After hearing nothing but great reviews about Nick’s On Main Street in Los Gatos California, I finally found time to take my extremely beautiful woman out on a ‘Date Night’ to give this place a shot on Friday night. I scored points with the ‘Date Night’ idea, the special Evite that set it up, and Nick just set me up for greatness with the meal he served!
First off, thank you Nick for a great evening and dining experience. You are truly an excellent chef and host.
OK, now that you already know how I feel about Nicks On Main Street, onto the review!
We started out entering Nicks to see what I already knew, it is pretty small. However it is beautifully decorated in Black and White…something that I was informed will be the new color scheme for the next kitchen I design (yea, she loved it;-) in the next house. There was Nick, out talking with customers and welcoming us into the restaurant. Now I had never met Nick before, but you just knew it was him. He sat us against the wall (there were only 3 rows of tables and they are all quite close together), and it was a great spot.
Now I always bring wine to a restaurant for the main course, but like to order one off the menu too. So we started off with a nice Chardonnay and ordered an appetizer, the first of three;-). They started us off with some great focaccia bread and a sun-dried tomato tapenade, both of which were great. FYI, Chardonnay does not work well with this one, but I like a good Chardonnay so I drank it anyway.
Then came the first appetizer: Abalone. Oh my gosh! Cooked perfectly, great sauce that was not overpowering, and a fantastic salad underneath. Nothing here was overpowering, just perfectly balanced…Oh boy, I was keeping my fingers crossed that this continued and that I was not let down like most places…and I was not!
The next two appetizers came out and were equally excellent. She wanted a salad, and what she got was nothing shy of fantastic. Perfect balance in the flavors with some lightly sun-dried tomatos and greens and a mild flavored dressing that was very good. Now I like salad, but not when duck and risotto are offered with truffle oil. Oh yes, another hit.
Now we were enjoying everything so much that I did not order dinner until the appetizers were done. So it took Nick a while to prepare the large cut of rib-eye that he served me. He even apologized, unnecessarily, for the delay, as did our server…who was also excellent and part of a team of 3 that took excellent care of us. Now I was enjoying everything so much that I did not care about the delay and it never actually even crossed my mind, especially since I ordered the entree late…I was actually extremely happy when my steak arrived and it was cooked perfectly and had incredible flavors. The rib-eye was served with a reduction and a powerful Gorgonzola cheese with sides of thin fries and broccoli. It was excellent. I have been to local steak houses that can’t get the temperature of the steak right (which is a sin if you have the word ‘Steakhouse’ on the sign), but Nick nailed it. BTW, this dish went perfectly with the 2002 Pride Mountain Reserve Cabernet which I brought! I just love my wine;-)
Now I did not mention that while all of this was going on, Nicks On Main Street got packed. Every seat was taken and people were waiting outside. A couple comments here…Nick still popped in to meet and greet while he was working his rear off in the kitchen, and there was no stress at all. This guy is good. The servers were also prompt to make sure that the customers waiting were also taken care of! YES, the people waiting outside were taken care of! Something I don’t think I have ever seen before in the South Bay Area, and found to be a huge cut above all the competition. I have seen it in the city on occasion, but never down here.
One of the things I had heard about Nick was that he was the Chef at one of the other limited number of excellent dining establishments in the area: Cafe Marcella, which is unfortunately no longer around for us to enjoy. Now this place served the best Pork Chop that we had ever experienced, so I just knew that Nick would kill it on this one…My beautiful date ordered Nick’s Pork dish, and it was just as good…he clearly was the one responsible for putting the chop on the Cafe Marcella menu. Cooked and flavored to perfection. I actually had to help finish this dish off, and enjoyed every bite!
OK, not like we needed anything else…but like I was going to pass on desert?!?! Bread pudding and excellent…maybe a bit over done on the outside, but at this point…whatever;-) Hope I am almost done writing this because I need to go workout myself just from remembering this great meal!
Overall this has got to top the list of great places to have a great dinner in Los Gatos and the South Bay. Once again, thank you Nick and staff for a great meal and evening. We will return as soon as I burn off the calories from such a fantastic dining experience.
Here is a bit of help for those searching for the web site for Nicks On Main Street in Los Gatos: www.NicksOnMainSt.com Being the web guy that I try to be, we need to work on that one a bit;-) BUT with all the publicity this place is going to get, it will make the search engines eventually. Come on Google, get this web site on the search engine! Actually I would probably rather not get it promoted too much because I will return frequently;-)
Enjoy!
Now go workout! And have a great day;-)
Brett A. Riesenhuber
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