Red Lion Inn

www.redlioninn.com

The Red Lion is maybe the most well-known inn in the Berkshires, and there are dining options in the main dining room, the tavern, and the courtyard. The dining room is a bit stuffy for my taste, but the courtyard is delightful. However, the hallmark of any dining experience at the Red Lion is the haphazard, bordering on terrible, service. The food is good (in general) - a blend of seasonal, local ingredients and warhorses such as roasted turkey and prime rib. Actually, it's a little refreshing to see prime rib on a menu in a world of aioli, jus, confit and the rest. So between the charm of the courtyard setting and the good food, I keep going back. It's also one of the few places in the Berkshires where you can make a reservation for breakfast with a large group.

In any event, the service has been so bad in the past that once a waitress was fired in the middle of our meal. Last night was no exception. The pattern seems to be that very nice, ill trained people are hired for the summer season and seem over their head all through service. Last night, our very nice waitress had trouble juggling her tables, didn't get the descriptions of the specials correct (the lobster cake I ordered had truffle oil on it - and I hate truffle oil), and stood next to our table holding our bread basket, after a long wait, talking to the hostess. The bartender kept yelling out to the wait staff that he was out of stuff - mineral water, wine glasses, martini glasses. I ordered a glass of wine after the first course that arrived when I was almost done with my entree. One patron at the table next to ours was so tired of waiting for his glass of wine, he went up to the bar himself, which flummoxed the waitress completely. SO - be warned. This has been the experience regularly.

On to the food. For an appetizer, I had lobster cakes which were not what I was imagining - too heavy on stuffing that the rich lobster meat did not need. The salads my parents had were nice, however, and I had their house salad earlier this summer - local greens, oranges, Marcona almonds, goat cheese and maple vinaigrette. For a main course, my dad and I both had pan seared scallops on greens with a citrus vinaigrette and waffle chips. The scallops were done beautifully but the chips - we each had about three sad, lonely chips on our plates. My mom had a risotto with English peas, pureed carrots, and shiitake mushrooms, which she reported was delicious. However, the best course of the meal was dessert - warm brown sugar cake with peach ice cream and caramel sauce - gorgeous. Exactly the melt-in-your-=mouth experience you would expect form the description. And the coffee was excellent as well.

So go for the food and atmosphere and not the service... you have been warned!

NY Times Berkshire Grown article

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/travel/22journeys.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

This article appeared today to underscore the Berkshires as a leader in the locally grown movement. Nudel gets more press than Allium but pssst - go eat at Allium. :)

August Food Shopping

Great Barrington Farmers Market
www.gbfarmersmarket.org

Taft Farm
119 Park Street
Great Barrington, MA
www.taftfarms.com

Nejaime's Wine Cellar
60 Main Street Lenox, MA
www.nejaimeswine.com


I spent a few hours yesterday shopping, as I had never been to the Great Barrington Farmer's Market (Saturdays 9-1pm). The Lee market is on Friday AM, so this year I have yet to make it there. The Lenox and Lee markets are humble compared to Great Barrington and I have heard GB pales in comparison to Sheffield's (Friday mid afternoon) - but I haven't made it down to Sheffield yet for that event. GB had a number of farms with everything you would hope - except I couldn't find corn. I did get a pint of mixed variety cherry tomatoes that were perfect, however, and there were fresh beets, lettuces, greens of all kinds, etc. The folks working the booths were consistently polite and happy to discuss the best tomatoes for gazpacho versus the best for salads, for ex. The Berkshire Mountain Bakery booth had a selection as complete and well stocked as that at the main bakery in Housatonic. There were also several other bakeries represented, but I couldn't help but stick with the tried and true this time around. One the web site, several cheese makers and fresh meat from a farm in Lee were listed as vendors, but I didn't see them.

One note of caution - don't expect to find some kind of authentic "rural life" experience here - this a farmer's market for upscale weekenders and their many pure bred dogs. In fact, one beautiful giant schnauzer was keeping things lively - which made me contemplate the wisdom of whoever first decided to create a giant terrier breed in the first place. I am quite happy with a 30 pound one, thank you. I shudder to think of a giant, bouncing, too smart for her own good Wheaten.

To find corn, I stopped at GB's Taft Farm on the way home. Last year they were lamenting the rain but this year the produce was plentiful. I left with sweet corn (fabulous) and cucumbers (makes you realize how watery the supermarket version is - theses had a real melon-y taste). And I had a pick up a homemade cinnamon sugar donut - a treat even for those like me that don't really like donuts! There are pies and sweet breads aplenty, and a nice deli for sandwiches as well. Taft has more of a feel that it serves both the year round residents and us visiting weekenders.

Finally I stopped at Nejaime's Wine Cellar and Cheese Shop in downtown Lenox. I suspect the cheese monger at their Lenox store in a strip mall near the Pittsfield line is more knowledgeable, but in this location there was still an impressive selective of cheese. The wine prices are a bit on a the high side, but I have found their selection to be generally excellent.