Valentine’s Day Dinner in A Small Town

Yes, here I am yet again lamenting the lack of good food in the small town in which we live… It is a daily frustration that is amplified on an “eating” Holiday like Valentine’s Day.  The mere question of “Where should we eat?”, elicits head rubbing and sighs. And yet we soldier on and with every new place hold out hope that somehow it will be different. This is what happened on Valentine’s Day this year…

Husband and I decided to try a very pretty French restaurant in town.  It has been here 20+ years and received very uneven reviews. But we had hope and excitedly made a reservation for February 15. Why deal with the crowds?

I am not going to name the restaurant because I don’t want to hurt anybody (big hint how dinner was!).

The dinner. We arrive at 6:30 and were promptly seated. It WAS pretty, although a little brightly lit.  I will start with service and then move on to food. Our server, a pony-tailed/balding (talk about an oxymoron!) fellow came over and told us the one special and then said most entrees come with “starch & veg”. Yes, really, he said that! He then went on to espouse about the wine list (just okay) that he had recently redone.  Now, we ordered a SPLIT of champagne. He came back with one of those new single serving bottles & gave us each half a glass! Wow! I was shocked, but stayed quiet. The bread is given French service style, which means it is meted out one roll at a time. To a bread loving girl such as myself, this was VERY frustrating!  The server seemed more interested in up-selling than actually serving. Once our orders were taken, he didn’t even check back once to see if we liked the food AND took a FULL dinner plate from me without asking if something was wrong (there was, more later).

The food. Ugh! Husband ate a tuna tartar to start & then had seared Ahi for dinner. I know! But he is TRYING to be healthy. His tuna tartar was simply chopped tuna. No seasoning at all.  His Ahi steak was an anemic beige and was served with a cloying balsamic sauce, a “scoop” of rice pilaf (the starch!0 and boiled carrots & green beans (the veg!).  Really instead of “French” they should call this “Airline” because it really was like an airline meal. I had the romaine salad with what was supposed to be Manchego (it was mozzarella), cherub tomatoes, green beans & a Dijon dressing. It was o.k.  My uneaten dinner was an eggplant stack of fried eggplant with ricotta cheese & spinach in between the layers of eggplant. Came with a raw salty sauce that I swear was pureed roma tomatoes & 1/2 a container of salt.  The eggplant was raw under the breading and had a “funny” taste. Thus, only two bites were taken, not that the server noticed…

So, we left disappointed yet again. I went home and ate a sandwich, that was just delicious. Sourdough baguette, Jarlsberg cheese, heirloom tomato & a garlic aioli. Then had fabulous boxed chocolates for dessert.

Not only was it bad, but at 5:00 a.m. I awoke as Linda Blair in the Exorcist and spent the entire next day suffering from food poisoning! I KNEW the eggplant tasted funny.

Oh well, I survived and with the stupidity of the insane, will try yet again to find that elusive great dinner out in this very small town.