Tucked between a mortgage company and a salon in a brick-faced plaza, Opium is at the heart of chain-store central. It's on North Dale Mabry where strip malls, asphalt parking lots and car dealerships live. It's easy for a small place to be overlooked amidst the sheer volume of commerce.
Even when people notice, the comfortable routine of the Outbacks, Red Lobsters and Chilis is hard for many to give up. Opium bucks the trend. Locally owned, it is unabashedly a fine dining establishment, with prices to match.
While the setting sun glared off the windows and traffic whizzed by 50 feet away, walking into Opium was like escaping from hell. The interior of the restaurant was calm, cool and so dark it was hard to make out details. Black tablecloths and walls, brown chairs and minimal decoration formed a stark contrast to the sensory overload of Dale Mabry. It created a relaxing vibe, like a chill-out room at a dance club or, perhaps, an opium den.
In this case, the mood formed a blank canvas for the food of chef Caroline Thaxton. Her menu seemed typical: duck and lobster, foie gras and crème brulee, the usual suspects of fine dining. But I was due for a surprise. In practice, dishes at Opium were often daring and experimental, with incredible successes alongside disappointing failures. It wasn't another boring meal in a strip mall, that's for sure.
I like the idea of an amuse bouche – that little tasty treat you get before dinner at some fancy places. It has to be good, though, because it sets the stage for the meal. On one night, Opium served a bit of salmon and herbs in a creamy sauce, delicately placed on a white Asian soup-spoon. The salmon was drastically overcooked, which didn't bode well for the rest of the meal. Thankfully, almost everything that came after was considerably better.
Almost everything. The goat cheese, basil and tomato terrine ($8) was an abject failure. There were a few meager slivers of under-ripe tomato and a single basil leaf to accent a large slab of white goat cheese. Something mixed with the cheese – perhaps to help it hold its shape – turned the normally creamy texture into a grainy, pasty mess that tasted of uncooked flour. A dark balsamic reduction was no help.
At the other end of the spectrum, the butter-poached lobster ($37) was a work of art. A beet-infused buerre blanc created a perfect, deep red frame encircling a pink, whole shelled lobster and a pile of shredded leeks. The lobster was tender, rich and mild, and buttery even without the sauce. Sauteed and tossed with cream and gruyere, the leeks were very good, more like fettucine than vegetables. A simple dish made exceptional by some culinary creativity.
Although great, the lobster did illustrate that prices at Opium are a bit dear, considering the setting. Eight-dollar desserts and soups, and entrees in the high $20s-$30s might end up driving adventurous folks back into the forgiving arms of the cheaper chain restaurants.
A foie gras appetizer ($18) was straightforward, but with an imaginative accompaniment. Two medallions of luscious liver were seared to a semi-solid state and drizzled with the typical sweetened balsamic vinegar reduction. A simple apricot and puff pastry tart provided the unusual touch, an interesting way to bring some tart fruit contrast to the rich foie gras.
Vinegar is popular at Opium, not always to great effect. A bright yellow, chilled tomato soup ($8) was essentially gazpacho without the chunks, just a few tiny cubes of squash and zucchini for texture. The massive amount of vinegar overpowered the subtle sweetness of the tomatoes, making the soup almost unpleasantly acidic.
At first glance, the duck breast ($26) caused me to fear another problematic dish. The skin was flaccid and the fat was not rendered, often a sign of poor technique. Opium's duck is different, though. Instead of relying on luscious melted fat to flavor the meat, this brick-red medium-rare fowl was moist and simply seasoned on its own, likely derived from an extended brine before cooking. It tasted like duck instead of duck fat and had the texture of a tender steak. It was so good, I had to wonder why this style of duck is the exception instead of the norm.
In the dessert realm, a strong punch of lavender livened an otherwise mundane crème brulee ($7). More interesting – in theory – was a poached pear ($8) stuffed with brie and baked in puff pastry. The pear was under-ripe, overpowered by cold brie that failed to reach the more pleasant, gooey stage.
Our server brought another amuse bouche between starters and entrees, this time a tiny ball of delicious mango sorbet. Service had a casual feel, but tiny details were taken care of unobtrusively in a manner more like formal dining. The waitstaff did a great job.
Opium has a lot of potential. Although the place is not blazing any new gastronomic trails, Chef Thaxton has demonstrated an ability to transform standard dishes into opportunities for exciting culinary expression.
I never knew what to expect throughout dinner. It was like my mouth was on a culinary roller-coaster. The highs were very high, the lows were exceedingly low. Considering how many yawn-filled meals I've had in the past year, that's not such a bad thing. By the end of the meal, I was looking forward to another ride.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. He can be reached at brian.ries@weeklyplanet.com. Planet food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2005.