Ever since Charcoal opened near my work place, the comments I’ve heard from coworkers were: bland, so-so, average, alright, pretty good, took too long, overpriced…etc. Doesn’t sound so appealing so I don’t have much desire to give it a try until a colleague invited me to go. I got the Grill salmon salad (can’t go too wrong right?), my colleagues got the Crab Burger and steak (not in picture). Perhaps due to really low expectation, the food is better than I thought but still they don’t leave much impressions. I had my salmon grilled rare and it came out rare so that’s good. For the steak, my colleague said it’s pretty much same as Gaucho grill‘s (same owner of Charcoal) which I’ve never been to. I thought it was a bit dry and hard, overprice for the quality. The crab burger was so-so. So yeah I guess overall the food pretty much match what my coworkers been saying. Besides, aren’t there enough these type of “American bistro” that serve “gourmet Burgers/sandwich/salad/mac n cheese” in the area? There’re Magnolia, Bowery and The Hungry Cat just down the block. The interior space is pretty nice though, I like the wood walls and table but boy was the music loud! Loud 80s music in fact, perhaps they tried to give the space a cool young Hollywood vibe or something.
It’s a rough neighborhood to be such a mediocre restaurant. In addition to the spots you mentioned, there’s also Los Balcones de Peru, Citizen Smith, Sushi Ike and Lucky Devil’s within a few blocks. Even Kabuki trumps Charcoal.
Ha exactly Taste0Buzz. I guess Charcoal’s aim at lazy (to walk) clueless hungry movie goers from Arclight? But then even the restaurant inside Arclight is better!
Charcoal sucks. First of all, it’s FREEZING in there. Second, the only two good things they have on the menu are mac and cheese, and black bean soup (which they only have sometimes). That place is butt.