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]]>My experience with the old Painted Pony has been for the Easter Buffet with friends a couple of years. The fact that it was more than one year should tell you we liked it. So, we were disappointed when it closed. That is why when we heard it had reopened, we went out at our earliest opportunity to give it a try. Now there is always a risk in going to a restaurant when it first opens. There are things that need to be worked out that typically apparently can only be worked out in front of live customers or guinea pigs. If the guinea pigs are aware of this and are more patient with the waitress and the restaurant once they are there than they were in rushing out to go there right away, things should be fine. We were aware of this and when reading this review I hope you keep in mind that they had only been open a matter of days so some things are expected to be amiss as they work things out.
The first thing you will notice as you enter the parking lot and the restaurant is that the New Painted Pony looks like the old Painted Pony. Now, there may be differences that I didn’t notice as typically we sat in the room to the left as you enter on Easters and we were seated to the right side on this occasion and it looked like the left side was not yet open. Having said that, if you are familiar with the old Painted Pony, you should feel very much at home at this one.
I was first to arrive, ordered a drink and sampled their rolls, which were served with a cinnamon butter. The butter gave a little sweetness to the bread but was not overwhelmed with cinnamon flavor. This was probably a good thing as my anti-spice friend is also opposed to cinnamon (I guess he doesn’t just discriminate against green spices). Yet despite his stance on cinnamon and the presence of it in the butter, he neither grumbled about it or even seemed to notice until another friend asked about the butter and the waitress uttered the “c” word. Even then he barely grumbled indicating the impact of the cinnamon was just a touch of sweetness without its stronger aspects.
Next came appetizers, and this is where I felt the New Painted Pony was at its best. I got the Pork Belly and Pickle Board. This came with two nice thick pieces of pork belly loaded with bacon flavor and not overly fatty which happens sometimes with this item. It was accompanied by sour pickle chips and pickled onions to cut the salty goodness of the pork. It also came with their house made cinnamon chipotle chips. The chips were good but could have used some more cinnamon and chipotle to give them some extra kick, and to keep away the anti-cinnamon member of the group. The breaded mozzarella was another winner, with two large triangular wedges of cheese in a very good breading. This was a big hit with the table and probably was the thing most would have picked as their number one appetizer, although I like my pork belly order too. The third appetizer was the BBQ chicken wings. These had a decent BBQ sauce with a slight kick to them, which I liked and left Kens lips smarting. I thought the wings were decent, but there are so many decent wings around that personally unless you are the type that normally orders wings for your appetizer, I would try one of the other two instead. The last appetizer was a bowl of the chips like the ones that came along with the pork belly except this comes with a Cajun sour cream dip. It seems home made dips and chips are becoming popular as this is the second restaurant in the last few weeks that I have tried them. These were comparable to the wings decent and the dip was a nice touch. Maybe If I hadn’t had The Beamhouse’s version so recently I would have rated them higher. However, the Beamhouse’s were much better. But these are still a good bar item and a lot closer than Glastonbury.
That brought us to the main courses. There were a few hiccups with the appetizers that I didn’t mention because as I explained earlier, they had only been open a couple of days so that is to be expected. I will mention one mix-up here as the main courses, like the prime rib that I ordered came with two sides. For one of those I chose avgolemeno soup, which I had never heard of and was described as a lemony Greek soup with chicken broth. Unfortunately. this was not delivered as in the turmoil of a new restaurant it was forgotten. The waitress was very apologetic and did give it to us to go. A little note though, if you want to know the difference between a great restaurant and a decent restaurant, in addition to the quality of the food, I think it is in how they handle mistakes. You want to see how a great restaurant handles it read my review of Flemings. To be fair the pricing difference is significant, but one can argue good customer service should not be dictated by price. Anyways, although there were other hiccups before and after, they were almost expected from a freshly open place and none involved the quality of the food or the attitude of the waitress which was always friendly. Either of those would have been inexcusable. The others, given the circumstances were understandable.
