The Luna-C Grille has almost everything a post-millennium restaurant needs.
It has a bistro feel. It's the kind of place where you can have dinner in your yogawear after working out at the nearby Columbia Gym.
It's pretty good at being all things to all people, so you can bring your kids or have an intimate dinner for two -- and not feel out of place in either case. The menu ranges from sandwiches and salads to full-scale dinners.
On the night we were there, a jazz trio played soft music to soothe harried customers. Nice.
The Luna-C Grille's dining room is sleek-looking but at the same time comfortable, the kind of place you stop by after work when you just don't feel like cooking.
The menu is an au courant balance between comfort food (potato skins and pork ribs) and global dishes (a hummus plate and curried coconut shrimp with a Thai peanut sauce).
Even the name, Luna-C, is just quirky enough and New Age enough to seem very Now.
There's just one problem:
The food isn't as good as it could be, should be and very nearly is.
A perfect example is the Sambuca shrimp appetizer, labeled "Chef Jen's favorite." The large, nicely cooked shrimp sit on individual pieces of garlic toast. A delicate cream sauce soaks into the bread, but it's too sweet and has very little of the anise flavor you expect from the liqueur. There's nothing really wrong with the dish; it's just not going to brighten your day.
The Moon River, which seems to be another Luna-C signature dish, starts with a large, well-cooked chicken breast stuffed with a crab-cake mixture. It's not crab imperial, which would involve lump crab and no filler, but it does have an imperial sauce highly seasoned with Old Bay. What crab there is pretty much gets lost in the shuffle.
Much is over-seasoned here. A roasted corn and red pepper chowder had a good flavor and light, creamy texture; but the seasonings were overpoweringly fiery -- and it arrived lukewarm.
But not everything is over-seasoned. The hummus and the baba ghannouj on the hummus plate were practically indistinguishable and not particularly interesting; I ended up eating only the roasted red peppers and grilled eggplant.
Your best bet for a first course might be the relatively simple smoked salmon and chevre on garlic toast.
But simple isn't always better. The fish of the day, red snapper, was served broiled. There was nothing wrong with it, but nothing to make you sigh with pleasure, either.
Still, I liked it better than the butternut squash ravioli with a few pieces of lobster on top and a very thick cream sauce. None of this was dreadful -- the fish was fresh, nothing was overcooked. But prices for these entrees hover around $20, so you expect something more positive than not bad.
What were we more enthusiastic about? The curried coconut shrimp had a pleasant crunch and a not-too-sweet peanut sauce. The side dishes -- jasmine rice, asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes -- were all fine. Desserts, too, will put you in a better mood. This time of year there's a pumpkin cheese cake with a gingersnap crust and an individual apple tart. And no one could complain that chocolate isn't well-represented, what with the molten-centered fudge cake, the warm chocolate brownie with ice cream and the chocolate peanut-butter pie.
Our young waiter was enthusiastic and friendly but didn't get the keep-the-water-glasses-full concept. (You can take that as a metaphor for the service as a whole.) Still, two out of three where service is concerned is maybe the most you can hope for these days.
Luna-C Grille
Food: **
Service: **1/2
Atmosphere: **
Where: 6040 Daybreak Circle, Clarksville
Hours: Open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday and for brunch Sunday
Prices: Appetizers, $5.95-$11.95; main courses, $12.95-$22.95
Call: 410-531-7900
Outstanding: ****
Good: ***
Fair or uneven: **
Poor: *