Hue Restaurant Downtown

On the corner of Central and Summerlin downtown sits Hue Restaurant. The windows and small patio are obvious enough, but the entrance is a drab tan door with a large stainless steel bar as the handle. A fabric overhang is marked 629 above the door. The square Hue sign hangs perpendicular to the wall above and to the left of the door, so if you're staring at it from directly across Central you may not know it's the right place. Hue is present while not obnoxiously announcing itself.

It's a different story when you enter the plain door. Hue's interior decor is a combination of severe modern decor with simple lighting and casual seating. I'm sure this last sentence told you I am no interior designer, but I don't really know how to describe it! I felt a little out of place at first, but I quickly became comfortable at the bar (of course). All of the servers we encountered were friendly and approachable enough that I settled in nicely.

To be entirely honest and save you some time, they have an elaborate menu but I think Hue bit off more than they could chew.  The food is fine, but you really expect more when you read the menu and see the prices. We started with the octopus ceviche that comes with watermelon radish. It was quite tasty and had a good amount of acidity, but very tough. Still, I was looking forward to the entree.

Now, I am one of those people that can never say no to duck on a menu. I ordered the duck breast with cranberry reduction, English peas and a butternut squash and amaretto risotto. The risotto was delicious, though it tasted nothing of amaretto. The duck was a little more cooked than I'd prefer, but flavorful nonetheless.

It seems consistency is a bit of an issue. We had a large party and multiple people ordered the roasted lamb. While some people loved their lamb, one person hated it enough to ask the server to take it away. One member of the party ordered the Angus burger with zucchini chips. The zucchini chips were fried twirls of zucchini and ended up pretty soggy. It's by far the cheapest entree on the menu at $12, but I get the impression we've had better burgers at half the price elsewhere.

I think every restaurant deserves a second chance, so we will see if my opinion changes after another visit.

I guess the takeaway here is that Hue is an impressive date place, but once no one cares about how much money you spent on the date anymore you're better off at one of the more amazing (and cheaper) Orlando locations. Go expensive if you like, but there are better places to do so than Hue.