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New Hope/ The Inn at Phillips
Mill Depending on the season, hanging pots overflowing
with fuchsias, wooden casks filled with all colors of mums or holiday
greenery mark the entrance to this small and adorable yet sophisticated
inn. When you see its facade of local gray stone, smack up against an
S-turn bend in Inside, that impression is heightened, as you take in the low-ceilinged rooms with dark beams, pewter service plates and water goblets, and a gigantic leather couch in front of a massive fireplace, on which you can recline while waiting for your table. Candles augment the light from the fireplace, and arrangements of fresh and dried flowers are all around. At a recent visit, two longtime stalwarts – chef
Richard Rohal and pastry chef Thomas Milburn – were back at their
early stomping grounds. The classic French menu is concise, the prices
reasonable and the results comforting – often exceptional. Smoked
salmon with horseradish crème fraîche and a salad of goat cheese and
roasted onions on frisée might be among appetizers. We started with a
springtime special, Main courses range from coquilles St. Jacques to a trio of mustard-dusted lamb chops. We have never tasted such a tender filet mignon with such a delectable béarnaise sauce (and artichoke heart) or such perfect sweetbreads in a light brown sauce as at our first visit. At our second, the sautéed calves liver in a cider-vinegar sauce and the medallions of veal niçoise were excellent, too. A basket of crusty French bread (with which you are tempted to sop up the wonderful sauces) and sweet butter comes before dinner. Save room for one of the super desserts – once a lemon-ice cream meringue pie, about six inches high and wonderfully refreshing, and later a vanilla mousse with big chips of chocolate and fudge sauce. Sometimes it is hazardous to bring your own wine.
The host at a table of four next to ours was wondering where his
expensive bottle of Clos du Val had gone when we noticed the waitress on
the verge of pouring it into our glasses. We caught her in time and
reconciled ourselves to our modest bottle of (215) 862-9919. Entrées, $18 to $28. Dinner
nightly, The
Landing The only restaurant right in Inside on either side of a quite luxurious small bar are two small dining areas refreshed following the flood that poured three feet of water inside in April 2005 The front room, welcoming in barnwood, contains booths and two tables for two with wing chairs at each. The rear room has picture windows overlooking the river. The expansive riverside patio is definitely the place to be in season, the length of which has been extended lately with the addition of patio heaters. It’s brightened with colorful planters and umbrellas, dignified by tablecloths at night and made practical by an enclosed bar at one side. A gardener has obviously been at work around the exterior, and there’s equal talent in the kitchen. The changing menu (which arrived in a picture frame when we first ate dinner here) is creative. We would gladly have ordered everything from the lunch menu, so delectable were the choices and so salubrious the ambiance at a patio table beside the river on a recent autumn afternoon. One of us settled for a refreshing soup of golden gazpacho with cilantro pesto and chilled shrimp, paired with a salad of shrimp, crab and artichoke dumplings, greens, bell peppers, roasted corn and horseradish-chive vinaigrette. The other enjoyed the pan-roasted jumbo lump crab cake with julienned summer vegetables, roasted peppers and, rather strangely, mashed potatoes. At night, entrées range from sautéed red snapper with avocado-tomato relish to herb-roasted rack of lamb. An intriguing dish at one visit was called veal three ways: with emmenthal and fingerling potato stew, pulped grapes and wilted spinach. Typical starters are pork and shrimp spring rolls with mandarin-sesame dipping sauce, steamed cockles and mussels provençal, prosciutto and brie in puff pastry with cranberry-ginger coulis, and fried calamari with two sauces, a cilantro-lime mayo and spicy tomato sauce. Desserts are luscious: perhaps frozen kahlua mousse, chocolate-cointreau-truffle torte with blood orange syrup, and rose petal crème brûlée with strawberries and white chocolate. The Landing claims to have the largest wine list in (215) 862-5711. www.landingrestaurant.com. Entrées,
$22.95 to $32.95. Lunch daily, Marsha
Brown Only in A Russian artist did the towering mural Redemption in a gilded archway that provides a stunning backdrop for diners at close-together tables flanked by church pews and assorted chairs. At the top of the staircase, where you first get a glimpse of the awesome scene, is a dark little bar and a service bar in what they say was a confessional. The extensive menu is a cross between classic
Ruth’s Chris steakhouse, although executed better, and the You might start with a sampling of soups (real gumbo ya ya, turtle, and lobster and shrimp bisque when we were there), crawfish étouffée with dipping sauce, spicy coconut shrimp or lollipop lamb chops with mango chutney. Winning main courses include crab cakes with spicy rémoulade sauce, sautéed Creole catfish, a signature shrimp and crabmeat casserole called eggplant ophelia and a massive cowboy ribeye steak. The duck and andouille sausage jambalaya also tempts. Potatoes, vegetables and “Southern sides” such as okra beignets, turnip gratin and dirty rice are extra. The sleeper among desserts like crème brûlée and chocolate mousse mountain is “Granmere’s comfort custard,” a silken vanilla mound ribboned with meringue and crushed saltine crackers. (215) 862-7044. www.marshabrownrestaurant.com.
