Scottie and I through out some familiar restaurant names and genres of food to see what Carrie might be interested in as we figured we should take her outside of the Renaissance Center, which has its fair share of restaurants. Our guess is that if you're staying in that hotel for a conference, you're not really venturing too far outside of it. Our recommendations included some of these: Slows BBQ, Taste Pizzabar, Traffic Jam & Snug, Angelina's Bistro, and Sala Thai. However, we landed on a tapas restaurant, Small Plates.
It's been a little over a year since we've been to the Detroit location of Small Plates after their Royal Oak location shut down. From what I recall, we weren't entirely impressed with their dishes so this was a nice "take two" for us to see if it was just a fluke the first time!
We ended up ordering our own individual tapas so I went with the Garlic Shrimp in a white wine, garlic sauce, which I remembered fondly from our last visit. I added the Veggie Spring Rolls which came with three dipping sauces (Hoisin, Spicy Mustard, and Plum Sauces) to round out my meal. To share, we also tasted the Hummus & Tabbouleh with some pita for dipping. We figured Carrie needed to try some Greek food, Detroit-style.
To be honest, Small Plates didn't really knock my socks as the food was tasty, but generic. It seemed as if the spring rolls and shrimp were doctored up a little bit, but otherwise, could have been purchased from any frozen food section and tasted just the same. Of course, the Hummus & Tabbouleh were pretty decent and at least showed Carrie how the Greek food here is exceptional. The dinner took a turn for the odd side as well when the group next to us repeatedly loudly burped (granted we were outside), which certainly put a damper on our dining experience.
However, I won't completely shut this restaurant down because it does add a nice variety and spice to the otherwise plethora of generic bar and grills options you see in Detroit. Furthermore, it's not so sub-standard that you won't enjoy your meal, I just find it has much room to improve! Maybe next time, I'll just suck it up and try the brick oven pizza. That could be their specialty that I'm missing out on? Anyway, I'm sure Carrie found the place to be a nice change from the fancier options over at the Renaissance Center.
Good times. Good eats (but I'm still going with Sangria in Royal Oak as my Tapas pick in Metro Detroit).