With the extended stay in the Detroit area for the past months StringGirl and Amber have been able to enjoy some of the sights around Metro Detroit and Southeastern Michigan for a change. Most recently a trip to Downtown Detroit for dinner with the gang from AutoForm.
Dinner at the Coach Insignia starts with a trip up the exclusive express elevator up to the 72nd floor. The elevator located on the 3rd level of the labyrinthine Renaissance Center can only be boarded if the concierge at that level confirms your reservation and key cards the elevator into service. The ride up the elevator is close to be being worth the price of dinner. Zooming passengers up the nearly 700 feet to arrive in the restaurant. With glass on three sides of the elevator anybody with vertigo will be left clinging to the doors.
We arrived just a the sun was setting treating us to beautifully lit views of the Windsor and Detroit skylines and the flat state of Michigan stretching out to the horizon. Phone camera barely does justice to the way a sunset can render beautiful the city of Detroit.
The wine list at the Coach Insignia is quite extensive, however we found that the stock in that cellar is not necessarily current. Apparently with the fancy binding and printing that such high end restaurants insist on using for their wine list will make it likely that you can hit a wine that is not in stock. For us this happened three times in the meal. Once for the Red bottle we selected, once for the white my boss wanted by the glass, and again for the Sherry he attempted to order afterwards.
The bottle of red we did finally get brought out was a Napa Red under the label of Paraduxx. This 2007 Red Blend turned out to be quite nice. At this point a fancy wine blog would overwhelm with some review of the fine notes of fruit and lite alcohol, the hint of tobacco and maybe the lack of tannic finish. but as I am not that well versed in the language of wine I will skip that. Instead, we drank it liked it and I would love to find it again. Not too fruity, didn't burn, finished easy, and did have a complexity that makes me wish I could wax all wine steward on it.
For starters we had the Crab Cakes, which were truly great. Lump Crab with only just enough bread and binding to maintain some cakiness while cooking and plating, but not so much to hide the coarseness of the lump meat. Only mildly spiced and sweet (as crab meat tastes) the appetizers did not last long.
The Soup of the day was an asparagus cream soup. Tasty but it did arrive a little cool, as is apt to happen with soups served in the lovely thin walled china and shallow soup bowls favored by these chichi restaurants. The coolness of the soup was a bit of a turn off.
The entre' selection of the for us was the Coach Insignia Trio (Surf and Turf) which features a crab cake, Scallops, and filet. The filet was cooked to perfection (I prefer pittsburgh--charred rare). The scallops sweet and nicely cooked with not a hint of rubber in the texture. And another crab cake is always welcome.
For dessert the "Present". A chocolate box complete with ribbon, filled with mouse and raspberry coulis, atop a thin bit of chocolate cake. MMMmmmmmm.
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