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State College The Hummingbird Room Arguably the area’s finest dining
is offered by Eric and Claudia Sarnow in a National Register landmark
country manor home built in 1847. The couple left Philadelphia, where he
was sous chef for six years at the renowned Le Bec Fin after a
three-year apprenticeship in France, to open a 22-seat Hummingbird
Restaurant in the Woodward Inn in eastern Centre County in 1993. They
purchased the Fisher House and moved the Hummingbird Room closer to
State College two years later, retaining the name but expanding dinner
service from three to five nights a week. Dining is in a variety of small rooms
on the first and second floors of a red brick Victorian with painted
lady shutters. Burgundy-linened tables are set with stunning Villeroy
& Boch china. Dishes arrive under silver cloches and tablecloths are
crumbed between courses. The French menu is available à la
carte or prix-fixe, $37.50 for three courses. The reputation of the
lobster bisque, the house-smoked salmon with a lobster and artichoke
salad, the grilled Hudson Valley duck foie gras with two fruits and the
sautéed lobster with morels over homemade pasta preceded our visit.
Good things also were said about the filet of beef rossini with black
truffle sauce and the loin of veal with smoked veal sausage, cognac
sauce and truffled mashed potato. We were smitten by the wild mushroom
ravioli and the cold seafood pâté with lobster and salmon for
starters. The roast duckling with raspberry sauce and the filet of pork
tenderloin with dijon mustard-tomato-cornichon sauce and a goat cheese
soufflé were superior main dishes. Claudia prepares the desserts, which
include an excellent chocolate-hazelnut dacquoise, orange cheesecake
with grand marnier, rhubarb cobbler and kiwi sorbet. Eric uncorked the
Mount Nittany Vineyard & Winery champagne with a saber in the
napoleonic style. The upstairs bistro called The Nest
offers casual dining (from pizzas and salads to steak frites) as well as
jazz, blues and cocktails. (814) 422-9025. Entrées,
$23.75 to $32. Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday from 5. Bistro, $4.50 to $16, 5
to midnight.
Finally, a sophisticated, worldly
bistro in downtown State College. After three years as executive chef at
the Carnegie House here, Culinary Institute of America graduate Paul
Kendaffy left in 2002 to open his own with-it place with David Fonash, a
former sous chef and wine expert who grew up in State College. Theirs is a large, high-ceilinged and
nicely noisy restaurant with an open kitchen at the rear, a bar with
high tables and leather
sofas, and white-clothed tables along the tall front windows and side
walls. The latter are rust-colored and accented with hooked rugs and
wall hangings. Votive candles flicker on the tables. Chef Paul’s food is some of the
most innovative found outside Pennsylvania’s largest cities.
Adventurous diners are rewarded with changing treats ranging from crispy
whole red snapper with a red chile and ginger sauce to pork tenderloin
stuffed with pears and rosemary, sauced with cognac and mustard, and
served with a honey-roasted sweet potato puree. Consider a menu that
offers a choice of rare sesame-seed-crusted yellowfin tuna with port and
ginger sauce, steamed chick pea dumplings with red chile beurre blanc
and citrus couscous, and whole roasted foie gras with sautéed fruits
and eighteen-year-old balsamic vinegar ($75 for two). There’s even a
beluga caviar tasting appetizer to start the splurge. We were quite taken with the tuna
tartare, which arrived – stylishly but improbably – atop the base of
an upside-down martini glass, dressed with a lime-cilantro vinaigrette
and chive cream, and the steamed pumpkin dumplings laced with guava,
peach and blackberry coulis. The Lyon-style salad with potato, curly
endive, bacon and poached egg was superb. So was the entrée of
free-range breast of duck and confit of leg, served with a creamy white
bean ragoût. Desserts included vanilla crème brûlée, chocolate
mousse and fruit sorbets, From the olive and Italian breads
that began the meal to the Rabbit Ridge zinfandel that we nursed to the
end, here was a first-rate dining occasion. (814) 237-8474. Entrées, $15 to
$26. Dinner, Monday-Saturday 5:30 to 9 or 10. The Gamble Mill
Tavern The first Bellefonte building to earn
placement on the National Register, this three-story mill dates to 1785
as part of the earliest settlement in the Nittany Valley. The co-owners,
self-taught chef Courtney Confer and manager Jeanne Murphy, started in
1986 with a soup and sandwich restaurant. Now the full-service facility
heads most lists of favorite eating spots and includes a revolving art
gallery. Dining is on several levels in rooms
of varying size. Tables are grouped in the cobblestone carriageway,
where millstones are embedded on the floor. There are a tavern room of
brick and wood, a loft-style dining area full of hanging plants, and a
huge dining room for functions or overflow. The mill is a sight to behold, both
for its art and its history. The food measures up, as evidenced by our
lunches of smoked salmon risotto, served with wilted spinach and
tomato-basil vinaigrette, and a warm Polynesian chicken salad with
avocado, melon and bell peppers in a fabulous orange-ginger dressing.
