Mar. 21st, 2005

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The highlight of the visit home--the raison d'être for the trip, in fact--was dinner at an upscale French restaurant in the exurban wilds. The name of the village it's in--St. Albans--said nothing to me, so I looked it up on Mapquest. For my Dad's last milestone birthday, we'd gone to some B&B in Augusta, a charming little wine town in "Missouri's Rhineland"--one of those struggling 19th-century farm towns reborn as a kitsch depot for urban and suburban daytrippers--so I was expecting more of the same. The map, however, revealed street names like "Bordeaux Circle" and "Latour Street" that smacked of modern subdivisional theme-naming.

In the end, it was a mix of both: Read more--a lot more. )
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So enough about the ambiance already, what about the food? In a nutshell: It was good, but it couldn't live up to its pretensions. It seems petty to catalog their missteps--or, rather, it would seem petty if someone else had treated me, but since I paid for my own damn self I shall cavil away!

First, there were the menu problems. We could hardly read them (note to owners: Rustic romantic lighting is all well and good, but you also want the patrons to be able to READ THE FUCKING MENU without having to hold it up four inches from a decorative sconce) and what was there wasn't always accurate. [livejournal.com profile] bunj, for instance, had the same page twice so was mystified as others discussed the house specialties. When he finally settled on the "veal rack", he was told it was really a veal chop. His wife, e., was interested in the scallops, but the waiter kept calling them "co-KEEL St. Jacques" when they were actually coquilles provençales. (She finally had to ask him point-blank, "Cream sauce or tomato sauce?")

The appetisers were pleasant enough. When the waiter said he'd put together a sampler for us, I wasn't expecting individual plates--and certainly not so much on them. I ended up with a scallop and a half, three escargots, several beer-marinated portobello chunks, and a pile of calamari--but [livejournal.com profile] bunj and e. said they didn't get any escargot at all. Being an olive-hater, I didn't eat the tapanade, but e. complained that it was too strong to put on toast, much less eat with something as delicate as scallops.

The largess made us rightfully cautious about ordering more food and most of us eschewed a soup or salad course. As I told my stepbrother, we had "French preparation meets Missouri portions". The pork loin looked like a pound and my "rack" was eight sizable chops from something older than lamb. They were hell to slice through, however, and I feared the worst, but they turned out to be tender and flavourful (if not half as tasty as those [livejournal.com profile] bunj did up on his own grill for us last year). [livejournal.com profile] bunj had similar problems cutting into his veal--which was otherwise delicious--so we decided to place the blame on the inadequate cutlery (all-steel and serrated only on one side; I initally mistook mine for a bread knife).

Other mistakes: e. got the same garlic mashed potatoes as everyone else, even though the menu promised her sweet potatoes and if the sauce was a "reduction", then it was "reduced from water". ([livejournal.com profile] bunj's "reduction", however, was and was tasty; my sauce would've been too strong for true lamb, but was fine with what I had.) Although everyone else was getting doggie bags, the waiter cleared my place without offering to pack up my three remaining chops. Minor stuff, to be sure, but not things that someone with a four-diamond award from AAA should be allowed to get away with. On the other hand, service was attentive but inobtrusive--stealthy, in fact. And I have no complains about the pinot grigio my stepbrother selected or the Argentinian malbec [livejournal.com profile] bunj picked out.

If I went again, I'd want it to be for lunch rather than dinner so I could get some exploration in. Full spring, before the oppressive Gulf of Mexico humidity arrives, would be perfect were it not for the endless series of weddings clogging the place up every weekend. However, the pizza baked and served on the terrazzo would be fabulous on a cool fall evening.
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No, this isn't another lame, skewed quiz designed to reveal previously unsuspected political leanings; it's a very brief questionnaire from a friend trying to learn more about libertarianism. Reply in comments below (anonymously, if you wish) and I'll see that he reads them.
  1. Do you consider people like Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek your gurus?
  2. What period in US history comes closest to reflecting your ideals?
  3. Do you approve of the FDIC?
  4. What do you think of Franklin D. Roosevelt, on a scale of 1 (traitorously evil) to 10 (a personal hero)?

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