Looking for local flavor in Waddington

WADDINGTON — Follow the St. Lawrence River along Route 37 between Ogdensburg and Massena and you'll see Murray's Old Irish Inn as you pass through the small village of Waddington.

It's an old house with several large dining rooms and a popular bar as you enter the restaurant. The last time we were there, quite a few years ago, it was called the Town House and specialized in Italian cuisine.

With "Irish Inn" in the name, we were expecting maybe some Irish dishes like shepherd's pie or bangers and mash. There wasn't one thing Irish on the menu, except maybe Killian's Irish Red, and that doesn't necessarily fall into the category of food.

It was Saturday night, all-you-can-eat prime rib and seafood buffet night. The smaller of two dining rooms next to the bar was set up with a table full of chafing dishes. A smattering of diners was piling their plates high, mainly with meat, but we decided to order from the regular menu.

Appetizer choices are pretty much bar food: onion rings, jalapeno poppers, deep-fried mushrooms, mozzarella sticks ... you get the picture. The only items that would require any effort on the part of the kitchen are potato skins, poutine, or the one we tried, garlic bread with cheese ($4.95).

It was pretty simple: four hoagie roll halves covered with melted Monterey jack cheese. If there was any garlic on the bread at all, it was smothered by the cheese. And the cheese needed a pinch of salt to make it taste like anything.

A choice of soup or salad comes with the main course.

The soup was seafood chowder, pretty dismal, overly thick, lacking in flavor and seafood. More like corn and potato chowder. The salad was pretty basic: iceberg lettuce, carrot pieces, a grape tomato or two.

Entrée selections are a little sparse, with two pasta choices, four steaks and a like number of seafood selections (two shrimp, one haddock, surf and turf).

Tequila lime shrimp ($15.95) sounded great: "Shrimp sautéed with onions, garlic, lime, tomatoes, butter and herbs, served over pasta."

The ingredients would lead you to believe it would be a mighty tasty dish, but except for an interesting lime flavor, it was mighty weak-tasting.

The shrimp were the smallest I've ever seen served in a restaurant, and the tiny tails were inconveniently left on for us to remove. Tweezers would have come in handy.

One of the pasta dishes was Chicken Murray ($12.95), their signature dish, we assumed — chunks of chicken and fresh vegetables tossed with pasta in a butter garlic sauce, according to the menu.

The chicken had no flavor, the vegetables came from a frozen state and the butter garlic sauce was tasteless and watery. A frozen food dinner from the IGA next door would have tasted better.

Surf and turf seemed like a safe bet and a good deal at $15.95, a 12-ounce New York strip served with scampi-style shrimp.

The steak was delivered sizzling hot on a sizzle platter, topped with a skewer of shrimp. The meat arrived medium-rare, as we ordered it, but continued to cook on the hot platter as we cut into it. Within a few minutes it was medium-well.

The shrimp were the same little ones used in the pasta dish, stretched out somehow, presumably to make them appear bigger, all held together by a long wooden skewer. They looked more like smushed centipedes on a stick.

There must have been two dozen of the little buggers, all adding up to barely one forkful. Nicely seasoned, though.

Dessert was limited to a brownie with cream cheese frosting. We declined.

Dinner for three (one appetizer, three entrées, no dessert) came to $53. A round of reasonably priced drinks added $11 to the total.

Our waitress was a little flustered throughout the evening. She told us the scheduled bartender did not show, and she was covering the busy bar as well as the not-very-busy dining room. She was pleasant and polite and tried her best to be attentive.

For some reason, early on, she removed the empty water glasses from our table rather than fill them. And we had to snatch our own salt and pepper shakers from the table next to us.

On the way out, we got to peek under the covers of the buffet chafing dishes. The bland seafood chowder was there as well as the previously frozen vegetables, small crab legs, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a chafing dish with scraps of overcooked meat that the waitress told us was prime rib.

There's an extensive selection of salads, sandwiches and wraps on the menu, no doubt to keep the bar crowd fortified.

TIDBITS

While in New York City last week, I ventured from my hotel in search of sushi. There were five sushi/Japanese restaurants within two blocks, making for a tough decision.

I went into the restaurant that I knew had been there the longest, New Hane Sushi on Third Avenue on the corner of 38th Street.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon. Almost every table was occupied and only one seat was open at the sushi bar, which I quickly occupied.

Three sushi chefs were cranking out what may well be the best sushi I have ever had. I got two of my favorites, hamachi (yellowtail) and tobiko (flying fish roe), and tried something I hadn't seen on sushi menus previously, kampachi (wild yellowtail). All were absolutely superb.

The menu offers a large selection of "fusion" dishes. Many I've never seen before like marinated Chilean sea bass with spinach noodles, broiled eel sashimi with kabayaki sauce (soy, mirin, sugar), shrimp wrapped with shredded potato, Alaskan black cod in yuzo miso (Japanese citrus sauce), and much more.

View the entire menu, complete with impressive photos at www.hanesushinyc.com

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

Murray's Old Irish Inn

Route 37 and Lincoln Avenue

Waddington, N.Y.

388-4820

HOURS: Opens at 11 a.m. daily

RATING: 1 and one-half forks