Mt. Lookout Impressions: Muse

Upon reading Polly Campbell's Muse review back in 2018, a well-crafted zinger of hers seared into my skull with such a lasting permanence that my girlfriend and I continue to joke about it more than a year later. Whenever we meander around Mt. Lookout Square, I invariably ask, "Shall we try Muse?" to which my girlfriend will quip, "...And enjoy their 'punitively small' plates of food?"

So I wouldn't say it was our first choice to visit Muse one recent weekend night. In fact, we'd stopped by Mt. Lookout with the express intent of trying another restaurant. But after peeking in and realizing it would be quite a while before we could secure a table, we instead retreated to our back-up plan and the mostly empty dining room at Muse.

It was quite shocking to see the place so dead on a weekend evening. Only one other table was being served when we sat down, and only one additional party arrived as we were leaving. Why? The Yelp reviews are generally favorable, as are the Facebook reviews. Sure, they've not bothered to post to their Instagram account in nearly a year, but should they be dinged for that?

I mean, several doors up the street, there's a half-price sushi joint routinely overrun with people, despite unsettling posted signs that read, "no refunds on sushi." Why is a place like that enjoying business while a reasonably-priced restaurant serving local and sustainably-sourced fare gets little love?

I think a lot of it owes to our collective penchant for gluttony. We remember that Polly Campbell phrase haunting our hungry, emaciated dreams: "punitively small." "PUNITIVELY SMALL." Well, I can report that the owners must have taken that criticism to heart, because little about their latest menu falls within that category.

Muse's once predominantly vegetarian menu has given way to a more uniform balance of meat, seafood and vegetarian options. Vegan mac & cheese and Cyprus grain salads now share space with beefy burgers, locally-sourced chicken, shrimp and salmon entrees.

My girlfriend started off with a very tall, refreshing glass of house sangria. The drink was pleasantly tart and sweet with citrus notes emitted from a slice of orange peel.

Crab toast

Oysters

Our crab toast appetizer were four generous pieces of a nutty, thick-cut sourdough bread topped with fresh crab meat folded into a mixture of lemon aioli, avocado and flecks of serrano pepper. The crab toast had the consistency of a chicken salad and was slightly more aioli-forward, but good. A strong hit of serrano pepper livened up several bites. The bread was cut a bit thicker than we would have liked, making it a tad difficult to eat, but it was good bread, so it's a minor quibble.

I followed up the appetizer with two fresh oysters on the half shell, shipped from the Island Creek Oyster farm in Duxberry, Massachusetts. The oysters were accompanied by a vinegary-onion based sauce and a tangy cocktail condiment. Both were welcomed and accentuated the oysters' fresh sea flavor.

Next, my girlfriend tried the shrimp and grits entree: three large shrimp topping a bowl of stone-ground Parmesan grits with a house pepper sauce, tomatoes and fennel. The sauce was a bit too subtle to my girlfriend's liking, overpowered by the tomatoes. But I liked how the flavor evoked memories of stuffed peppers from my childhood, a callback I would never have expected from a shrimp and grits dish.

Sprimp and grits

Meatloaf w/Brussels sprouts and whipped cauliflower

My bacon-wrapped meatloaf entree was a blend of locally-sourced pork and beef, topped with a hoisin barbecue sauce and beer-braised onions, accompanied by a side of whipped cauliflower and roasted Brussels sprouts. I enjoyed everything about this dish, from the pleasant, caramelized crust of the meatloaf, to the crispy but slightly al dente Brussels sprouts and the mashed potato-like consistency of the whipped cauliflower.

We were overall pleased with our meal, feeling quite full afterward. At no time did we feel that it was, in any way, "punitively small." Some of the dishes, in fact, could easily have been described as punitively large. But can we ever truly claim that leaving with a full belly is punishment?