G. W. Tavern

There are certain restaurants where the location and the building become as important as the food. With location they normally have special views overlooking the ocean, a lake, a river, mountains or valleys. For the building it is either antique or some unique construction, although the unique construction ones often border on kitschy and often tumble over that border. But antique restaurant buildings have a certain appeal for me. Which is strange because all other antique houses scare the hell out of me. But give me an antique restaurant, with old beams and a feel like it’s been feeding people for 100’s of years and I tend to like it, provided the fool is edible. It doesn’t mean I will eat there more than once, but that one time I will still like it. If the food is above average, I will put it on my holiday list. I have a list of places that I would like to go out with friends and/or family for the holidays, usually Christmas, but I am open to others. For these I want a building that is at least three times as old as I am (which is getting harder to meet every year) ideally a fireplace, and atmosphere that Dickens could have had Scrooge pick up his evening gruel at before taking it back to play with his ghosts.  G.W. Tavern is gruel worthy, Scrooge worthy or I guess to make it sound better Dicken’s worthy. This is a place you can go with friends for Christmas time, sit by the fire and say Bah Humbug or God Bless us Everyone to your hearts content, depending on your point of view.

Having said all that, I am not sure if there is enough foodwise to keep me coming on a regular basis. Once to celebrate Dickens in December and maybe once to sit by the stream during the summer and I’m good. Oh yeah, I forget to mention besides the building it does have a nice location overlooking a stream and has patio dining to take advantage of it. And that is the thing with G.W. Tavern, the building and the location are the stars and the food are supporting actors. Just like most plays, there is nothing in those supporting actors that make you want to see the story again, but fortunately the stars carry the story enough that it is worth revisiting on occasion.

Last night I went to G.W. Tavern for my third visit, this time with a group of 15. As I have explained in the past, when I go with our dinner group, I tend to give a little break to the restaurant as most are not geared to handle 15 people at one time. There are usually little hiccups with service and an occasionally an order screw up. In fact, with that many people it surprises me when everything goes perfectly. There were no surprises here. The waitress was good, and she did well, but there were the normal, minor problems you expect when a large group taxes the system. I personally think most of these could have been corrected by the supporting staff, runners or whatever they are called, supporting our waitress. It is strange because they seemed to be attentive at smaller tables that the wait staff probably could have handled on their own but hid from us for the first half of the meal and left us mainly to our poor overworked waitress. Still the overall service was fine and just the normal unexpected, expected issues.

I had an appetizer of the baked potato skins. They provided three good size skins with bacon, cheddar cheese and scallions, with a side of sour cream. These were good potatoes, but nothing to jump out of your skins about. Which pretty much sums up G. W., good, but no skin jumping out of. I ordered the prime rib, medium rare, but instead of the side of root vegetables, which I am still not clear what it was, and why it was offered instead of potatoes, I got the garlic mashed potatoes. My friend ordered the same, but with regular mashed and a prime rib, medium. When it came out, his looked a little more rare than mine and we asked if they got it wrong. They assured us they got it right and that I had the garlic mashed and the medium rare. I have known a prime rib to be deceiving with it looking less rare than it was, so we didn’t argue. We should have, my prime rib was to well done and his was too rare. Despite that I thoughy my prime rib had good taste and I liked the rub around the edges. It was tender and just the right amount of fat. A good prime rib, but I still wasn’t jumping. But if I wasn’t jumping, my friend had his feet firmly on the ground, and was unhappy with the rareness, the rub and the prime rib altogether. He also said he thought there was something green in the rub (yes it was that friend the one that doesn’t like green seasonings). So, unless you have an aversion for green spices, and red meat, I think you will find the prime rib good, or at least above average. The garlic mashed potatoes however, where not above average. They were very average mashed potatoes with no hint of garlic. Now you might be thinking “that’s because they mixed up the plates!” Well you would be wrong, and why are you yelling at me? Because his potatoes were as bland and uninspired as mine, meaning garlic free. The meal was completed with asparagus, which I found crisp and tasty, but my friend found limp and soggy. Personally, I think it might have been his green prejudice acting up.

I had apple pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce for dessert. The apples were crisp and tasty, I could have used more caramel sauce on it, but the apple crisp like top to the pie made up for the skimpy caramel sauce, and small scoop of ice cream. A good dessert, but still no jumping.

One of the things to keep in mind with reviews is how different people’s tastes are, and you really get to see it with a group 15, especially when you get together with two thirds of them the next day and go over what they thought. I normally don’t do this, but it seems like such a great opportunity that I thought I would share some of it with you. As I said I liked my prime rib dinner, my friend was unhappy with his. 4 people had the fish and chips, two liked it, two not so much. One person had the beef tips and thought it was very good, but they also ran afoul of the non-garlic mashed potatoes. One person had the pot pie and thought that the White Horse did it better, two people liked the fresh Atlantic cod, and one person liked the pork chop, which was big, juicy and came with home made apple sauce. I know that doesn’t add up to 15, but not everyone was available for their meal opinions. Keep in mind these are third party accounts, and do not necessarily reflect my tastes or opinions, not that mine are all that important.

The consensus is that everyone would eat here again, even my friend that didn’t like anything. Actually, this was his recommendation and he has eaten here many times. As I said at the beginning, the real star here is the building, and at certain times of year the location. The food in good but does not shine in my opinion. But if you want a place to have your family Christmas Carol than pack up Uncle Ebeneezer and head for the G.W. Tavern