I ordered the prime rib. I am not sure if I am getting pickier in my old age or whether restaurants aren’t doing as good a job as they once did, or if I have been on an unlucky streak. But I have been disappointed lately with three of my favorite dishes at restaurants. This night it was prime ribs turn. Now let me say, to me there are two types of prime rib, good and great. I have rarely had a prime rib that I would turn my nose up at. Some may be cooked more than I like, fattier than I like or even drier than I like, but hell it is still a big cut of meat, and that’s a good thing. But the kind of prime rib that makes me close my eyes and just want turn off the rest of the world while enjoying the wonderful cut of beef that it can be has escaped me for a long time now. Part of it is that that I like the charred, flavored outside of the prime rib, ideally with a pepper or garlic rub that just bursts with flavor, but I want the inside medium rare, just warm and juicy with fat enough to add flavor, but not so much that you cannot fit it and the meat next to it in your mouth at the same time. And for gods sake I do not want to have parts of my prime rib that I have to chew for a week until I finally give up the ghost and dispatch it to my napkin. Not that I will not eat a prime rib like that and still say I like it. I go back to my big cut of meat statement. But I search for that great prime rib. The Painted Pony’s prime rib was good, in that it was cooked appropriately, medium rare, it had decent fat but not so much that you either had to leave half of it on your plate or chew large globs of it with just a touch of meat to justify it. But what it lacked was a decent rub. The kind that would turn a decent cut of meat into meat heaven. Its flavor was decent. I think it was equivalent to just about every other prime rib I have had lately, which includes Bacchis Wednesday night $15 prime rib special. Two others in our group got the prime rib and although I did not hear any feedback, I did not hear any compliments either. Hopefully this is an area that they will grow into.
The other two entrees that people got had one winner and one average rating. The Chicken Alexander was very good. The one thing I could see is that the Painted Pony knows how to handle breading. The chicken, its breading and the sauce over it were all delicious (the friend made the mistake of offering us a bite and most of us took it, especially her husband Mr. anti-spice who took and took and took, apparently liking it much better than his prime rib. The other dish was the mac and cheese with short ribs. We finished off with a lemon cake that was moist, a little tart and not overly sweet, a fine ending to the meal.
For being open such a short time I see some real potential with the New Painted Pony. Some things they are already spot on with. Others are near misses, and that is a good sign for a kitchen and staff that are just learning to work together. I like the location and liked the appetizers and the Chicken Alexander. Those would be enough to bring me back. Now if they could turn the prime rib into a hit, I could be spending a lot of time in the little town of Bethlehem.
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]]>I went to Zinis in Bantam last night with friends. Most restaurants I go to are through recommendations of friends, acquaintances or from Facebook conversations. There is always an added burden when the recommendation involves friends, especially when you are eating with them. Whenever someone makes a restaurant recommendation to friends, they take ownership of the place that is recommend. It is no longer just the chefs cooking skills on the line, it the personal tastes of the friend. It’s hard enough recommending a place only to find out your friend doesn’t like it, but then to have them announce that to the world in the form of a review is so much worse. Surprisingly, people are still willing to dine with me. I guess I haven’t piled up enough bad reviews yet. But I fear my days are numbered. Thankfully, I dodged another bullet as Zinis is good.
I must have been past Zinis hundreds of times in my treks through Litchfield without it registering with me, and as much as Litchfield may deny it Bantam is part of Litchfield. This was made abundantly clear to me when I was going to there for dinner and I had no idea where it was. I mean beyond it being in Bantam, which means one of two roads, Route 202 or Route 209. My GPS revealed it to be 202 just south of the area where Arethusa is single-handedly making Bantam trendy and Litchfield proper ready to reclaim its poorer relative. The building is small, set back a little off the road and is easy to miss. Although once turning into the parking lot it commands your attention in a quaint Lord of the Rings sort of a way. The building looks the size of a house in the front, but the stone gives it a feeling that you might upon entering encounter a hobbit, a dwarf and elf enjoying a meal before traveling on the journey to Mordor or New York City, although that might be redundant. Unfortunately, there were no hobbits or such, but then there were no orcs either so that was a plus. Despite the lack of mythical creatures inside, it still had an air of quaint charm with its round dark wood tables and an old-world flair if not a Middle Earth one.
