I know that I don’t usually write restaurant reviews (which I’m sure will be apparent to any foodie reading this), but I had such a wonderful dining experience that I had to share it.
First, I have to tell you that my wife is a chef, so it takes a lot to impress either of us when dinning out. As this was a special occasion, we decided to let someone else do the cooking.
For my wife’s and my 25th wedding anniversary we went to the Wolf Gang Puck’s Five Sixty restaurant at 300 Reunion Tower in Dallas, Texas. Our waiter was Jeremy, who did a wonderful job making us feel right at home and truly added to the dinning experience.
We visited on Feb. 13 since we could not get a table on the 14th (our actual anniversary). When making the reservation, I did note that it was our anniversary dinner.
We decided to stay at the Hyatt that is connected to the Reunion Tower so that if we choose to drink we could with out having to be concerned about getting back to our hotel. We found the Hyatt an okay experience with confortable beds and an attentive staff. We did feel the hotel was over-priced ($260). It seemed like they wanted to nickel and dime you for everything after paying about twice what I would expect for the reputed quality of the hotel. The staff was attentive and professional. The heater in the room was noisy (seemed like it made a noise loud enough to wake us about every 20 minutes) and I had requested a king bed, but received a room with two full beds.
The Five Sixty is a revolving restaurant overlooking downtown Dallas and is accessible from the Hyatt hotel. As it was February, the majority of the meal was dark outside, giving a lovely, colorful display of lights as the restaurant slowly revolved. Now, as I said, my wife is a chef who has been invited to some of the most prestigious places in the world, so she is pretty hard to impress. We were impressed.
We had reviewed the menu online and had decided to try the 7-course sample menu for our anniversary. The price was reasonable given the exceptional quality of the food and staff ($270 for both of us + $40 ea. For paired wine).
The meal began with a lovely green bean and roasted pecans sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds that were lovely.
The first course was a cone of sprinkled dried fish with tuna center called Spicy Tuna TarTare in a sesame-miso Tullie cone. It was a wonderful appetizer and greatly enjoyed by both of us. The sparkling Guet “Brut” blush wine that accompanied it was very complementary.
The second course was sushi: a white fish that I didn’t catch the name of, tuna, and albacore (the albacore had a lovely Asian sauce over the top that was very complementary). We both love quality sushi, and this was no exception. The white wine paring was again well done.
The third course was dim sum: pork, chicken and shrimp/lobster combination. It came with three dipping sauces: pepper sauce, a peanut sauce (which the chicken was layered on top of as well) and a traditional dim sum dipping sauce. We didn’t care for the peanut sauce, but the other two sauces were wonderful. This was paired with a Riesling, which was very complementary.
The fourth course was a lovely piece of halibut. Paired with a lovely white wine, it was delicious, and had a nice mango/chili underneath that added a bit of a punch to the flavor. While my wife found it a little hot, I found it just right.
Fifth course was deep-fried quail in General Tso. At this point we were getting quite full, but it was hard to stop eating it was so good. It was paired with a nice red wine “Syrah Qupe’ Central Coast of California” that we both found delicious.
Sixth course (Oh God! There’s more?!?!) was an incredible 14 ounce steak split between us. It was delicious. Paired with a great red wine “Malbec, Dona Paula” from Argentina, we were both wondering how we were going to make it through to our 7th course.
The 7th course was a lovely coffee ice cream and toffee/chocolate bar paired with a red dessert wine. I found the wine a little too sweet, but my wife thought it was perfect.
We were both surprised to find that we had spent three hours at the restaurant when we returned to our room. I was VERY glad that we had decided to stay at the hotel enabling me to truly enjoy the wine pairings with the meal.
All of the waitress and waiters did a great job; I was very impressed with the attentiveness throughout the restaurant.
My wife and I both considered it one of the best meals we have ever enjoyed. Coupled with the excellent wine and great wait-staff, we will look forward to the next special occasion that can be celebrated at Five Sixty.