Edgewood on upswing again with Oscar's

ALEXANDRIA BAY — The Edgewood Resort on the outskirts of Alex Bay has had its ups and downs in recent decades. Quite honestly, we weren't sure if we'd find it open or not.

But this sprawling resort that's been around for more than a century is alive and well in 2010. A leisurely walk through the grounds revealed modern remodeled motel units, a new outdoor in-ground pool area, a marina with a riverfront café and a central building housing a large banquet room, an even larger convention center, and the Edgewood's main restaurant, Oscar's Harborside Cucina.

Just inside the restaurant door we spied a long buffet table with a half-dozen chafing dishes staring us in the face. No thanks, we thought, we don't do buffets ("barffets," as a restaurant friend used to call them).

Luckily, one of the wait staff noticed our indecision and came to the rescue. As it turned out, the barffet was set up for a group meeting at the resort. Oscar's was still serving its regular menu. Whew.

She welcomed us into the dining room where a short, chatty, grandmotherly hostess, Anna Marie, helped us find just the right table. "It may be too hot for you by those big windows," she said with a bit of an Italian accent. "You sit here, by the air conditioning. It's cooler for you."

As it turns out, Anna Marie's daughter, Janine M. Ridley, owns the Edgewood. Anna Marie has been in the restaurant business in Syracuse all her life. When her daughter needed just the right person to manage the restaurant on property, Mom got the call.

But it's really not an "Italian restaurant," as the name would indicate. There was some Italian music coming from the ceiling speakers (with some Al Martino and Frank Sinatra sprinkled in), and there was Anna Marie, but the majority of the menu was non-Italian, consisting of classic dishes like steamed clams, shrimp cocktail, chicken cordon bleu, shrimp scampi, prime rib, surf and turf, fettuccini Alfredo, pork chops and a good selection of steaks.

There's a section of basic Italian dishes, too — spaghetti with homemade meatballs and sauce, baked ziti, ravioli, lasagna, eggplant Parmesan and linguine with red clam sauce.

We began with steamed clams provencal ($9.95), small clams simmered in wine, clam stock, olive oil, herbed tomatoes and whole cloves of garlic. The clams were fine, the resulting broth even better.

An appetizer called fresh mozzarella cheese ($10.95) was really a caprese salad. Sliced tomatoes alternating with sliced mozzarella was drizzled with balsamic dressing and finished with chiffonade (thin shreds) of fresh basil and cracked black pepper.

There's only one month where you can really count on ripe, red tomatoes in the north country and this isn't it. Maybe the mozzarella was fresh, but it had an unwanted chewy and grainy texture to it.

Entrées come with salads. We expected the salads to be served to us, but rather our waitress told us to help ourselves to the salad bar. We couldn't figure if the salad bar was set up for the private party or if it's there every night. And I like salad bars about as much as I like barffets.

Beside crisp lettuce (iceberg and romaine), a good assortment of veggies and bottled dressings, there were some very nice homemade salads — potato, macaroni and cole slaw. And our waitress was nice enough to bring two homemade salad dressings from the kitchen, balsamic and Thousand Island.

The Thousand Island was exceptional, creamy good with all the right stuff in it.

Soft, doughy garlic and cheese breadsticks right out of the oven were delivered to the table, hot and fresh. We could have easily filled up on these.

Entrées were generally good, Oscar's chicken Oscar ($20.95) being most noteworthy. Two moist, lightly breaded breasts were topped with a generous amount of snow crab meat and finished with a tarragon-laced béarnaise sauce.

This was one tasty dish, and nicely presented.

The sauce on the shrimp scampi ($17.95) was very good, made with butter, white wine, fresh garlic and herbs. Angel hair pasta was perfectly cooked. The shrimp might have been a little overcooked; they were a bit tough and mealy.

Veal Parmesan ($17.95) is described as lightly breaded. Unfortunately, it was heavily breaded. And the veal itself required use of a serrated steak knife. It came with spaghetti cooked perfectly al dente and a marvelous homemade marinara sauce that we couldn't get enough of.

Encrusted haddock ($21.95) had a gratinée topping, a mixture of buttered bread crumbs and grated Parmesan. Underneath, there was a lovely lemon cream sauce. The fish itself was OK, but seemed to have the texture of fish that had been frozen and thawed.

Each entrée came with a nice-looking and not-too-bad tasting vegetable medley of green beans, broccoli and sliced yellow carrots. The veggies were of the previously frozen variety, but the kitchen did a nice job of doctoring them up with a little butter and a pinch of seasoning.

Entrées were nicely plated and presented.

Like our salads, dessert was a little weird. Out of the blue, Anna Marie came by and said, "Help yourself to dessert, on me." She was inviting us to partake of the dessert table set up for the party. We weren't sure if those desserts were the same desserts available from the regular menu or not, but we graciously accepted her offer.

We sampled a white cake, a gooey chocolate cake, strawberry shortcake (not sure the strawberries were fresh) and pecan pie. We did find out that most of these are on the regular dessert menu with the addition of cheesecake.

Our dinner — two appetizers, four entrées and complimentary desserts — came to $108 before tip, cocktails and wine. The wine list is quite good, with some way-better-than-average by-the-glass selections.

Perhaps our waitress was new. She didn't think they had sparkling water, then found some. She wasn't sure which salad dressings were homemade. She didn't clear the appetizer plates before bringing the entrées. And she didn't know who got what entrée.

But we appreciated her friendly, relaxed, down-home manner and the fact that she kept our water glasses filled on an excruciatingly hot summer night.

And Anna Marie was not bashful about taking full credit for making the spaghetti sauce and training the executive chef in the making of the Italian specialties. Don't be surprised if she pulls up a chair and joins in the conversation at your table.

Oscar's Harborside Cucina offers a seafood buffet on Friday nights and a prime rib buffet on Saturday nights. Dockside Café at the foot of their marina is open on weekend, serving casual food like pizza, wings, salads and sandwiches.

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

Oscar's Harborside Cucina

at The Edgewood Resort

22467 Edgewood Park Road

Alexandria Bay, N.Y.

482-9923

www.theedgewoodresort.com

The main dining facility at the Edgewood offers seafood, steaks, chicken dishes and Italian specialties.

HOURS: 5 to 9 p.m. seven days a week

APPETIZER PICK: Steamed clams provencal

ENTRÉE PICK: Oscar's chicken Oscar

Be sure to get some of the yummy warm garlic and cheese breadsticks.

RATING: 3 1/2 forks