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Northeast
Connecticut The
Golden Lamb Buttery We fell in love with this rural restaurant more than 25 years ago and every time we go back we are smitten again. It's a Constable landscape, a working farm, a hayride, folk music and much more. It's also the home of Bob and Jimmie (for The evening begins around 7 with cocktails in summer on a deck off the barn overlooking a farm pond or on a wagon drawn by a tractor over fields while you sit – with drink in hand – on bales of hay, listening to the fresh voice of Susan Smith Lamb, who accompanies herself on the guitar. Before you set off on this adventure, your gingham-clad (and sometimes pigtailed) waitress takes your order from the four or five entrées written on the blackboard. Dinner ($65, complete) starts with a choice of about four hot or cold soups. We have never tasted one that wasn't wonderful. Using herbs and vegetables from the farm's gardens, Jimmie makes soups like cold lovage bisque, a green vegetable one using “every green vegetable you can name,” raspberry pureé, scotch barley, cold cucumber and an unusually good cabbage soup made with duck stock. Almost always on the menu are duck (a crispy half, done with many different sauces), châteaubriand for one, grilled lamb and fish (perhaps salmon or swordfish), cooked over applewood on the farm's smoker. Lately, Jimmie has added the occasional pasta entrée. Salt is not used, but many herbs, and essences of lemons and limes, are. Crisp and thinly sliced onion bagels are the only starch. What we always remember best are the vegetables – six to eight an evening brought around in large crocks and wooden bowls and served family style (yes, you can have seconds). They could be almost anything, but always there are marinated mushrooms and nearly always cold minted peas. Tomatoes with basil, braised celery and fennel, carrots with orange rind and raisins, a casserole of zucchini and summer squash with mornay sauce – they depend on the garden and the season. Desserts like coffee mousse, raspberry cream sherbet, heavy butter cake with fresh berries, pies (made by neighborhood women) and a chocolate roll using Belgian chocolate, topped with chocolate sauce and fruit, are fitting endings. During all this, you are seated in a dining room in the barn or in the attached building with a loft that once was a studio used by writers. The old wood of the walls and raftered ceilings glows with the patina of age, as do the bare dark wood tables in the flickering candlelight. The singer strolls from table to table taking song requests. It's all so subtly theatrical, yet with a feeling of honest simplicity, that you feel part of a midsummer night's dream. Lunch, with entrées in the $13 to $18 range, might be oyster stew, salmon quiche, seafood crêpes or the delicious Hillandale hash. It may not be as romantic as dinner, but you get to see the surroundings better. Although we have had more interesting entrées on our wanderings, we never have had such a satisfying total dining experience. It's not inexpensive, but what price can you put on pure enchantment? (860) 774-4423. www.thegoldenlamb.com. Prix-fixe,
$65. Lunch, (860) 774-4423. Prix-fixe,
$65. Lunch, Tuesday-Saturday noon to 2:30; dinner, Friday and Saturday,
one seating from 7. Closed January-March. No credit cards. Dinner
reservations required far in advance. The Harvest A longtime local favorite, The Harvest at Bald Hill, reopened in large and stylish new quarters at a prime Pomfret location and turned out to be better than ever. Peter Cooper, a former chef at the Brown University faculty club in Providence, took over the Lemuel Grosvenor House (circa 1765) and built a substantial addition. The establishment focuses on an open lounge with a cherry wood bar and several dining tables in the center, a semi-open kitchen and a floor-to-ceiling wall of wines showcasing the Harvest’s award-winning wine cellar at the entry. Around the periphery are a grill room with a fireplace, a couple of handsome fireplaced dining rooms, two dining porches, a cocktail terrace and a banquet facility. The place seats 250, and at our latest visit Peter was preparing to serve 800 diners for Thanksgiving. Decor is elegant country in burgundy and green, with local artworks on the walls and the oil lamps in hurricane chimneys illuminated even at noon The menus change seasonally to reflect the harvest. The traditional lunch service was discontinued recently, but not before three of us enjoyed good french bread, a shared appetizer of gyoza (tasty Japanese dumplings), sautéed scrod with winter vegetables and two excellent – and abundant – salads, caesar with Thai chicken and grilled salmon with citrus wasabi vinaigrette. These were so filling we couldn’t begin to think of such delectable desserts as mascarpone cheesecake, a classic marjolaine, peach bourbon upside-down cake or cardamom crème brûlée. Not even the signature raspberry sorbet and vanilla ice cream with raspberry coulis in a white chocolate truffle shell broke our resolve. The extensive dinner menu appeals as well. Appetizers intrigue: escargots bruschetta, a French-style tapas sampler, Indian vegetarian samosas, gyoza, and a grilled scallop martini with pineapple salsa and crispy wontons. Main courses vary widely from cedar-planked roast salmon with ginger butter and seared sesame tuna with teriyaki glaze to roast duckling with orange-raspberry sauce, tenderloin of pork au poivre, the signature grilled lamb with rosemary and garlic, and seven steak-house versions of steaks and chops. The emphasis on the harvest shows up spectacularly in the vegetable and bean sauté, the Pacific Rim vegetable grill and the roasted vegetable roulade Santa Fe. An extensive menu of Japanese cuisine, including sushi by a Japanese chef, is offered with the regular menu except on weekends. (860) 928-0008. Entrées. $14.95 to $25.95.
