Yesterday I had the pleasure of trying one of the new popular restaurants in Aarhus: KöD - a cheeky way of writing ‘meat’ in Danish using metal umlaut. And that’s just about how rock'n'roll it got - I mean, who the hell serves a martini in a plastic glass?!
Details aside, as the starter we shared a steak tartar which had too much egg and capers in it and too little onion. Also, I think it was a little on the fat side - this is where you want the leanest of the leanest cuts - and freshly shredded or ground.
I asked for my steak medium rare, but got a rare steak. Since the meat quality was good, it wasn’t a problem - and you can always send it back in the kitchen if you’d like it to get an extra minute on the grill. However, what struck me as odd was that the steak didn’t have any basic salt and pepper seasoning which really brings out the flavour in the meat?! I mean, I’ve eaten enough steaks to easily rectify this, but is this how a new restaurant wants to serve their signature dish? I’m betting a lot of customers wouldn’t know what was missing…
The sides were fine - good fries but why wasn’t the bacon crispy with my corn? The bearnaise sauce creme was also good, but not on par with the best ones in town. And that’s a consistent theme here - it’s like KöD are trying too hard to emulate the #1 steakhouse in town, MASH, rather than creating their own identity. And that’s really a shame.
My experience with Memphis Roadhouse is the perfect testament to giving a new restaurant a fair chance to get their act together - and given that KöD seems to have their heart in the right place, but lacks the execution, I’m definitely going to give them a second chance to up their current grade from 3 out of 5 and rock me. Average, but with lots of potential.