Nice night. Let's take a drive up Interstate 95, off at the New Hope exit. Hmm. There's the Blue Ram. Remember all the cars parked there when we drove past on previous country excursions? Must be pretty good to attract such crowds.
So what if the entrance looks dingy? Or the air in the restaurant smells like an old movie theater and the decor looks like a silk-flower warehouse? Remember all those cars in the parking lot? I mean, who knows?
I do. At least, I know now. After two meals at the Washington Crossing restaurant, I know that the place suffers from what I'm calling the no-see sickness. It's what happens when the staff puts on blinders to the niceties that keep customers coming back for more.
Someone who should have didn't see that the inside of the front door was dirty with finger marks. That there was a beer bottle in the flower bed. That the service pantry across from the restrooms was untidy and that there was a vacuum cleaner left out in full sight.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Having found good food in less promising settings in the past, I was determined to give the Ram a first and even a second chance.
Visit number one was dinner, and we were greeted warmly and shown immediately to a table. At lunch, a few days later, we were left to stand at the door for what seemed like minutes.
At both meals, the servers were friendly. But at dinner, we had to ask for a wine list and, having done that, were never asked whether we wanted wine
from it. At lunch, our menus were crumpled and soiled.
My dinner partner's unfinished salad seemed a source of great concern to the busboy who kept trying to wrest it from her. The same hovering impatience to clear our places was also evident at lunch, even though no one was waiting for our table at either meal.
The kitchen didn't do much better. Best bet on the evening visit was the delicious spinach dip and bread sticks served with cocktails. You probably know it. It's like the stuff you make at home with dry soup mix, mayonnaise and sour cream.
My hot appetizer clams were small and sweet, but the sauce they swam in tasted like barbecue from a bottle. There was no plate for the empty shells.
There was plenty of veal in my partner's entree, but the sauce had a rough, unblended wine flavor, and the artichokes were obviously canned and briny. Her
baked potato wasn't split in the kitchen to accommodate butter and release steam. The zucchini slices that came with both of our entrees were soggy and salty.