Tuesday-Saturday 5:30 to 8 or 9, Sunday, brunch 11 to 1:45, dinner 3 to
8.
The antiques district in up-and-coming downtown Putnam is enlivened by a good little contemporary American bistro. Lisa Cassettari operates a stark white space accented with blond tables (dressed with white linens at night) and large, colorful paintings done by a local artist. The name reflects her aim to serve fresh fare, as in the vineyard proverb: “The grape is most delightful when first picked from the vine.” At lunch, things get off to a good start when the ice water is poured with a slice of lemon into an oversize brandy glass. Plates puddled with olive oil, garlic and rosemary arrive for soaking up the good, crusty bread. There is quite a selection of soups, sandwiches and salads, including an unusual caesar salad served with Maryland crab cakes. A specialty is vodka rigatoni, which one of us tried and pronounced successful. Others in our party sampled an appetizer of portobello mushrooms sautéed with spinach, roasted peppers, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil, and a generous sandwich of turkey, swiss and whole berry cranberry sauce. A sensational finale was tangerine sorbet, served in a frozen tangerine on a big white plate squiggled with raspberry puree. Pumpkin cheesecake laced with cognac was another winner. Much the same fare is available at dinner, minus the sandwiches and plus half a dozen specials. Expect treats like vodka rigatoni with jumbo shrimp, sautéed salmon with a velvety dill sauce, “chicken d'vine” with artichoke hearts, veal marsala and locally raised duckling. The beef tenderloin is finished with a chive demi-glace and served with baked macaroni of three cheeses and peas. (860) 928-1660. Entrées, $17.95 to $27.95.
Lunch, Tuesday-Sunday 11 to 4. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday 5 to 9, Sunday 5
to 7. The
Vanilla Bean Cafe This popular little café in a 150-year-old barn is run by Barry Jessurun and siblings Eileen (Bean) and Brian, with occasional appearances by the rest of the family. Here is a true place, where the turkey sandwich is “not that awful turkey roll,” says the blackboard menu, but “the real thing, roasted here at the Bean.” Ditto for the albacore tuna sandwich, the house-smoked meats, the spicy lentil or falafel burgers, the award-winning chili, Brian’s signature fish cakes and the hearty soups (ham and bean, fish chowder, chicken gumbo). The dinner menu might include a large bean burrito, chicken teriyaki with vegetables, smoked mozzarella and basil ravioli, plus blackboard specials. Diners partake at tables beneath an eighteen-foot-high ceiling in one room containing the food counter and an aquarium or in a larger side room with a piano for musical entertainment on weekends. The entertainment proved so popular that the Bean added a third room beyond with sofas and overstuffed chairs. Beer and wine, espresso and cappuccino are featured. (860) 928-1562. Entrées, $11 to
$16. Open Monday and Tuesday 7 to 3, Wednesday-Friday 7 to 8, weekends 8
to 8, to 9 on music nights and in summer.
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