CAFETERIA 15L

Last night we decided to try Cafeteria 15L. I have been wanting to try this restaurant after it's metamorphosis. It used to the be upscale Mason's but last year or so it changed into a restaurant that is more $$ friendly and more comfort food oriented.
This week is Dining Downtown Week and the participating restaurants offer three course meals for $30.00 per person. I thought the Cafeteria 15L had the best choice for their menu and they also offered a complimentary glass of house wine.
The menu for 15L is: 1st course butternut Squash soup with pumpkin seed pesto orRoasted Beet salad with bosc pears, arugula, goat cheese and spiced pecans.
2nd course: New York steak with garlic mashed potatoes, wild mushrooms and whiskey peppercorn sauce or Seared Ahi tuna with kabocha squash, shitake mushrooms, baby bok choy, and caramel ginger sauce or Roasted half chicken breast, butternut squash, swiss chard,mushroom jus.
3rd course - Warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream or Cranberry bread pudding with pumpkin ice cream.
Complementary glass of either the house Malbec or Chardonay. I chose the Malbec and since Charlie was having a Margarita I was able to have his wine also.
We started with an appetizer off the regular menu of Cheesy Crab Beignets with a spicy aoli. Which were light crab puffs..I would have been happy with another basket of those and wine.
The beet salad was good, a pretty typical beet salad. I really liked my Ahi entree. The Ahi was just seared on the outside and was raw inside. The mushroom and the bok choy were good but my only complaint was the kabocha squash. It hadn't been seasoned and it was too sweet and didn't match the Asian flavors of the rest of the dish. I wish it had been cooked with some dashi and a little soy sauce, that would have brought everything all together.
Charlie said the steak was OK, but then he's a steak junkie. This steak wasn't up to his standards. The mashed potatoes were excellent. I ended up finishing the rest of his potatoes.
Desert was OK, it was warm chocolate cake..nothing too exciting.
All in all I think the dinner was pretty good and it makes it worth while for $30.00. per person.
Sorry, there are no pictures. I forgot my camera and my phone pictures turned out blurry probably from the lack of good lighting.