Entrées, $22 to $38. Lunch daily in summer, Golden
Pheasant Inn A more romantic spot than the large solarium of the Golden Pheasant is hard to imagine. Beneath the stars is an array of tables dressed in mauve and white, hanging lamps, green plants and ficus trees, planters of colorful flowers and tiny twinkling lights all around. The place is so dim that we had to ask for an extra candle to read the menu. The canal bank beyond is illuminated at night, and it's all rather magical. Well-known local chef Michel Faure from Grenoble and his wife Barbara have refurbished the two inner dining rooms to the inn's original 1850s period, brightened with accents of copper pots, oriental rugs and their extensive Quimper collection from Brittany. The bar is in the front of the wallpapered main dining room, which contains a working fireplace. The inner Blaise Room claims hardwood floors, a beamed ceiling, recessed windows and exposed stone walls. Michel, who worked in a number of well-known
restaurants, including Start with the pheasant pâté, escargots sautéed in garlic-parsley butter, bay scallops sautéed with saffron sauce, lobster ravioli with a lobster and shrimp sauce or Michel's acclaimed lobster bisque. Entrées vary from poached salmon with a champagne and shrimp sauce to sautéed filet mignon with béarnaise sauce. Lump crab cakes come with a light mustard hollandaise, and venison medallions with a currant and cassis sauce. Cassoulet of seafood bears a lobster sauce. Roasted boneless duck might be sauced with raspberry, ginger and rum. Desserts include cappuccino cheesecake, pecan pie, crème caramel, homemade sorbets and a specialty, Belgian white chocolate mousse with a raspberry coulis. (610) 294-9595 or (800) 830-4474. Entrées,
$22 to $28. Dinner, Wednesday-Saturday Hotel
du Village The French name is a bit misleading, since the
chef-owner is Algerian and his hostelry is English Tudor in an early
boarding-school setting. The dining room is in the former Lower Campus
building of Country French cuisine is the forte of Omar Arbani, who arrived in Bucks County in 1976 by way of culinary endeavors in France, Denmark, London and Washington, D.C. Partial to fine sauces, he shuns nouvelle to provide “the kind of home-style country cuisine you'd find in the restaurants of Bordeaux or Burgundy on a Sunday afternoon,” in the words of his wife Barbara, a former New Jersey teacher, who manages the dining room, bar, banquet facility and inn. The menu seldom changes and prices remain among the
more reasonable in the area. Favorite appetizers include escargots,
shrimp sautéed in garlic butter, clams casino and mushrooms rémoulade,
as well as lamb sausage, one of the few additions to the menu since we
first dined here in the 1980s. Main courses range from fillets of sole Bread was piping hot and crusty – grand when spread with the house pâté ($6.95 for a small crock as an appetizer). Moist black forest cake, crammed with cherries, and café royale were sweet endings to a rich, romantic meal. (215) 862-9911. Entrées, $17.95 to $22.95.
Dinner, Wednesday-Saturday from The
Black Bass Hotel The food has been upgraded and updated lately at the venerable Black Bass, an inn dating from the 1740s and every traveler's idea of what a French countryside inn should look like. The late Harry Nessler, founding innkeeper of the 1740 House just down the road, liked to recall how one of his guests, Pierre Matisse, told him that the Black Bass “looks just like the inns my father painted.” Lunch may be a better bet than dinner here because (1) you should take advantage of the fact the dining room with its long porch and a ground-level dining terrace overlook the river, (2) the food can be inconsistent, although we've had both a good dinner and a good lunch here over the years, and (3) prices at dinner are relatively steep – entrées like the Charleston Meeting Street crabmeat, a fixture on the menu, going for $29.95 at a recent visit. Wander around the dark and quaint old inn and look
at all the British memorabilia as well as the pewter bar that came from
Maxim's in The dinner menu is also extensive, varying from a vegetarian pumpkin stew with chiles, spices and grilled polenta to grilled filet mignon stuffed with saga blue cheese in a wild mushroom demi-glace. If you don't try the crabmeat specialty, which many do, consider head chef John Barrett’s lobster bouillabaisse, macadamia-crusted mahi mahi with a cilantro-avocado puree, coffee-lacquered duck with ginger-pear chutney or veal shank osso buco. Start with a warm wild mushroom terrine or seared diver scallops with tasso and a fava bean cream. Finish with a brandy and ginger pear tart with crème fraîche, white chocolate cheesecake with tropical fruit salsa, or homemade ice creams or sorbets. Lighted stamped-tin lanterns hang from thick beams in the various dining rooms, which are filled with antiques, collections of old china in high cabinets, and fancy wrought iron around the windows. The wooden chairs look as if they've been around since 1740; it's a wonder they don't fall apart. (215) 297-5770. Entrées, $25.95 to $42.95.
Lunch, Monday-Saturday
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