Trilogy

There has been, or maybe I just noticed, a recent influx of upper end dining and drinking establishments into East Cobb. There is even a new self titled "Ultra-Lounge" on Roswell Road called Blue Olive. After visiting more than my fair share of ULs in Vegas, I'm not holding my breath that one in the middle of a strip mall can really measure up.

But Sunday night, I did venture out to try a new restaurant called Trilogy. The house received a flier announcing the restaurant along with a coupon for 20% off. The first strike against Trilogy came before I left the house. It is located in the building that formally housed.....a roller skating rink. Sparkles to be specific. I wasn't holding out a lot of hope that this dining experience was going to be very good. But I had a coupon, so I went.

Through the conversations with various staff and managers, I discovered that Trilogy is owned by the same people that owned Houck's, a now defunct steak and seafood place also in East Cobb. The owners needed some repairs and changes made made to the property but the landlord refused. So they closed Houck's, bought this property and opened Trilogy.

When I opened the door to Trilogy I was almost speechless. The renovation was amazing. No signs of a roller rink. Muted tones, heavy on browns covered the walls. Glass art hung from the ceiling and various non-obtrusive painting hung in the obvious places. A very nice hostess took a break from her advanced algebra to seat me in the restaurant portion.

The waitress was Amy, a delightful woman that knew all about the restaurant and the menu. The restaurant, as she explained was broken into three sections. The main dining room, the bar and the entertainment room, which also explained the company name. Trilogy, meaning; food, spirits and entertainment.

I ordered a Rogue Dead Guy to start; along with an appetizer of calamari. Amy delivered the beer with a basket of garlic cheese muffins and cornbread both of which I thought were on the dry side, but decently tasty. They were served with a side of cinnamon honey butter, which I did not care for. It tasted fine; if you like cinnamon and honey in your butter, I don't care anything in my butter. Butter should be left alone. Just like coffee and whiskey. The calamari was lightly breaded and not over cooked as so many places tend to do.

For the main course, I had the New York Strip, medium plus with three fried shrimp and broccoli. The entrees come with a choice of Caesar or tossed salad. I opted for the tossed with the ratatouille dressing. This dressing was like a very light Italian garlic dressing but very oily with lots of freshly shredded mozzarella cheese in it. It looked very funny in its side cup waiting to be poured on my salad, but it was delicious. And the salad was very fresh and full of all sorts of tasty vegetables.

The salad came and went and it was onto the steak. The presentation was lovely. The steak smelled awesome and very very hot. Garlic butter for the steak was poured into a hollowed out small red pepper, the broccoli florets gently tossed into the middle of the plate, and my three very large shrimp on the left hand portion of the plates served with both cocktail and tarter sauce. The shrimp were fantastic, again not over-breaded and cooked well. The broccoli, was broccoli, just the tops. What do you want me to say? It was broccoli. The steak was a very generous cut of meat and it smelled like meat should. It was cooked as I requested it, although I should have said medium and not medium plus. The odd thing was that there were no noticeable spices on the meat. It was simple a large grilled piece of meat. I'm not complaining. It was tasty, but no seasoning was just odd.

For desert I checked out the entertainment room where Mighty McFly, Radio Cult, and Java Monkey Duo are currently on the calendar. A very small room but a very clean smelling and looking room. With shows starting at 8:30, they are definitely pining after the over-40 crowd. We bellied up to the bar in the lounge (different from the entertainment room) and ended my night with a glass of Knob Creek while talking to the very nice manager, Eric. We ended up chatting it up about the direction they were going, when they opened (this past May), the future, etc, etc.

Overall the dining experience was good. Amy and Eric were top notch and went out of their way to make sure we had everything we needed and they did so with a smile and warm heart. The facility is great with plenty of space. You could never feel cramped even on the busiest of nights. The background music needs some work. The best pop-music from the 90's doesn't inspire a whole lot of appetite from me. The food was good; but not enough to make me want to go back. Final verdict. Fine, but nothing to write home about.