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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Mouthful Mouthful: D'Vine Wine Cafe in Ballantyne
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, May 28, 2009 at 11:06 AM
Ballantyne Village's newest wine bar D'Vine Wine Cafe serves up divine wine, but unfortunately hellacious food.
We visited the wine café last night during Ballantyne Village's weekly Mix at Six party on Wednesdays. The live music area for Mix at Six is located right at the entrance of D'Vine, on the second floor of the complex, which conveniently provides entertainment for D'Vine guests as they lounge on outdoor sofas accented by fresh, lime green cushions.
We chose to sit outside on the patio, but away from the music which was a tad bit too loud to talk over. The café offers wines by the half glass, glass, and bottle, as well flights of wine served in too-cute stands with separate spokes to hold each glass in fan like arrangement. The two wines we got, a Malbec and a Pinot Grigio, were fairly priced at $7-$10 and were very good. The wines definitely lived up to their lively menu descriptions. The café also offers a good selection of beers including Chimay and Delirium Tremens.
The bad part came when the food arrived ...
The Mussels — A good portion of mussels swimming in a tasty broth served with a hunk of focaccia on top. These had great flavor and included fresh little tomatoes. I would have been as happy as a clam if I could have eaten three plates of these. My only qualm with the dish was that it wasn't exactly hot enough. It was just sort of room temperature/warm.
After one bite of the cold sandwich, we sent it back. As the waiter whisked it off our table, he didn't ask us if we wanted a new sandwich, or if we would like to order something else off the menu in exchange. We just shrugged and figured he would return with a better sandwich.
Uh ... then he did the unspeakable ... He brought back the same partially eaten sandwich back to our table reheated, minus our original chips. Gross. I can't believe he put the sandwich (that we bit into, mind you) back on the panini grill which they use to make other people's sandwiches too. It is proper restaurant etiquette to correct such an infraction as bad-tasting food by at least bringing back a brand-new fresh version of the dish (including the sides, too).
Reheating the sandwich ended up making the bread super hard, crunchy and abrasive. Ouch. One bite into it cut up the skin in my mouth. We sent it back again and told them just to forget it, we didn't want another.
Perhaps savory appetizers aren't D'Vine's forte, so we ordered a dessert hoping that the café would redeem itself. Of the four desserts offered, we settled on the Three Mini Cheesecakes. The cheesecakes came in three flavors, chocolate, vanilla bean, and blackberry. Once again, good concept, poorly executed. The cheesecakes were warm and mushy and they were missing the best part of a cheesecake — the crunchy graham cracker crust. My dinner companion deemed them "inedible."
Overall, at D'Vine Wine Cafe, the atmosphere is nice, wine is tasty, and the music is enjoyable. Go, but just skip the food.
D'Vine Wine Cafe
Ballantyne Village
14815 John J. Delaney Dr.
Suite 240
Charlotte, NC 28277
704.369.5050
Retail Wine Shop: open daily at 11:00 am
Restaurant & Wine Bar:
Monday - Thursday 4:00 pm - Until
Friday 4:00 pm - 1:00 am
Saturday 11:00am - 1:00 am
Sunday - Closed
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