I am not doing a takeoff on an old Abbot and Costello routine.  I heard about this restaurant as it was being built and then I heard more about it, after it had its grand opening.  My Bride and I are not Mr. and Mrs. First Nighter, so we usually wait until the dust settles and the help gets acclimated.  This is not the first restaurant that we have been to, that was formerly a bank.  One place we went to, actually had a table for diners in the vault, and the ceiling of the vault had been removed, so no one would get claustrophobic.  The vault at this restaurant basically greeted us, as we walked in.  We were in downtown Wyandotte, Michigan and the restaurant used to be the National Bank of Wyandotte.

We started off with a charming basket of fresh bread and breadsticks with salted butter, and I seldom if ever have bread at home.  My Bride was debating between a salad or the soup, which was a Curried-Ginger Carrot Puree, but she went with a Poached Pear Salad of field greens, roasted candied pecans, bleu cheese and an herbed balsamic vinaigrette.  I, as you have learned over the years, am not a salad fan and I didn’t care for either of the salads offered or the soup, but our waitress, created me a basic salad of field greens, heirloom tomatoes, English cucumbers, shaved radishes and an Italian dressing, and I was pleased.  Not only was our waitress, capable and could think on her feet, she also brought a small dish of the soup, so that my Bride could see, if she had missed out. My Bride then surprised me, by ordering the “Dillinger Burger” which was a char-gilled Wagyu burger infused with Chorizo, caramelized onion and roasted Fresno Chile with Pepper-Jack cheese, but she by-passed on the Brioche bun and had a side of grilled asparagus.  I had a sixteen-ounce cold-smoked Tomahawk Pork Chop that was char-grilled with a Marsala fig compote, and a side of “Potato Jennie” (roasted and spiced diced potatoes) and a side of grilled asparagus.  Our waitress was great, and later I found out that she was from my old neighborhood in Detroit, but of course, she was much younger, as is the case with most people that I meet.  She put our faith in the next generation, as we had poor service in the retail sector, just before we had dinner.

The only fault that we had was that I ordered a “Gran Reserva” and they brought me a Reserva, so, I switched and requested a bottle of Matanzas Creek Winery Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma County 2019.  I knew that I could make it work with my dish, it may not have been perfect for my Bride, but she is really into Sauvignon Blanc these days.  Over the past forty years, Matanzas Creek Winery has been tweaking their wines, even using different vessels for aging and they are now a certified sustainable farm.  This particular wine was aged on fine lees for a couple of months, with occasional stirring in Stainless Steel to maintain the fruit of the juice.  The wine was a pretty pale straw color with a floral nose that also suggested melons and passion fruit.  It offered notes of honeydew and ripe pear and a bright acidity that made you want to have another sip.   We had a nice dinner at Vault on First, and yes, “What’s on Second and I Don’t Know is on Third.”