My visits to Posh since my last review had been limited to cocktails, so I waited until I had an actual meal to update. The cocktails, by the way, tended to be inconsistent during my visits (i.e. proportion of ingredients can vary wildly depending on the night or the bartender).
Lunch at Posh was a quiet and largely underwhelming experience. We chose to sit at the bar and for nearly the entire duration of our visit were the only guests. Service, unlike my last visit, was perfectly fine. Food, also unlike my last visit, disappointingly missed the mark.
Posh offers a $9 lunch special that includes a soda/coffee/tea and your choice of one menu item (salad + slider, salad + soup, pasta, etc.) but nothing in particular stood out and we skipped it in favor of the regular menu. During lunch, Posh offers their house wines (anything available by the glass) for $5. I am overwhelmingly biased toward Marlborough NZ Sauvignon blancs but this Californian was fine and the pour seemed generous for the price.
I chose the "Posh 5 Napkin Burger" which shares its name with a small but wildly popular NYC-based chain of upscale burger bistros (not sure how Posh gets away with this). While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Posh would be smart to imitate 5 Napkins' signature burger (caramelized onions, rosemary aioli, gruyere, $16.75) and give it an original name.
Instead, they loosely follow 5 Napkins' standard burger (cheddar, onion, lettuce, tomato, pickles and a predictable burger sauce, $14.50). Posh charges $12 for their version and while the beef itself was juicy and tasty (ordered medium, got medium+), the rest of it - particularly the stale challah bun it was on - rendered it utterly unimpressive. The hand cut fries were very good, so at least the meat & potatoes were on point.
My companion ordered the cauliflower soup (served in a small crock) and fig + prosciutto salad. I sampled both and thought the soup had good taste and texture, needed a bit more salt and more of the pesto-like dollop served on top. The salad, unfortunately, was pretty undersized and served cold. Figs are not in season right now so I can only guess that they were prepped and frozen ahead of time. I was impressed with my salad here last time, despite its relative simplicity, because it was served at room temperature. This may seem like a small detail but it's critical for flavor.
We were both still hungry (especially my companion) and our server managed to sell us on the idea of dessert. We both chose seasonal selections; I had an eggnog cake which was half icing and half cake (fine by me) and my companion ordered the gingerbread roll. The cake in each was fairly stale and not incredibly flavorful. The gingerbread roll was served with some heinous looking thick pink cream that tasted vaguely of strawberry yogurt and did not pair well. I don't know what they had in mind, but smearing "pink slime" very haphazardly next to what I imagine was a $7 or $8 slice of stale cake is a really poor showing.
As far as I'm concerned, your best lunches in Scranton will come from Zummo's in Green Ridge or JJ McNally's downtown. No, you won't get the full bar, amazing ambiance or large menu that Posh offers, but you'll get filling portions of creative food at fair prices. read more