Comfort, food go together at Ole Satch’s
Russell — In the foothills of the Adirondacks in St. Lawrence County, just outside Russell on the way to Edwards, the night sky is illuminated by the Northern Lights.
Wait a minute. It’s not the Northern Lights at all. It’s the light of the beer signs hanging in the windows of Pour Ole Satch’s.
Talk about being in the sticks. This place is in The Sticks.
And in a parking lot filled with Ford and Chevy pickup trucks, we might have been just a little conspicuous pulling up in our Land Rover SUV.
A friendly bar crowd gave us the once-over as we entered, between bites of sticky chicken wings and swigs of Busch. The stare-down didn’t last long. We dressed for the occasion in our comfiest jeans and flannel shirts and hunting club logo baseball caps.
As they say, “When in Rome …”
Or in this case, “When in Russell …”
Here’s the thing I love most about these country bar/restaurants. A round of drinks for the WDT Reviewing Team — two beers and two mixed drinks — came to $8.
At those prices, it almost costs more to stay home.
Pour Ole Satch’s is relatively new, built in 2004 from the ground up. The dining room is separated from the bar by a movable wall, the miniature version of what you see in a gymnasium.
There’s lots of knotty pine on the walls and real ceramic tile on the floors. It’s clean and neatly kept. A glowing wood stove adds extra coziness to the dining room. Small pumpkins and gourds are thoughtful table centerpieces — a real hometown feel.
The menu offers sandwiches, wraps, burgers, pizza and wings along with a full dinner menu with steak, chicken and broiled and fried seafood.
Almost everyone at the bar was ordering chicken wings. They smelled great.
Appetizers offer a prelude to dinner or could well be dinner at the bar, mostly standard fried stuff like cheese sticks, breaded mushrooms, fried clams, pizza logs and “fresh cut” french fries.
Look carefully and you’ll find several items that will be hand-crafted in the kitchen like poutine, nachos and bruschetta.
We got started with a sample platter of appetizers. You get to choose four appetizers, smaller portions, for $11. Choices are limited to prefrozen items.
“Brew City” french fries were seasoned steak fries. Bacon-wrapped scallops were on the dry side, but a good change from the usual deep-fried fare. Onion petals were new to us — breaded onion pieces in the shape of rose petals. Popcorn chicken was mostly breading, the stubby version of chicken fingers. I would have named them chicken thumbs.
It was probably an innocent oversight, but we had to ask for dipping sauces. All in all, a pretty good bang for the buck, and noticeably greaseless for being deep-fried.
Salads, fresh as you could get, came with our entrées and were delightful — crisp iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, sliced radishes, big cuts of green pepper. Adequate commercial dressings were served in little plastic containers with letters in black marker on top indicating the contents. Blue cheese crumbles a plus, and at no extra charge.
Chicken Parm ($12.95) was available with the chicken grilled or fried. We went with grilled. Spaghetti filled out the plate, everything being covered with a sauce we assumed was homemade, a little strong with a green pepper taste. It lacked depth, but nonetheless it was comfort food, and a lot of it.
New York strip steak ($14.95), with faint grill marks, was long and relatively thin with a strip of fat running the length of it. While it appeared to have some seasoning on it, it still needed a pinch of salt. That brought out a pretty good flavor. It was overcooked, arriving medium-well rather than medium-rare, but we realize a thin steak is tricky to cook.
A big blob of homemade mashed potatoes was good, covered with dark brown gravy, and was way more than one human could consume in one sitting. Previously frozen broccoli and carrots were enhanced with a light seasoning of some sort.
Broiled seafood platter ($16.50) was disappointing. Scallops were small and rubbery. Shrimp were overcooked. Haddock had a gray look to it. All the seafood was dreadfully bland.
Coconut shrimp ($12.95) saved the day. Impressively large shrimp were covered with a light tempura-like batter and lightly fried. This was a very good entrée, accompanied with the same broccoli and carrot medley.
The bill arrived before we were offered dessert. Understandable, because quite a bit of the food on our plates made a return trip to the kitchen — large portions, especially the sides.
There were two homemade desserts available the night we were there: brownie sundae and cheesecake with your choice of topping, priced at $3.50 each.
The sundae was good, served in a small bowl, a warmed brownie covered with plenty of vanilla ice cream and lots of whipped topping. A large portion.
The cheesecake was good, too. A tall cake-like outside crust supported an interesting filling, creamy yet not ultrasmooth, almost the consistency of tapioca (though we were told it was not). Cherry topping was standard.
Dinner for four cost $80 before tip. Two rounds of drinks added $16 to the total.
No bread was served or offered. Water was given upon request.
Service was friendly and adequate.
Prime rib is served on weekends. Live entertainment, too.
You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Pour Ole Satch’s
1156 County Route 17
Russell
562-1311
www.pourolesatchs.com
www.myspace.com/pourolesatchs
A rural bar/restaurant serving up sandwiches, wraps, burgers, pizza and wings along with a full dinner menu with steaks, chicken and seafood
RATING: 2 and one-half forks
