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Connecticut
Peach Melba: L’escale
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here. Not because I haven’t had anything to say, I’ve had a whole bunch of issues on the administrative side of my website and haven’t physically been able to post anything! The whole website was down for a few days, so I want to apologize to anyone who attempted to access my site and had difficulty. I think I got all of the kinks worked out. My technology skills aren’t exactly fantastic, but I’ll try to catch you up on some adventures that occurred over the past couple weeks.
My mom and I went on our annual girls trip to Greenwich, Ct. The first night we had planned to go to a restaurant on the famous Greenwich Ave called Harvest. I say planned because it didn’t end up happening. When we checked into the hotel, the sky started to fall… literally. It was hail storming and the skies were black. With no intention of venturing into the exterior climate, we made a game time decision to cancel our reservation and eat dinner at the hotel instead.
L’escale is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Greenwich. It’s a gorgeous restaurant, very elegant decor with candles everywhere and grand chandeliers. The menu provides a great representation of the atmosphere offering pasta, meat, and fish entrees with fresh local ingredients. L’escale is a great place for groups celebrating special events like birthdays or graduations as well as providing an intimate setting for parties of two.
One of these intimate parties who arrived for dinner that evening was my mom and I. So Awkward! First of all, we were in the most basic attire ever, like tee-shirts and jeans. I was actually wearing Converse sneakers. We were the only people in the entire restaurant wearing jeans. Sport jackets, Khaki pants, dresses, and high heels were all the rage inside of L’escale. Feeling like two schmucks, we walked in and took our seats in the back hidden corner that felt like a steam room. Humid air was pumping out directly at our table. A manager (I assume) came over to us and asked if we wanted to move seats, which was really nice. Our new table was more towards the middle of the restaurant. It was a small round table with the place settings next to each other looking out into the restaurant. My mom and I had a very lovely, romantic dinner. You know the table that the bride and groom sit at during the wedding reception? That’s what it reminded me of.
Completely underdressed and uncomfortable, we laughed at the whole situation. I ordered a watermelon salad that had ricotta and tomato. I liked it a lot, though the ricotta was cubed and looked more like pieces of tofu. For my entree I had ricotta ravioli, because I live for cheese. I liked that also. Our desserts on the other hand left much to be desired. The dessert menu sounded fantastic so we decided to pick two, the Peach Melba and Dame Blanche. The Peach Melba was pretty self explanatory in that it was vanilla ice cream, peaches, Melba sauce, and almonds. It looked outstanding and we couldn’t wait to try it, but it tasted a bit more like or during a Peach Melba at an Applebee’s. Not very flavorful and pretty generic. The Dame Blanche looked like a glass of chocolate heaven. Layers of chocolate brownie, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and candied almonds. The first few bites were delicious and chocolatey, and then I began to realize that I could have bought some Haagen Dazs and Duncan Hines brownie mix and made my own. Hashtag Basic.
I have to say, I was being a bit extra critical of the food since L’escale has been given such high praise. I think if these desserts were at a less noteworthy restaurant, I’d have thought they were excellent. The scale is a bit tipped in this critique, but the fact that there was a woman wearing a full fledged floor length dress (it was not a maxi dress, it was fancy) a few tables over from me, the girl with the greasy hair remains true. If you had a black-tie wedding, her outfit would be appropriate. If you were getting over a cold and had to go to the DMV, my outfit would be appropriate. Welcome to my life.
Tomato and Buratta: Harvest
As it turns out, we ended up eating lunch at Harvest the following afternoon and that place was really great. Well, the service was a bit strange, but the food was terrific. I had a burrata and tomato salad with a fresh squeezed apple juice (because I’m a 5 year old) and I loved it. They use high quality ingredients and you can tell. The balsamic vinegar drizzled over the salad was like fresh off the boat from Italy, delicious.
We might have been inside the restaurant for approximately an hour and a half. I’m actually not really sure, we lost track after our toenails needed a trim for the second time around. Once our table was cleared, the waiter came over and asked if we wanted anything else, to which we responded, “No thank you,” a general prompt for the check during a busy lunch hour when people are waiting for tables. Not here though! We sat and sat and then we sat more. At first we didn’t mind because it was so hot outside and we were in the a/c.
Then the ants in our pants started crawling around and we needed to get out of there. Of course our waiter hadn’t been seen anywhere near our table for a good twenty minutes, so we finally just ask anyone for the check. The check comes, it’s propped up on the table, like literally could not be more obvious that we wanted them to take it and charge the credit card. I swear to you, Father Time was getting impatient. Finally, we are able to get out of the restaurant, though I was almost ready for my next meal at that point.
In addition to L’escale and Harvest, we ate at several other restaurants during our girls trip:
Le Pain Quotidien
The Granola Bar
Versaille
East End
Blackstones Steakhouse
Mediterraneo
La Fenice
Pinkberry
B. Good
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