JOHN GRAY'S DOWNTOWN

Restaurant Name: John Gray’s Downtown

Date Visited: December 20^th 2010 7pm-10pm (!)

Address and Phone Number: Av Xpuhil (Right next to Maracame) SM19 MZ 2. Cancun Downtown. 998-889-9800

Restaurant/Menu Link: http://www.johngrayrestaurantgroup.com/

What We Ate:

-          Drinks:

o   Limonada: Regular

o   Wine: Lovely wine list. A few selections available by the glass. Had a great cab at 62 pesos for the glass. A good deal. Bring someone who knows more about wine than I do..like Andrea or Edgar.

-          Appetizer:

o   Classic Steak Tartar: Thanks to Andrea for forcing me to try this. Sooo tasty and pretty oniony. I had never tried this before so I don’t really have anything to compare it too. I would order it again.

-          Salad:

o   Iceburg Lettuce with Roquefort dressing: A few of us ordered this. Excellent! The dressing was creamy and the nuts and everything else really added. Soo good. The perfect combinations of textures and flavors. Oh, and the lettuce was chilled…COLD, perfect.

o   Mixed Salad: Miss Jennifer got the mixed salad. It looked good too. I didn’t ask her for a bite because I was too busy enjoying my own salad. MMMMM!

-          Main Course

o   Salmon filet wrapped in crispy potatoes w/ chile spiced lentils: Wow. Hands down, best salmon I have had here in Cancun. It was perfectly cooked and tender, covered with a thin layer or flash-fried, crunchy potatoes. All this was placed on a bed of spicy lentils..but not too spicy to take away from the mild flavor of the salmon+potato. It was a lot, I could have definitely split it with Alexis (who ordered the same thing) but ate the WHOLE thing myself.

o   Filet Mignon w/ Mashed: Classic. Miss Jennifer got this, Polished it off. Cooked well, mashed looked tasty.

o   The Duck: Well thanks Lord Andrea ordered this one. (She cheated and looked at the menu before we arrived and was apparently talking about it the whole cab ride over.) And thanks Lord it was great because I would have felt really bad for her after she got her hopes up. I had never had duck but I am aware that you must be careful when you cook it so that it does not turn out too tough or too dry. Andrea gave me a bite and it was awesome. A strong taste for the unaware, but Andrea said it was awesome, and this woman KNOWS what she is talking about.

-          Dessert

o   Coffee Crème Brulee: Even though I was stuffed-and-full, Andrea conned me into eating this with her. It was served with some berries which we poured on the top of the crème brulee. Wow, 10, too bad we couldn’t have tried a few more of the desert collection…next time…

Service: Awesome service. We sat through three normal place settings, gabbed, ordered in bad Spanish, dropped silverware, laughed ourselves to tears (it was girls night out ok) and kept changing our minds about desert. The service was great. Minimalistic, no folksy buddy approach here. Though at first he forgot to bring Alexis the wine menu, but that was the only mistake all night. We were also not rushed, and at one point there was even quite a wait as the restaurant got busy and there were no more available tables. (We thought we were going to be more people and we sat at a 6 top, even though we were only four, and still, they did not rush us. Top Marks!)

Ambiance (Décor, lighting, music, seating): Very bistro style. Small. Minimalistic. Sort of dark. There is a huge tree that they built the restaurant around and you can see it through the glass walls that surround it. Cool. Classy tables, cute mini-patio (directly behind the valet parking lot…hm), lovely bar, small back room.  Wish I would have checked out the bathrooms, bet they were cool too.

Crowd: Whoa! VIP crowd. I felt a bit casual. I was definitely the poorest one there, but that is ok. I would dress up a bit more the next time I went. There were some pretty flashy outfits (and bling) spotted that night, but nothing to hold me back from going again.

Note: Get there at 7:30, you will have your pick of the tables. Gets BUSY at 8:30… and we went on a MONDAY! Apparently, Gray’s also serves breakfast. I would love to try their strawberries and crème French toast with a coffee on the cute little patio. And the next time I go for dinner, I will get a salad, a glass of wine and try the MAC and CHEESE which is also on this awesome/diverse menu that truly has something for everyone! Attainable elegance. Love this place.

Will I go back? Si!

Leave a comment if you have tried this restaurant and want to add something!