Dining
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At Noble's, you are in charge of what makes up your meal
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Published: July 31, 2008
White tablecloths have become a four-letter-word kind of phrase among local fine-dining restaurants.
Blame it on the economy. Blame it on our hectic lives. Blame it on the fine-dining blues.
Jim Noble opened a Winston-Salem branch of his lauded and luxurious High Point restaurant in 1992. His company's gone through a lot of changes since then: the High Point restaurant now belongs to Noble's former business partner, and the Greensboro branch of the restaurant family closed. Two Noble's restaurants have opened in Charlotte.
The Winston-Salem branch got a renovation this spring, and -- with the new menu, tables and chairs -- was an attempt to recast Noble's as casual gastro-pub rather than one of the places most of us think of only to mark anniversaries and birthdays. The new Noble's is modeled closely after Roosters, one of the Nobles' Charlotte outposts.
Tablecloths -- gone. Entrees, too -- you know, the kind that come with vegetables and a starch and, in the olden days, sprigs of curly parsley -- were suddenly too structured.
Oh, they are still there, banished to a small corner of the menu. The rest has become an a la carte list that goes on and on, with mix and match-able sides and entrees.
There's a section ("From the Woods") devoted to mushrooms. "From the Garden" could be called "From the Farm" or "From the Entire Produce Section," with pan-fried corn, brussels sprouts and roasted beets. There are six kinds of grilled meat, and that doesn't touch the braised, roasted and barbecued selections. If you're not feeling traditional, you could order a pizza and a salad, or an appetizer and a cheese plate. The permutations of ordering a meal could short-circuit a mathematician's mind.
I'm not totally convinced by the re-engineering.
For one thing, the Noble's crowd doesn't look especially casual -- maybe there were a few polo shirts -- though I spotted a guy wearing a baseball cap and shorts carrying out the door what looked suspiciously like a take-out bag one recent night. The renovators may have hauled in some long communal tables and ringed them with bar stools, but there's a strong whiff of expense accounts among the high ceiling, the long mirrored bar, saffron-colored walls and polished-wood trim.
For another, although the deconstructed menu can be freeing and fun, it can also be confusing.
One night I heard a woman worry about the menu's Spartan descriptions. How was she supposed to decide between scallops and salmon when she had no idea what was being done to them?
And a person (a glutton) could make a meal out of duck confit and macaroni and cheese, or hanger steak, onion rings and linguine made with clams. But would you want to?
This could be solved by more direction from the servers, who are young and helpful when you ask, or a few more words on the menu.
Let's get back to the fun part.
Appetizers are in their normal place, but don't overlook them. There are some summer gems here -- light, fresh, pretty dishes that you'll want to eat now: arugula, country ham and cantaloupe so ripe it melts as you lay it on your tongue; hot fried oysters and lemon; a long white plate scattered with watermelon, tomatoes, the anise bite of basil and drizzles of gorgonzola cream.
If you would like more for dinner -- remember, this menu is yours to construct a meal out of -- all the sides are large enough to share with two, maybe three, people. I've cobbled together a fantastical version of steak frites here, with grilled sirloin showered with lemon-shot arugula, and sides of French fries and oyster and shitake mushrooms dripping with buttery juices.
The fries were good, not great, but the ones made with polenta are transcendental. Stacked like thick Lincoln logs on white plates, the polenta is cut into rectangles, then fried. Crisp, creamy, salty; they can't be good for you. It's hard to stop eating them. Garden peas are thick with herbs and butter, and fried-green tomatoes are drizzled with chutney.
Wide, fatty slices of barbecued pork shoulder were rich and smoky, but I can't say the same about an unusual treatment of beef short ribs. They were braised and then -- this is the novel part -- deep fried; "crispy," the menu called it. Try heavy, oily, a thud on a plate.
We ordered off the composed-plate menu, too. The grilled tuna with white beans and lemon-chive preserves was good, the lemon hanging off the smoky fish like silvers of sunshine. But it's hard not to watch the parade of little bowls and big plates coming to other tables. How did they put together their dinner? Scallops with roasted asparagus. Shrimp with black rice and spinach.
Desserts are straightforward. One of Noble's desserts from the old days has weathered the make-over, bread pudding flecked with dried currants and cream and capped with Courvoisier ice cream. It's delicious, but like most of the desserts, I wonder, "Where's the fruit?" The appetizers scream summer. Most of the desserts whimper: "It could be any time of year. November, maybe?"
Banana bread was almost inedible, it was so dry, but it was paired with very good banana gelato. Strangely, this is when I wanted to pick and choose. Noble's take on a molten chocolate cake is a dream, but the vanilla gelato that came with it dated the dish. That's why I picked up my fork one evening,and chased the cake with some of that banana gelato. Much better.
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