The New Painted Pony

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.

Meet the New Pony Same as the Old Pony

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.

Yay Bread

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.

Appetizers

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.

Hiccups

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.

Prime Rib

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.

Chicken Alexander

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.

Conclusion

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.