A visit to an Ogdensburg landmark: Sholette's

OGDENSBURG — Cruise down Route 37 near Walmart and Price Chopper and you can't miss Sholette's Steak & Ale.

It's a big free-standing building that's been there for at least two decades. You'd figure they must be doing something right to be around for that long.

Inside, the atmosphere was more like a yahoo sports bar than a restaurant/ale house, complete with the stale smell of popcorn and fried food.

The eating area and drinking area are pretty much one and the same. Every inch of the walls and ceiling are covered with beer signs, blow-up blimps and inflatable airplanes decorated with beer and wine company logos. Several semi-large-screen TVs were showing soundless sporting events.

For a weekday night, they had a good crowd. Several tables of moms and pops with little kids were having all-American dinners of burgers and fries. Next to us, a table of women were enjoying a night on the town.

Still others were scattered around the room downing chicken fingers, boneless Buffalo wings and potato skins with one hand while washing it down with a Busch, a Bud or a Blue in the other.

Our waitress was pert and perky and to the point. She had the menu down cold and rattled off the salad dressing choices with machine gun precision, all with the enthusiasm of a new hire (though she later told us she'd been working there for nearly 10 years).

For appetizers, there's about every conceivable fried food known to man, plus additional artery-cloggers like poutine, loaded fries and nachos "supreme."

We ordered several interesting starters: breaded dill pickles, Parmesan-crusted Sicilian quesadilla, an Italian sampler and a cup of French onion soup.

But wait a minute, here come our salads before the appetizers. A large plate held a whopping pile of iceberg lettuce with a few other crispy vegetables thrown in. Salad dressings in those little plastic containers were piled right on top of the salad, as were the institutional dinner rolls and butter packets.

Since there were no plates for the bread, we carefully placed our rolls on the bare dinner table. The two homemade dressings we tried, Italian and ranch, were quite nice.

You don't often see deep-fried pickles ($6.79) on a north country menu, and quite frankly, I like them. Dip them in some ranch dressing, and you've got a tangy and tasty little treat you can eat with your fingers.

Everyone else in the room was eating with their fingers, so I didn't want to stick out in a crowd.

The Sicilian quesadilla ($7.49) was great, a meal in itself, stuffed with chicken, sausage, bacon, chopped tomatoes and cheese. The outside of the tortilla was dusted with Parm and broiled till crisp.

Italian sampler ($9.99) consisted of two no-surprise favorites, mozzarella sticks and fried ravioli, served with a cup of pretty blah marinara sauce for dipping. The platter was completed with a piece of house-made bruschetta, chopped tomatoes with Italian seasonings on soft bread, topped with lots of melted mozzarella.

The cup of French onion soup ($2.99) was enjoyable, a not-too-salty beef broth with perfectly cooked onions, good croutons and thick melted Provolone.

Entrees arrived as we were still finishing appetizers. There were dishes all over the table. Neglecting to clear them, our waitress stood with one entrée in each hand, asking, "Who got the steak?" and "Who got the fish?"

Being the helpful guests that we are, we gathered up our dirty plates to make room for the next course, trading used dishes for food dishes with our server.

The steak was beautiful, a 6-ounce piece of beef tenderloin ($17.99) cooked perfectly to our request of medium-rare, to the rare side. It was nicely seasoned and tender as could be, juices flowing onto the plate with each cut.

According to the menu, the fish was garlic and herb crusted tilapia ($12.99). The crust was a thick, crunchy, tasty breading, not overpowered by garlic or herbs by any means. The fish was also thick, thick like haddock, not the thin tilapia filet we're used to.

"Del's spaghetti" ($13.79) was an enormous portion of pasta smothered with lots of sauce along with onions, peppers and thinly sliced pepperoni. The sauce was just sauce. Nothing wrong with it, just lacking in good flavor.

There was a tennis ball-sized meatball in the center, more bread than meat, from the taste of it. Two large pieces of sausage were full of flavor, and just the right amount of "hot" to kick a dull dish up a notch.

And even after four of us sampled the spaghetti entrée, there was still plenty left to take home — enough, in fact, to weigh a full 2 pounds on our kitchen scale.

Chicken Parmesan ($14.99) was another large portion of thin spaghetti with two good-sized, lightly breaded chicken breasts on top. Everything was covered with sauce and lots of melted cheese, browned in the broiler just short of burned.

Baked potato was OK. Mashed potatoes were not, especially with the jellylike tasteless turkey gravy on top (we had to ask what kind of gravy it was). There wasn't a vegetable in sight, fresh or otherwise, unless you count the purple kale and green pepperoncini garnish.

Homemade apple pie ($2.99) was delightful — flaky crust, a touch of cinnamon. Homemade pumpkin pie ($2.99), on the other hand, had an odd taste — like ground raisins — with the surface of the pumpkin filling looking and tasting burned. Pumpkin pie brulée?

Turtle cheesecake ($5.49), a commercial product, was very good — creamy cream cheese with its distinctive crushed pecans and gooey caramel, nicely drizzled with chocolate sauce. Our piece was still a little frozen in the middle.

Total food tab came to $114 with tax, before tip. Draft beer (we had a Molson Canadian) was priced at $1.20, which we thought was a good deal.

A solo musician was singing and playing amplified guitar to prerecorded backgrounds. I'm all for live music, but the volume was so loud, we couldn't hear ourselves talking across the table.

We were surprised that Sholette's Steak & Ale has become more like Sholette's "burger & brew" over the years. With about 25 finger food appetizers, a dozen burgers and wraps and nearly two dozen sandwich selections, casual food is king.

In our review of Carthage's Bombay Duck Pickle Café a few weeks ago, we gave incorrect hours of operation. They're open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday.

You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.

Sholette's Steak & Ale

Corner of Route 37 and Linden Street

Ogdensburg, NY

393-5172

HOURS: 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday

11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday

3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday

3 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday

11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday

12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

RATING: 2-1/2 forks