Drive a bit and enjoy some tasty lunches
Brown Dog Cafe (with photo); Erawan Thai Restaurant ( photo of this restaurant to come later this week. wally accidentally deleted the photo he took)
Recently, we went eating on the fringe — the fringe of the newspaper's readership area. Lunch in Lake Placid one day, lunch in Syracuse a few days later.
Here's what we found.
THE BROWN DOG CAFé & WINE BAR
2409 MAIN ST.
LAKE PLACID
1 (518) 523-7864
Lake Placid's a little quiet this time of the year. The locals call it the mud season.
Several restaurants and shops close for weeks at a time. But we did find a neat little café on Main Street ready to serve lunch to us on a recent weekday.
The Brown Dog Café & Wine Bar has been there for almost a decade, serving up gourmet sandwiches and fresh market salads by day, adding light bistro fare and dinner selections at night.
The place is really neat. You get the feeling you're walking into an old general store with creaky floors and original tin ceiling. Small tables with embroidered tablecloths (like Grandma used to make) dot the room. A big picture window on the back wall overlooks Mirror Lake and Whiteface Mountain in the distance.
Let me tantalize you with some evening choices: Chardonnay-poached mussels, smoked duck quesadilla, prosciutto-wrapped scallops with artichoke citrus pesto, iron-seared filet mignon with roasted tomato chutney, sugar-seared organic Scottish salmon, New Zealand lamb loin with mustard mint demi.
But we were there for lunch, and that menu was equally inventive.
House specialty sandwiches like Angus corned beef with Swiss and roasted red pepper mayo; ham, cappicola, hard salami and provolone with red onion, tomato and roasted-garlic vinaigrette; roasted chicken breast with pancetta, field greens, tomato, ranch dressing on rosemary-olive oil sourdough.
We tried the roast beef sandwich ($7.50); certified Angus roast beef with horseradish mayo, Maytag blue cheese spread, caramelized onions, tomatoes and field greens on a French baguette.
Excellent! A beautiful, crusty baguette, rare roast beef, a marvelous combination of flavors. A side of tasty vegetable slaw came with it.
For salads, they offer a classic Caesar, chicken salad with pecans, chef salad and the one we tried, roasted vegetable ($7.50) — a huge plateful of field greens topped with roasted red and yellow peppers, carrots, red onion, cauliflower, broccoli and mushrooms, goat cheese sprinkled on top.
This was good enough to make even a die-hard carnivore consider becoming a vegetarian ("consider" being the key word there).
We shared the featured soup of the day, a crock of lobster and scallop bisque ($5.95). We knew it was going to be good — we could smell it as it was delivered to the table. It was REALLY good.
They've got a great selection of wines (more than 60) by the glass or the bottle, at all price points. I splurged on a glass of Chappellet Chardonnay ($15) from the hills of California's Napa Valley, subtly fruity with oaky overtones.
Lunch for two, not including the wine, came to $25. A great value, we felt.
Brown Dog Café is open Thursday through Monday. They serve lunch from noon to 4 p.m., dinner from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Days of operation will expand as the summer season approaches.
ERAWAN THAI RESTAURANT
2724 ERIE BLVD. E.
SYRACUSE
445-8152
WWW.ERAWAN-INC.COM
Saturday is an unpredictable lunch day in the restaurant business. While many places have their "regulars" during the week, Saturday can be hit or miss.
At Erawan Thai Restaurant on a recent Saturday, it was a hit. This plain-on-the-outside eatery was filled to capacity on the inside.
One remarkable waitress, with the assistance of a lady who we suspected was the owner, was taking care of the entire 60-seat room. The customers didn't wander in by chance. Erawan's reputation for well-prepared Thai cuisine was the reason they were there.
And we certainly were not disappointed, except for the difficulty deciding on what to have from the 160-item menu. Each dish is numbered, making it easy for those unable to speak fluent Thai and just as easy for our waitress, she admitted.
Here's what we had for lunch, by the numbers:
No. 5: Vegetarian Paw Peea Sod ($1.49). Fresh rice paper roll stuffed with tofu, lettuce and coriander leaves. This little treat was served chilled, the unmistakable taste of cilantro dominating the roll. A slightly spicy fish sauce (nam pla) was provided for dipping.
No. 8: Paw Peea Tod ($1.49). This dainty and crunchy little deep-fried egg roll, more like a spring roll, was stuffed with ground pork, cabbage and carrots. A little greasy, but nonetheless good. Fish sauce came on the side.
No. 11: Goong Pun Oy ($6.99). Grilled ground shrimp wrapped around a stick of sugar cane and quickly deep-fried. The shrimp flavor certainly didn't overpower, and the cucumber salad served with it was just average. Sucking on the grease-impregnated sugar cane was fun.
No. 17: Tom Yum Hed ($3.79). A yummy soup consisting of straw mushrooms in a spicy broth with lemon grass, lime juice, lime leaves, baby corn and chili paste. You get to call your degree of spiciness on this one. We went with medium. So glad our waitress kept our water glasses filled.
No. 138: Gaeng Gai ($6.99). Bits of chicken with red curry paste, bamboo shoots, baby corn and sweet basil leaves in a coconut-milk-based broth. We chose medium spiciness on this one. It was served over a bed of perfectly cooked rice.
No. 152: Pla Muk Pad Kra Pow ($7.49). This is a seafood dish. You get to choose between shrimp or squid.
We went with squid, stir-fried with onions, scallions, green peppers, chili peppers and sweet basil leaves over a bed of rice. The squid is different from what we're used to — unique to Thai cooking — thick and chewy. The Thai sweet basil leaves give this dish a very distinctive flavor.
Nos. 138 and 152 are lunch entrées, available mild, medium or hot. Both are served with an egg roll and are more than sufficient portions.
Lunch for two with "extras" cost $28 before tip.
Erawan Thai Restaurant serves lunch daily from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. It's closed Sundays.
You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net
See THESE G
These two lunch spots are worth
making the drive to get to them
