inspiration date has long since expired. Houston’s and the Cheesecake Factory demonstrate that formulaic cuisine (meaning that which comes not from the heart but the chart) does have public appeal, but when ordering an $18 crabcake appetizer and a $44 steak, one expects Spago, not Wolfgang Puck Express.

Those crabcakes: two golden brown, coarse, crunchy balls with reasonably seasoned filler, comprising mainly bread and shredded crabmeat. Served on a chilled plate and carried across the breezy verandah, the cakes arrived cold. A tureen of signature lobster bisque may have been served warm, but the food runner dashed from the table before my dining companion or I noticed the lack of a spoon; it took at least five minutes to nab one from a passing waiter, by which point most heat had escaped. The bisque wasn’t much to brag about anyway: The texture lacked refinement (almost lumpy), the flavor too heavy on cream and brandy, too light on lobster and Madeira (if it was Madeira; my dinner mate insisted it was “a sherry of questionable quality”).

An organic Bibb lettuce salad was presented as a whole head, whose large leaves were lightly drizzled with a white, watery, mild dressing billed as “buttermilk-jalapeño.” The only real flavor was imparted via shreds of Parmesan cheese and roasted pumpkin seeds -- at least I think they were pumpkin seeds, for the outdoor illumination, mostly by candle and tiki torch, is romantically subdued.

With only two red meat entrées (Roquefort-crusted filet mignon and Kansas City sirloin), Baleen is now a lot more surf than turf. Half a dozen varieties of seafood are available oak-smoked and à la carte, the remainder dressed with Asian and Caribbean trappings. Some are served whole, which led our waiter to quip, “We can remove the head in the kitchen if you don’t want to meet the fish before you eat it.” He had a bunch of one-liners as rehearsed as the recipes. Being the first seated in our section meant hearing his jokes recited for each and every table nearby. But he was an excellent waiter, as was the server on our return visit.

We tried an old Baleen standby, black grouper with artichoke-bacon mash and lemon-caper sauce. The plump piece of fish was slightly overcooked, the sauce floury, the mashed potatoes flecked with only a few snippets of canned artichoke hearts; there were a couple of rumored bacon-bit sightings, but they couldn’t be confirmed by taste.

Another long-time and now nationwide item, free-range chicken “with wild mushroom sauce and goat cheese dumplings,” brought two relatively juicy breasts, skin-on and bone-off, but the sauce’s white mushrooms were neither wild nor exotic. It didn’t matter much, as sun-dried tomatoes dominated the dish, which came as surprise considering they bore no mention in the item description. Accompanying dumplings were impossibly leaden, to the extent that I took great care in eating them -- if one of these torpedo-shaped dough bombs were to drop from fork to foot, it could fracture a toe.

A four-course tasting menu is available for $65 and a wine flight for an additional $45. The tasting menu reflects changing themes, with items also available to à la carte diners. I snared a pan-seared yellowtail snapper from the week’s Cuban dinner, figuring this was my chance to sample one of Wynter’s creations. The fish was served skin-on, but rather than being brown and crunchy, the surface was steamy and stretchy. A general rule of cooking dictates the side of fish to be served face-up should first be crisped face-down in the pan to improve presentation. The snapper was otherwise moist and fresh, blanketed with olive slices and blandly stewed tomatoes and onions. Moros on the side were agreeably saturated with an unbeatable smoky bacon flavor, but countless Cuban joints around town offer a punchier, much larger portion of the same fish for a lot less money. Baleen’s wines, incidentally, match the cuisine quite well -- they too are overpriced.

By the third time I heard the waiter’s intro for white chocolate and pear crme brùlée (I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad crme brùlée”), it was hard to stop myself from muttering, “Well, I have, and it usually entails ingredients like white chocolate and pear.”

I’m not sure what the rule of thumb is regarding how expensive a restaurant need be before cuteness becomes inappropriate, but I assume any place selling a bowl of berries for $15 may meet the criteria. When asked what fruit was included in the “wild berry bowl with vanilla bean and brown sugar cream” (simply put, flavored whipped cream), the waiter replied, “Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries ... and if we’re lucky, they might have gotten in some blackberries today.”

Desserts are so pricey I worried whether my order for $9 banana and dulce de leche crêpes with cinnamon ice cream might be expedited in the kitchen via the yell, “One cheapo for table 17!” Apple tart was a $14 circle of buttery pastry topped with almond frangipane, thinly sliced apples, a light glaze, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream with raspberry nipple.

There’s a Randy Newman song in which the aging Sixties rocker laments, “Each record that I’m making is like a record that I’ve made. Just not as good.” That’s Baleen, best left to those unfortunate folks from out of town who don’t get to see Biscayne Bay very often.

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Allegedly,
Something Terrible Happened at Baleen
On February 5, 2002, a lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida, Case No. 02-03497 CA 15.

The plaintiff: Elena Villola Carpenter.

The defendants: Westgroup Partner, Inc. d/b/a Baleen; Westgroup Grove Isle Associates, Ltd.; Noble House Grove Isle, Ltd.; Noble House Hotels & Resorts, Ltd.; and Robin Haas.

According to the court docket, discovery is still ongoing and no trial date has been set.
Of the six-count complaint, four counts have survived the defendants' efforts to have the lawsuit dismissed by Circuit Judge Celeste Hardee Muir. Two of the surviving counts are "Statutory Warranty of Merchantability" and "Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress."

The discovery phase has been hot and heavy during the past 3½ years with nine individuals having been deposed under oath, including two physicians, a pharmacist, and Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Miami-Dade County State Attorney.

The amended complaint and the court proceedings will shed more light on the issues. You have a right to know.

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I do the very best I know how, the very best I can;
and I mean to keep on doing so to the end.
If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything.
If the end brings me out all wrong,
ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
16th United States president

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