I was the last to arrive, which is unusual as I am usually first and like to scope out the bar. No bar tonight, just right to the table where my friends were waiting. I would like to point out that I was not late, but a good ten minutes early. Apparently, my friends practiced Lombardi Time, where the legendary coach told his players if you showed up on time you were 15 minutes late. So, I guess by Lombardi time I was 5 minutes late. Zinis immediately scored points with me as they already had a basket of thin slices of warm, garlicky bread on the table. Something that Buon Appetito could learn from (no I haven’t stopped beating that dead horse).
One of my friends highly recommended the Artichoke Hearts and it is listed on their menu as “Our Signature Artichoke Hearts.” I am a firm believer in taking recommendations from people that are familiar with a restaurant and the restaurant staff themselves if they will give it. They have eaten there many times and in the case of the staff certainly are familiar with people’s responses. They will know much better than I will what’s good there. Now having said that there are sometimes things you learn about yourself by doing that. I learned that although I have eaten artichokes in many dishes as ingredients, I do not think I have ever eaten them where they were “the” ingredient to carry the dish. I realize now that I do not like artichokes enough to expect that of them. It is not that I don’t like them or that they weren’t good here. It is just that as an ingredient I find them a nice contribution to a dish, but they need to know their place and that is not as the star. I could tell that this was a very good appetizer if you like artichokes, and a decent one if you are ok with them. This was a decent one to me. It is like if a big fan of basketball and someone that wants to do something, and basketball is something go to a great game. Both teams play great, the score is close and goes back and forth, the games is decided by a buzzer beater after countless spectacular plays. The basketball lover, looks over at his friend, completely breathless and exhilarated from one of the best games he has ever seen and manages to get out in his almost completely lost voice “wasn’t that amazing?” The friend who was glad for a night out, but not a basketball fan and not able to appreciate everything in the way his friend did, just utters “that was a close game, wasn’t it?” I unfortunately was that friend with the artichoke hearts. I know the artichokes were flawless, I know they were perfectly, lightly breaded to maximize the flavor of those flawless artichokes and the lemon sauce was also light enough to enhance without hiding the artichokes. In short to “wasn’t it amazing?” which I am sure it was, all I can say is “that was a close game, wasn’t it?” Now another friend had the fried calamari. They give you a big plate of those enough for him to share with the whole table, which he did. Now calamari you don’t have to be gentle with. It doesn’t have all that much flavor and what it has isn’t delicate. You can fry it up in thicker breading and serve it with marinara sauce and not worry about hiding the calamari, just make sure it isn’t chewy and rubbery. Zinis did all those things that would make me say “wasn’t it amazing?” only to hear the non-calamari lover beat me over the ears with my own words “that was a close game, wasn’t it?” Zinis knows how to make appetizers. By the way I do not want this in anyway way to discourage people from recommended dishes to me. I find that some of the best things I have eaten of late have been through other’s recommendations and without those I tend to fall back into ruts that do not expand to that new dish that I may find I absolutely love. So, recommend away, if I don’t like it, it is still worth it, if I find it alright even better, and if I find a new favorite, well that is what it is all about.
