The happy hour is certainly a good deal at five dollars a glass (and their glasses are huge – borderline comically big). We got the charcuterie plate too – lots of delicious prosciuttos and some nice pate. We then split the mini-burgers, trying all six. I was lukewarm on most of them and downright grossed out by the gaminess of the boar’s meat burger (maybe it was a fluke, still gross though).

I read an article in the Post recently about Commonwealth. In discussing the modern movement of offering the charcuterie plate, the author mentioned that while tasty it does more to show off the chef’s grocery shopping skills than cooking skills (and he gave praise to Commonwealth for not falling prey to such). The first place that came to mind when I read that was Vinoteca. I loved the wine and the prosciutto, but when it came to actually cooking something, I wasn’t particularly impressed. I think that is why I will go again, but not for a while.

Pretty much, our food didn’t come out for over an hour. After multiple times of asking the waiter (and sometimes having trouble finding him) and his assurance the food would come out soon, we saw a couple that sat down maybe 10 minutes ago get their food while we’d been waiting forever. At this point, just wanting to leave because we were starving, the manager came over and apologized and comped our meal and had the food brought out right away. I wrote more about it on my blog when it happened, and I just haven’t felt the need to go back.

I agree though, the food is good, it’s a nice neighborhood joint, and it’s never too crowded to get a table (at least when I’ve gone). This experience just hasn’t had me running back to eat there.

The gourmet sliders were my fave.