Our tablemates liked their creole pasta, mesquite-grilled shrimp with
black beans and roasted pepper salsa, turkey club croissant and
char-grilled vegetable pita, although one was not happy with the Thai
shrimp that was not at all Thai. Cappuccino torte and an ice cream puff
were tasty desserts. Fans say the signature death by chocolate is to die
for. At night, the setting is elegant for
Courtney’s ahi tuna with Asian dipping sauce, seafood strudel, grilled
salmon caribe, crab cakes, chicken montrachet, mustard-crusted rack of
lamb, and mixed grill of smoked duck breast and venison chop with dried
fruit sauce. The wine list is small but choice and affordable. (814) 355-7764. www.gamblemill.com.
Entrées, $16.95 to $25.50. Lunch, Monday-Saturday, 11:30 to 2:30.
Dinner, Monday-Saturday, 5 to 8. La
Bella Trattoria This old-world restaurant beside and
beneath the restored Garman Opera House theater opened in 2002 to a
receptive audience, wooed partly, no doubt, by the offering of
complimentary wine and beer. Artificial vines and grapes are twined
around grotto-like dining rooms with stone walls, red-clothed tables and
booths on two floors. The menu promises a mix of Italian
and “nouveau cuisine.” That translated to seven pasta offerings and
half a dozen each of veal and chicken dishes, plus mussels marinara,
garlic-encrusted salmon with creamy dill sauce, yellowfin tuna steak
with tomato-basil-olive salsa, shrimp and scallop scampi, and filet
mignon with mushroom-brandy cream sauce. Typical starters are crab and
corn bisque, antipasti with meat and cheese, brandied mushrooms over
crostini and smoked provolone with a hearty red sauce. Cheesecake, cannolis and tiramisu are
favorite desserts. (814) 353-8808. Entrées, $12.99
to $19.99. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday 5 to 8 or 9. BYOB.
Steaks and seafood are the specialties in this
handsome stone building, a stage stop tavern dating to 1819. There’s a
good variety of menu choices, served in both formal and informal
surroundings with appropriate Colonial atmosphere. The extensive Duffy’s Tavern menu
is heavy on snack food, from “porridge of the day” (homemade soup)
to a “Colonial sampler” of Buffalo-style wings, potato skins,
mozzarella sticks and fried zucchini. Seven kinds of burgers and twice
as many sandwiches and croissants are on the all-day menu. The
tavern’s changing specials might be rainbow trout sautéed with a
lemon-peppercorn sauce, grilled tuna steak with citrus butter, almond
chicken and New York strip steak. The formal Boalsburg Tavern menu is
more elaborate, with offerings from bacon-wrapped sea bass with
horseradish aioli to grilled lamb loin steak with rosemary jus. Lump
crab cakes with sweet chili sauce and pan-seared elk ribeye steak with
prosciutto-blue cheese sauce are other possibilities. The 22-inch-thick stone walls are as
solid as the day they were erected, keeping the interior temperatures a
cool 68 degrees even in summer. The terrace is a favorite for outdoor
dining in season. (814) 466-6241. Entrées,
$13.95 to $19.95. Lunch, Monday-Saturday 11:30 to 2. Dinner,
Monday-Saturday 5 to 10.
This ramble of rooms along the
historic walkway, beside the Centennial Pig sculpture and just below the
Penn State campus, is dark and historic with wood paneling, green and
white tablecloths and all kinds of university memorabilia. It’s of the
genre that students and nostalgic alumni love, and has been a State
College fixture since its founding in 1948. The menu, printed daily, features
good old American fare with cajun and Italian accents. It lists
spaghetti with marinara sauce for $7.95 and the optional Italian
meatballs cost 95 cents each. Typical starters are shrimp cocktail, hot
garlic and potato soup, clams casino, marinated herring and escargots.
Main courses range widely from baked cod with sweet pepper and fennel
sauce, sautéed sea scallops with mushrooms and wine, crab cakes and
marlin steak with lemon-tarragon butter to chicken cordon bleu, German
pot roast with red wine, veal parmesan and New York strip steak. The
price includes as many choices from the old-fashioned vegetable and
salad menu as one wishes. The vegetable platter – also an
all-you-can-eat, unlimited selection – goes for a bargain $5.95. The Tavern’s fans consistently vote
it the area’s best restaurant. (814) 238-6116. Entrées, $8.95 to
$17.95. Dinner nightly, 5 to 10 or 10:30, Sunday to 8:30.
Located above the busy Corner Room
Restaurant, another Penn State institution, is this large and more
contemporary retreat with a second-floor porch overlooking “The
Wall,” a favorite campus gathering spot. Where the Corner Room’s
ultra-extensive menu is rather basic, the upstairs gets upscale in the
collegiate idiom Main dishes include char-grilled grouper Mediterranean,
balsamic maple-glazed salmon, chicken bordelaise and mixed grill. Pastas
are interesting, as in tomato-vodka shrimp over orecchiette or
fettuccine tossed with chicken, crab and sundried tomatoes. Starters include coconut shrimp, crab
and mango spring rolls, grilled portobello mushroom and a nacho platter
billed as downtown’s biggest and best, enough for two or more to
share. Carrot cake and chocolate mousse pie are the desserts of choice. The Corner Room serves three
meals a day. It began as Jack’s Road House in 1855, the year the
agricultural predecessor to Penn State was founded. Both restaurants are
in the landmark Hotel State College, most of whose original 70 rooms
have been converted to apartments or shops. (814) 231-4745. Entrées,
$12.95 to $21.95. Lunch daily from 11. Dinner, 4:30 to 10 or 11. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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