Speaking of ruts, I have been in a Seafood Fra Diavolo, and Paella rut lately. I have had a few of each of these dishes that are some of my favorite dishes around. The problem with both is that apparently if not prepared perfectly they are just slightly above average. I say apparently because my rut has led me to try many of these lately searching for the illusive great Fra Diavolo and Paella, only to find that they are average or just to above average. At that point I find myself either wishing I ordered something else or just being content with a decent dinner. Last night was the latter. First of all, Fra Diavolo is a spicy sauce, usually using chili peppers. Most places seem to miss the spicy part. That is why I always tell the wait staff that I want my Fra Diavolo extra spicy. One of these days I am going to get one that actually does it right to begin with and I might regret my request, but it hasn’t happened yet. This wasn’t going to be the night. My expectations went down hill immediately when along with my plate of seafood covered pasta, they brought me out a small plate of dried red pepper flakes. Those work fine to spice up pizza or an ordinary pasta sauce, but to enhance the heat of a Fra Diavolo sauce? Needless to say like Ahab searching for his white whale my search for that elusive great Fra Diavolo goes on. This is a shame because the seafood was top quality, big round perfectly cooked scallops, sweat and moist, large shrimp, just as filled with flavor and perfectly juicy. Even better, unlike Briccos salt infused shrimp these although not spicy, at least were not over-spiced in the wrong way. They were just good tasty sauce covered shrimp. Finally, the clams were tasty open morsels still dressed in their shell. If only they were dressed like spicy little hot numbers, they would have been perfect. The pasta and sauce were both good, the seafood was fresh and very good. It just wasn’t spiced well enough to qualify as great Fra Diavolo to me, and no red pepper flakes can alter that. A good seafood over pasta dish? Yes, just not enough Diavolo in the Fra Diavolo for me. The other diners stuck mainly to chicken, with two ordering parmesan and one ordering saltimbocca. A fifth ordered the Strawberry Salad as their main course. All seemed to enjoy their meals. I didn’t solicit opinions, nor where any offered. But if smiles count as good reviews, I saw 4 of them out of 4.
There were two many good sounding desserts not to partake and we ended up getting three different ones. I opted for the chocolate lava cake, while others tried the carrot cake and cheesecake. The coconut crème brulee was calling to me too, just not as loudly as the lava. The chocolate was deep rich chocolate as was the lava. It came with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, which was a perfect ying to the chocolate’s yang. This seemed like a perfect ending to the meal. Although the carrot cake, cheesecake and at least the sound of the coconut brulee, could all have completed that sentence as well. Zinis knows desserts too.
In reviewing this review before posting it, I am afraid it has more of a negative sound than it is meant too. Zinis is a good Italian restaurant. The ingredients were uniformly good quality. The preparation of every dish was done well, albeit in a couple instances a little milder than I prefer. If you like mild tastes that lock in on the core ingredient or ingredients and let you experience them if not naked then let’s say in a shear negligee you will love Zinis. If you like those ingredients dressed to the nines, spiced up and hot, you may find it a little tame for your tastes.
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]]>I am a big fan of BBQ and old enough to remember when Connecticut was a vast wasteland for this cuisine. A time when if one wanted barbequed ribs or brisket we had to drive to Vernon and Little Marks Big BBQ. Then for a short glorious time they opened a second location in Avon and life seemed better. I am not sure if Little Marks has declined or if I was just so excited to have that option back then that it seemed much better than it was. But either way, I was damn glad to have it.
But today things are much different, there are BBQ places everywhere, even in Torrington. I may be wrong, but it seems like Bears had a big part to do with this or else they just had great timing. Whatever, the reason they have been the measuring stick by what Connecticut BBQ is stacked up against. “Not as good as Bears” I have heard friends say more than once, or the much more desired if more rarely uttered words “they are as good as Bears.” I am not sure I have heard the words “they are better than Bears” except by family members or owners or best friends of whatever business is being lauded.
So inevitably when I went out with friends to a new BBQ place in Southington, the bear in the room or not in the room came up. The person that brought us here mentioned that their favorite was Bears, but that they liked Que Whiskey Kitchen. He didn’t commit to liking it as much or better. I am not sure whether that was because even while in the BBQ church of Que, he couldn’t bring himself to utter blasphemy like that, or whether he hadn’t decided, or maybe as it was with me last night it didn’t matter.
I am not sure if Que’s is as good as Bears, for that I would have to do substantial study, involving ordering all their various meats and trying them next to each other, over and over again for consistency. This is the kind of study that takes research. If any of you would like to finance such an in depth study I would gladly research it fully for you and after numerous meals of both, involving deep palate analysis, I would give you the results along with the bill for all that great BBQ. (Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying).
