A dinner with the inn crowd
There aren't many motels that offer in-house dining anymore, even though many weary travelers appreciate the convenience of a restaurant on the premises.
The Best Western Carriage House Inn & Conference Center in downtown Watertown has maintained a restaurant for many years. In fact, we remember its Carriage House Restaurant as a local dining destination in the 1970s and '80s for travelers and townspeople alike.
Times change and ownerships change. Chefs and waitstaff come and go. Menus evolve as the years go by.
Now there are two dining facilities. Breakfast and lunch are served in the spacious Carriage House; dinner is served in the smaller Michelle's Bistro.
We began our visit with a quick stop at the bar. Pretty good crowd for a weekday night, we thought. We meandered across the hall with our beverages to Michelle's.
It's a cozy little room with a bit of a colonial/country look. A mirrored wall makes it appear bigger than it is. We grabbed a corner table in an elevated portion of the room.
The menu is compact and pretty basic: appetizers, salads, steaks, seafood and pasta.
I've always had this theory that if a restaurant's soup is good, then the rest of the meal is going to be good.
The soup of the day ($2.99) was beef vegetable. While the bowl contained a variety of veggies, we were hard pressed to find much beef. And the stock was rather tasteless, too.
Utica greens (wilted escarole, garlic, Italian ham) caught our eye on the appetizer list, something that would reveal the skill of the chef. Unfortunately, we were told the kitchen doesn't make that anymore.
The greens are an Italian favorite. I happened to have two Italian friends with me, and they were visibly disappointed. No tears, but four hands waving in the air.
You know how it goes.
Bruschetta ($4.99) is always great for sharing. There were four sizable pieces of hoagie roll covered with tomatoes, garlic and mozzarella cheese.
While bruschetta is usually bursting with flavor, this version wasn't. And it was a little on the soggy side, too. Perhaps the bread could have been toasted first.
Fried calamari ($5.99) was standard fare, freezer-to-fryer variety, more breading than fish, served with an OK marinara sauce.
A half-dozen littleneck clams prepared casino style ($5.99) were nicely presented on a bed of lettuce. Bacon is an important part of clams casino, and was quite visible in this version.
But the bacon flavor (and the clam flavor) was buried by what tasted like hot chicken wing sauce. Hot sauce? Why would someone put hot sauce on clams casino?
Salads do not come with the entrées, our waitress told us, but didn't offer what might have been available a la carte. We assumed bread does not come with the meal either, because none ever made it to the table.
Grilled rosemary herbed pork chops ($14.99) caught our eye at the top of the menu. Unfortunately, they didn't taste like rosemary or any other herb, just plain old lightly salt-and-peppered pork chops.
The two boneless, center-cut pieces were nicely cooked, however, still juicy when you cut into them. They were served with a baked potato.
The signature rib-eye ($15.99) was nicely cooked, too, ordered medium and arriving just a touch under. A nice cut of flavorful meat, accompanied by a side of spaghetti with marinara sauce.
Don't ask an Italian guy what he thinks of the marinara sauce. I thought it was quite adequate, while my friends spent more time telling me how it should have been made than they did eating it.
Shrimp scampi ($16.99) was disappointing. While the shrimp were a decent size, they were virtually tasteless. No garlic. No butter. No olive oil. How did they cook these things?
And the huge bed of spaghetti underneath had a strange taste that we couldn't identify. Paprika? Old Old Bay?
Chicken Florentine ($13.99) was our favorite. Tender pieces of white meat with rotini pasta, chopped spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and a pesto cream sauce made for a nice blend of flavors and a tasty dish.
Our waitress was quite attentive up until this point. Now it was time to clear the dirty dishes from the table, and she was nowhere to be found.
She eventually surfaced, and we instantly knew where she had been: out back by the Dumpster having a smoke. Guess no one told her that cigarette smoke smell permeates your clothes and follows you back inside.
Desserts, priced at $4.50 each, were not made in-house, but proved to be a decent quality commercial product nonetheless.
Crème brulée cheesecake was rich and buttery-tasting with a dense texture, accompanied by a few dollops of whipped topping.
"Chocolate lovers cake" was a thin slice of very smooth, chocolate-y chocolate. Thumbs up from the chocolate lovers around the table.
Molten "lava cake" was the predictable commercial product, microwaved to make a gooey-chocolate center.
Lemon berry "masquerade" was our least favorite, a soggy lemon cake with a mixture of soggy berries.
The tab for four came to $107 before tip.
You can contact restaurant reviewer Walter Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Michelle's Bistro at the Best Western
300 Washington St.
Watertown, NY
782-8000
www.bestwesternwatertownny.com
HOURS: 5 to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; closed Sunday
Rating: 2 forks
