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The Woman Who Couldn't Stop Eating
By Amanda Angel
April 14, 2005
Lured by the promise of three-course meals for $19.95 and cheap wine, I traded exercise time for restaurant time last week, and dined out nightly in my own observance of Hamptons Restaurant Week.
The prospect of gorging on three haute-cuisine courses rather than spending an hour on the treadmill was a little daunting at first, and my colleagues didn't make it any easier by equating my restaurant crawl to "Super Size Me." I envisioned an exploding waistline, skyrocketing cholesterol, and a general health failure.
But once I learned that I could put it all on an expense account, I jumped at the chance to have eight dinners on eight nights in eight different restaurants from East Quogue to Montauk.
It quickly became apparent that the participating restaurants were divided into two groups: those that wanted to impress and expand their clientele, and those that just wanted some of the publicity generated by restaurant week. Some places offered selections from their regular menus, as well as specials; others served leftover scraps while pushing expensive drinks.
Some menus seemed boundless, while others were extremely limited. Almost all the restaurants converged in offerings of chicken, fish, and pasta. I believe I ate my weight in tiramisu. There was, too, a proliferation of Long Island merlot. Merlot is one of the favored grapes of Long Island vineyards, so one has to wonder if the movie "Sideways," which degraded merlot, might have influenced its discounted status.
Three of us inaugurated the week with a Sunday dinner at the Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue, where we were immediately spoiled. If I had known that Sunday's restaurant would set the bar for all the others I might have saved it for later in the week. Although it presented a separate restaurant week menu, the restaurant did not sacrifice the quality of its pricey meals. The steak was succulent, the flounder tender, and the opera cake, stuffed with the perfect proportion of buttercream and ganache, was to die for.
That dinner whetted my palate, and the next day, I enthusiastically set my schedule for the rest of the week. I brought gourmands together with the restaurants they wanted to try.
When I picked up the phone to make reservations, I discovered that although restaurant week ran from Sunday to Sunday, most participating restaurants were closed from Monday through Wednesday. After some research I found that Almond was open on Mondays, and was able to book a table.
The waitress at Almond gave us one tiny prix fixe menu to share among the five of us, and it was more than underwhelming, with an uninspiring choice of chicken, salmon, or a sandwich, a disappointment, coming as it did one night after Stone Creek.
Luckily, the chicken and salmon - none of us would have ordered a sandwich unless it had foie gras, caviar, truffles, and kobe beef on it - were executed simply but perfectly. The chocolate brownie was also better than it sounded on the menu.
On Tuesday I was on my own, and decided to visit Cittanuova, whose flat screen televisions replace the need for company. Cittanuova also restricted its prix-fixe offerings to the nether regions of the menu, where I eventually found them.
Both prosciutto crudo and chicken alla Milanese arrived at warp speed. It's not as if they had to turn my table, though; a waitress was overheard complaining that the usual patrons had gone off to more expensive restaurants to take advantage of the special. The tastiest part of the meal was the arugula salad, which says as much about the quality of Cittanuova's greens as it does about the other dishes. My biggest restaurant week regret is that I ordered a bland tiramisu rather than a strawberry gelato over pound cake for dessert.
On Wednesday the restaurant options opened up, and I headed for Saracen, the Wainscott Italian. The special menu liberated me from the chicken-fish-pasta dungeon I had been living in for three days, offering osso buco, short ribs, a vegetarian selection, seven appetizers, and eight entrees. Thank you, Saracen, for embracing restaurant week wholeheartedly and for not making us bargain seekers feel like cheapskates.
Saracen also reinvigorated my love of tiramisu with a creamy, deconstructed version. The cannoli and almond cake were worth the extra calories, too.
By last Thursday, I had visited four restaurants in four nights and eaten well beyond my normal amount. The extravagance was starting to take a toll on my body. So after a much-needed sojourn to the gym, I went to the Palm.
I had heard that in the past, the Palm did not offer steak on its prix fixe menu, which is like an ice cream shop offering only frozen yogurt. And so my companion and I were relieved to see beef tenderloin on the menu. We each received two scraps of tenderloin, a mound of fried onions and potatoes, and slices of cakes that were better suited to your grocer's pastry case.
The last three nights are a blur - mounds of unctuous risotto, generous portions of meat, and more tiramisu. I enjoyed Friday's sunset over Fort Pond in Montauk while dining at East by Northeast, another place that embraced restaurant week, complete with $5 glasses of wine.
Fortunately I made a 6 p.m. reservation at Red Bar in Southampton on Saturday, the one day of the week when the prix fixe offer ended at 7 p.m. Red Bar offered choices from its regular menu. A truffled chicken breast over mushroom risotto didn't disappoint, though my companion's cod was a little undercooked. The fallen chocolate souffle cake was a perfect ending to the meal. I did find it underhanded of Red Bar to end the prix fixe at 6:45 p.m., 15 minutes short of the designated time.
By the time Sunday rolled around I was ready to go back to omelette and turkey burger dinners, but I had to suck it up and eat at the final restaurant on my list: Nick and Toni's. I was lucky to get an 8:15 reservation, and was seated promptly, still jazzed about the exciting finish to the Master's Tournament an hour earlier. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Nick and Toni's offered all its customers only the prix fixe menu, which included the discounted wines.
My companion and I chose the Paumanok chardonnay for $19.95, and went to town on the menu. We shared a plate of cured meats, which were much more interesting than the cold asparagus appetizer. He gobbled up his rock shrimp risotto, while I enjoyed a well-made pork loin with spaghetti squash and brussels sprouts. For dessert, what else: tiramisu.
After 24 courses for $159.60 plus tax and tip, all I can say is that the diet started on Monday.
View this article at www.easthamptonstar.com
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