So, since I doubt my research proposal will get funded, let me just say it doesn’t matter. Que’s is very good and that is all that matters. Normally I don’t get appetizers at BBQ places because it’s all about the meat. OK maybe a little bit about the sides, but mainly it’s about the meat. But Que’s Whiskey Kitchen was smart and lured us in with their burnt ends poutine. Now there should be a disclaimer on these just in case any of our neighbors from the north come down and order them. They have about as much in common with poutine as Chicago Style Pizza has to do with pizza. The Whiskey Kitchen’s “poutine” starts with fries, ok that’s like poutine. But that is the end of it. Gravy? No check. Cheese Curds? Nope. So, it has 1/3 of the distinguishing ingredients in poutine. It is closer to Irish Nachos, or maybe they could call it Texas Irish Nachos, I don’t know. I mean Canadians are nice so they probably wouldn’t point out that it is not even close to poutine. And hell, if they taste it, they might even appreciate that it tastes better than poutine. Anyways, no matter what you call it, it is great. The fries are nice and crisp and flavorful. Instead of thick gravy soaking the fries and making them soggy, there is a cheese sauce that adds flavor without making the fries limp. The cheese curds have been replaced by breaded fried mozzarella, that are bigger than tater tots and just as crunchy on the outside. A few fried hot pepper slicers are interspersed just to make sure your mouth isn’t getting to relaxed from all the fried items. The best part, being a BBQ place, you can top it off with your choice of meat. We had the burnt ends. Now sometimes poutine has little slices of beef in the gravy, but I can assure you that is never as flavorful as those burnt ends. As a matter of fact, I take back about the Canadians being upset about the misuse of the poutine label. I think they should say that is exactly what meant to do and take full credit for it.
One caution about the appetizer, it is filling. Now there was three of us and we had a little over one and a third of these appetizers total (I got so excited upon seeing it I forgot to take a photo so had to order another one just to share it with all of you). You’re welcome. When the meal came around, I don’t think any of us ate over half our meal. I ate half my ribs, less than a third of my burnt ends, a quarter of my brisket and half of my two sides, and we didn’t have room for dessert. The burnt ends were even better as part of the meal than they were on the poutine, as they seemed even more tender and flavorful, without the interruption of the fries and cheese. The baby back ribs were just as you would expect from good BBQ, tender, fall of the bone, moist and flavorful. The brisket was lost compared to the two stars. Part of this was that the others were so good and rest due to the fact that brisket was sliced thin and got cold too quick. Still tasty, but not as good as the other two. I got the mac and cheese and baked beans as my sides. BBQ mac and cheese are one of those dishes that always lures me in with the fantasy and promise of its potential, only to let me down in the end. The baked beans were a little dry, but loaded with flavor and meat, which for a lesser BBQ lover might have been overload, but for me I just gave a big growl of “meat” and smiled. In hindsight the only thing I regret is falling for the false promises of the mac and cheese instead of going for the tried and true corn bread. Normally BBQ places give you a small piece of corn bread, that makes you feel like you have to ration it to make it through the meal. But when I saw the two large bricks of corn bread my friend got as one of his sides, versus my little cup of lying mac and cheese, I knew I took the wrong date to dinner. I think I would have had to have had between 5 and 10 orders of the skimpy cornbread you get at most BBQ’s to match up to these loaves that came as one side. I guarantee you, the next time I go there, I will be leaving that mac and cheese alone and going right to the corn bread.
In closing if I had to choose between going to Bears and Que’s Whiskey Kitchen, all things being equal I am not sure which I would pick. In fairness to Bears, I haven’t been to their New Haven or Hartford restaurants and am most familiar with their Windsor location, which is cafeteria style and not a full restaurant, so it has a little disadvantage in my mind there. But for shear food, they both are worthy of going to if you are a BBQ fan. And if you aren’t, then at least at Que’s you can drink plenty of Bourbon to drown your sorrow for not having good enough taste to like BBQ.
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