Kincaid’s in Bloomington is a lively restaurant serving OK food. The prices are downtown steak house levels, the décor is downtown, but this restaurant is located in an office building in Bloomington, there to cater to the business crowd in the building and the surrounding neighborhood to avoid the traffic downtown, which was why we were there.
The menu is heavily focused on steaks, with numerous cuts and sizes. On my latest visit I was more interested in a lighter meal and when the server informed the table that one of the special for the evening was Halibut Cheeks, I was excited. I think the cheeks on most animals and fish are the best part so I was keen to give it a try. I was a little hesitant when he mentioned they were rolled in Asiago and Parmesan cheeses and fried, but decided to order anyway. For my appetizer I chose the lobster bisque.
The bisque arrived for assembly. A bowl was placed in front to me, which contained a smidgen of diced lobster meat. The server slowly poured the bisque around the diced lobster. It was extremely thick and full of cream…this was not a dieter’s rendition of a classic dish. Overall the bisque had a decent flavor, but the cream overwhelmed the other flavors and the lobster meat was almost flavorless.
The Halibut cheeks arrived, served with succotash and grilled asparagus. This was a good sized portion, five fried cheeks. The flavor and texture of the cheek meat was great and the kitchen prepared the doneness perfectly. I was not that fond of the cheese crust, it fought the inherent sweetness of the cheeks. The sides were not good at all. The succotash should have contained bright flavors given the time of year, but the vegetables were tasteless, and the asparagus were worse. The kitchen did not trim the bottom nor cook them sufficiently so they were borderline inedible. I give a very good to the cheeks and a bad job to the sides.
The dessert menu was presented and the server was recommending the bread pudding. After receiving and tasting it, the kitchen must have told the staff to push it. It was horrible. Here is a recommendation to all servers…if you need to apologize to the guest while pouring the sauce on a dish, remove the dish. The server apologized about the thickness of the bourbon sauce, why he did not remove it altogether is a mystery. A bigger mystery is why they served the bread pudding at all. It was a slab of bread, burnt on the bottom with a little ice cream on top and an overly thick bourbon sauce. I had two bites and decided it was not worth the calories.
Overall, Kincaid’s is trying to be a high end steak house that does not produce the product commensurate with the prices. The food was fair at best, the kitchen sends out items that never should leave the kitchen but the staff is spot on in hawking the products.
Jfood Eats 