At recent review meals, the golden oldies included moist, delicious smoked bluefish served with sour cream horseradish sauce; creamy mushroom soup flecked with flavorful mushroom bits, and peppy gazpacho with an almost ground texture.
A big, delicious crabcake hinted of fresh chervil. There was good fresh tomato in the salsa for nicely grilled, boneless chicken breast.
The romaine in a Caesar salad was snapping fresh, the croutons crunchy. I liked the dressing's obvious anchovy presence; a second taster was less won over by the assertive flavor.
My favorite dish of a three-meal sampling might well have been the Neapolitan-style pasta, a tangle of yellow and green linguine topped with a delicious, meatless tomato sauce. The sprinkling of freshly grated cheese on top was adequate, but I could have wished for the option of a little extra to add to taste.
Duckling at the same meal was crisp-skinned and tender-fleshed, with a slightly tart dried-cherry sauce that struck a good balance with the richness of the dark meat.
The restaurant does nicely with grilled foods. A lunch portion of grilled, Oriental-style steak consisted of a few slices of soy-marinated, pink-at-the- core steak served over bok choy that had been lightly stir-fried. Lunch salmon was an equally modest portion of moist, perfectly cooked fish topped with pesto that lacked the usual punch of this fresh basil sauce.
The new Friday, Saturday, Sunday does a nice job with vegetables that accompany entrees. Broccoli was crisp-cooked and bright in both flavor and color. Small, pan-roasted potatoes were hot and nicely seasoned. There was flavorful couscous with the duck. At every meal, we found a basket of crusty fresh bread and an abundance of sweet butter.
