Carlton's

What's it like?

My wife doesn't want me to write this review (at least not in the tone I have adopted verbally). She wants to see patrons in downtown restaurants—most of the times that we meet near her office for dinner, we find a mostly empty dining room. I want to dine in the company of others (otherwise I'd just eat at home), but I also believe that creating a false sense of success will only hurt the businesses there. So here goes…

We've been intrigued by the addition of a restaurant on Ventura (just east of the new courthouse) ever since the roll-up door was installed (?). Carlton's, which we assumed was a sports bar, recently opened that roll-up door for business, so we chose to meet there for dinner and give it a go.

The d√©cor is nice—clean, with a bit of Southern flair (well, lots of ceiling fans and jazz posters, anyway). Almost half of the space is allocated for the bar, which had four or five people around it, compared to just the two of us at the dining tables. I'm guessing that it was the owner who was standing by the bar talking to her guests.

The menu is a bit limited, though that's probably smart for a new startup. The few dishes available, however, are somewhat random; we decided on an order of the potato skins appetizer and the fried fish dinner, to share. A small dinner salad (they gave us each one, though we only actually ordered only one dinner) was served with cold dinner rolls.

The fish was perfectly fried in a cornmeal crust and served with pilaf and saut√©ed zucchini—quite delicious, and more than we expected for $11-12. The potato skins, on the other hand, were a complete disappointment as they were filled with Velveeta (or canned cheese—I couldn't tell). I think there was bacon flavoring in the cheese. I couldn't eat them.

I would have mentioned something to the server, but I didn't get the sense that she would have listened. All in all, the experience was forgettable. All in all, we spent about $26.

We hope that the restaurant figures out what it wants to be and succeeds at that; when they do, maybe we'll be back. Maybe.