Text 21527, 114 rader
Skriven 2007-10-19 14:32:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: 315
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I'd finally managed to get my messages - no cell service up
in Vermont - and there was an urgent message from the night
before to call the doctor. So I called and received the
news that my father had died early that morning. There was
not much that an extra half day or day would do, so we
decided to continue driving down as planned, just not to
dawdle a whole lot. Thinking back, he had asked me to hug
him goodbye (something unheard of in a very non-touchy-feely
family) before I left on this trip.

So after a short visit with the Clean Dave family and a soft
billet for the night, we were up and out of there at 9:30.
My original thought was to take the Merritt, but I mused
that last time it wasn't so nice a drive as it had been
when I was a kid, so the path of least resistance was 84 to
684 to 287, or so I recalled. Unfortunately, we missed the
684 sign, so instead of a quick freeway ride, we crossed
over at Newburgh and took the surprisingly scenic 9W down
the river. In any case, our destination was Piermont, a
waterside community of new affluence and moderate charm but
now well known as a minor culinary destination. We got there
20 minutes later than we would have had we found our turn.
Xaviar's, the local mecca, was closed for lunch (apparently
serves lunch only Friday and Sunday), but the place next
door, the equally touted but less formal Freelance Cafe
and Wine Bar, was open. Both are operated by that X-prodigy
Peter X. Kelly, who once conquered Kitchen Stadium (what a
lode of horsecrap is that) and sent Bobby Flay fleeing with
his tail between his legs.

Estival (Vinedo de los Vientos, Uruguay) looked interesting,
so I ordered it. It was pleasantly full-bodied, a tad off
dry, somewhat floral but not overtly so, with muted citrus
and stone fruit. Certainly not a Chard, nor a Rhine variety.
Viognier? Never had one like it. I couldn't figure it out
and had to look it up - it's 60 Gewurz, 30 Chard, and a tiny
bit of Moscato.

Carol had the smoked trout and horseradish salad with
celeriac julienne - good but not stellar, the presentation
more interesting than the dish itself. A pair of fried dough
things as the base, then the celery root (good), then the
fish - rather too thick pieces I thought, a little fibrous,
but at least not oversmoked. Drool around the plate. The
whole was not more than the sum of the parts.

She then chose a daily special, pasta alla chitarra with
shrimp, scallops, swordfish, spinach, and lobster sauce.

I ordered just the "moules marinieres with vermouth & pommes
frites" and a Yuengling, asking the waitress if that would
be enough for lunch. She opined that it was definitely an
appetizer, "but a large appetizer." As it appeared that we'd
be a low-ticket table, her level of interest in us declined
at that point, which is fine, as I prefer slightly cool to
overheated. It turned out a largish serving of not what I'd
expected at all, as there was nothing mariniere about the
preparation. It was a bowlful of mussels steamed in cream
with a big pile of allumettes blopped on top. I ate most
of the fries first, then the mussels (delicious), then the
cream sauce (delicious too, but the wine was on the fugitive
side), then the few potatoes that had fallen into the sauce
and plumped up like a weird kind of pasta.

At this point I flagged the waitress and changed our order.
I told her to split the special and put in another order (to
split) of a main course off the regular menu, Montauk fluke
with lump crabmeat and green onion risotto. She danced away
and Carol noticed her gesturing in a chopping way at some
unknown person in the distance.

A couple minutes later, the pasta came out. It was perfect,
just the right size, al dente, a generous serving of seafood
atop each of the splits. The shrimp were good; the scallops
were very good, tender and sweet (Carol, who is sensitive to
grit, got a little, though); but the chunks of swordfish,
two each, a tad under an ounce each, were sublime - tender,
rich, and hugely flavorful. The sauce reminded me of lobster
bisque, which it perhaps was, as the bisque is on the menu.
Some wilted spinach here and there and a few bits of tomato
did no harm to the dish.

As soon as we were done with that, the fluke came out, two
4-oz fillets bedded with a jumbo number of jumbo crab lumps
and a little bit of almost perfect (I got a seed or two)
risotto nestled down by the bottom. Quite wonderful, and a
generous serving.

The wine went nicely with everything except the trout, which
would have been tough to match with anything but Champagne.

Another special of the day was an "individual Callebaut
chocolate cake," which I figured was one of those molten
things: it was. In order to underscore the bitterness of
the bitter chocolate, there was minimal sugar in the dish,
fine with me, but there was also a considerable amount of
salt, which was a little jarring. A scoop of pistachio ice
cream on the side (also a balancing act of salty nuts and
sweet ice cream) provided a dialogue.

Slight contretemps when I pulled my Visa card out: they
don't take Visa, just AmEx, and I had just the one credit
card with me. Thank heaven for mad money, I told the
waitress, pulling out a traveler's check.

Mr. Kelly was there - I saw some guy on my way to the
restroom: he looked rather like a tired and dissipated young
Kevin Symons. The loud lady down the way confirmed this was
he, telling her table that she'd seen him talking to some
woman (the nerve of him) in the closed restaurant next door.

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