Date Night Rating : 70%
As an avid traveller of the world, I have seen many different places and eaten in many different places. One genre of food in which I have a huge amount of experience is Mediterranean food. My dad, being from Libya, is an amazing cook. The food that is native to Libya is a mix of Mediterranean and Italian, due to the fact that Libya was invaded by Italy a few hundred years ago and they are also located on the lower part of the Mediterranean sea.
First Impressions
Ambrosia, looks like an upscale restaurant, inside and out. The modern design of it, with a touch of rustic charm adds to the old Spanish courtyard feel, portrayed nicely with vines and flowers adorning the front of the building.
Service
The staff were very accommodating, pleasant and helpful. The place was near enough empty, which sometimes is a bad thing, but we had high hopes for it, so we stayed. The waiter was really nice. He seemed generally interested in making conversation and was friendly and pleasant, actually probably the best I've come across so far in Toledo. The food came out in typical speedy American fashion, which was a bit of an inconvenience because the main meals came as we were about halfway through our appetizers so we were a bit overloaded with food.
Food
Okay, the important bit. The food was okay. I have high standards, so I'm entitled to be a little bit biased.
Appetizers
We had Houmous (Greek spelling) for an appetizer along with grape leaves. The grape leaves were nice, but once you've had one grape leaf you've had them all. They're fairly easy to make and hard to mess up. The Houmous was okay. I've had terrible Houmous before (The worst being from Meijer). This Houmous was good but for $6 it was a rip off. A cheaper and better option is to go to the middle eastern market on Dorr street. You can get 6 grape leaves for $2.99 and a can of Houmous for $1.29 (which, incidentally is the best Houmous you will ever taste).
Main Meal
I had a lamb shank for my main meal. Now, I know that lamb is not that popular in America, but in England and most of europe it is our main meat, and nobody cooks it better than the Greeks. A lamb shank is supposed to be so tender that it melts in your mouth. If you pry it apart with your knife gently it should fall right off the bone. This one didn't. It tasted like it had been sitting there all day and had been cooking so long that it had become stringy and dry. There is a huge window in which lamb stays moist, and only if you cook it for about 7 hours will it become that dry. It wasn't terrible, but it was disappointing for $17.
Danae had a Pomona salad. It consists of fresh mixed greens with caramelized walnuts, dried cranberries and fresh apple slices topped off with Raspberry vinaigrette and fresh Gorgonzola cheese. It was a nice salad, as far as salads go. Didn't take much preparation or technical skill to put it together, but it was nice.
Value for money
Quite expensive for the food it puts out. Especially when you can find the same or better ingredients for a huge fraction of the price elsewhere. I think Ambrosia operates as a middle to high end restaurant and sets its self apart from the Mediterranean restaurants in Toledo (which tend to be cheaper). At the moment the image is right, but its product is halfway there.
Overall
Going to Ambrosia, I had high hopes. I hoped to sample lots of the food that I had missed, having been in America for a while. Although lots of those foods I had sorely missed were present on the menu, they disappointed in comparison to other Mediterranean places I have been to and bought from in Toledo. I had a good time with Danae though, the atmosphere is pleasant and it was a fairly good date for us. I would recommend Ambrosia for a drink and appetizer, because of it's atmosphere. I wouldn't commit to a full meal again so soon, because of the price and quality etc. However, it is a new restaurant and so I will be giving it a second chance to impress.
Photos Courtesy of http://www.ambrosialounge.com/
