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Type: Eclectic
Hours: Dinner: Thurs.-Mon. 6-9 p.m. Closed two weeks in April and in December. Reservations accepted. No smoking.
Prices: Prix fixe, three courses, $45; vegetarian tasting, $45; chef's tasting, $55, $75 with wine pairings.
Credit cards: Visa, American Express, Mastercard
Access: Fully accessible.
Other establishments
listed in this review:
MONSOON
18 Canberra Parkway
Lebanon, N.H.
(603) 643-9227
Type: Asian
Hours: Lunch: Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.- 2 p.m. Dinner: Sun.-Thurs. 5-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5-9:30 p.m. Reservations accepted. No smoking.
Prices: Lunch: appetizers $2-4, entrees $5-$8. Dinner: appetizers $2-$6, entrees $7-$15, desserts $2.50-$3.75.
Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express.
Access: Fully accessible.
SIMON PEARCE RESTAURANT
The Mill
Quechee, V.T.
(802) 295-1470
Type: Eclectic
Hours: Daily Lunch: 11:30 a.m.- 2:45 p.m. nightly, dinner, and 6-9 p.m. Reservations accepted. No smoking.
Prices: Dinner: Appetizers $5-$8.50, entrees $18-$27.50, desserts $4.50-$5.
Credit cards: All major credit cards.
Access: Fully accessible.
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JACKSON HOUSE
37 Route 4 West
Woodstock, Vt.
(802) 457-2065
Restaurant reviewed 02/25/99 by Alison Arnett
Good food and vacationland often don't coincide, especially at ski resorts. Hot dogs and beer is a more likely fate for the apres-ski set. But New England ski areas have worked for years to broaden their appeal and lengthen their seasons with summer sports, nature activities, and golfing getaways and therefore are able to support serious eating places year-round. In a triangle of central New Hampshire and Vermont, three restaurants - Jackson House in Woodstock, Vt., and Simon Pearce Restaurant in Quechee, Vt., and Monsoon in Lebanon, N.H. - show off various aspects of the national culinary ferment.
Chef Brendan Nolan helped open the restaurant at the Jackson House, previously a small bed and breakfast operation, in September 1997 when the owners enlarged the rambling yellow inn. Years at Four Seasons Hotel restaurants, most recently in Boston, can be seen in his sophisticated style of cooking. But in this restaurant, with a dining room simply and tastefully created to blend in with the 19th-century inn, his food melds with the ambience. The lines of the food are clean and elegant, the presentations beautiful but not fussy; the emphasis is on flavor rather than on trendiness. Even the service matches, solicitous but not overbearing.
Take Nolan's chicken with truffle whipped potatoes, lemon thyme jus, pearl onions, and pancetta. The idea is an old French one, called poulet saute bonne femme, a soul-warming classic that perfectly matches tastes and textures. Nolan uses a chicken raised free-range on a local Vermont farm and the flavor is so exquisite that I sigh on first bite. It had been a long time since I'd had chicken that good. In a phone interview, he said that the farm can be idosyncratic and the chickens not uniform in size, but that the flavor makes up for it. He returns, he said, to this old preparation because diners love it.
Nolan's cuisine is definitely aimed at the high end of the dining crowd with plenty of foie gras, truffles, caviar, and other luxuries offered. But his best dishes are certainly worth the tariff. Squabs are glazed with maple and served over a crisp polenta cake with dabs of pureed Medjool dates. The sweetness of the dates is offset by the bite of peppercorns, with the squab's savoriness brightened by the hint of syrup. There's a tanginess created when the sweet elements hit the pepper and savory notes, awakening the appetite.
His way with a fish dish, black seabass under a potato crust, further demonstrates his skill. The moistness of the fish was protected while roasting by the starchy seal of the potatoes, retaining all the delicacy of its flesh and the aroma of the sea. There was nothing too showy about this dish, despite the mental image of potatoes standing in for pastry, but the result, especially in this landlocked area, was delightful. My modest complaint about the meal concerned the English peas scattered about on several dishes. Authentically fresh, barely cooked, and bright green, they nevertheless tasted like small marbles.
Cryssa VanVleck, the pastry chef, also had a marvelous way with classics. Her banana cream pie was ethereal, its crisp crust topped with a light custard and a cloud of whipped cream. The best of the desserts, though, were the tiny slices of caramelized banana graced with a hint of coconut.
Monsoon, subtitled an Asian bistro and satay bar, is a totally different kind of experience but a delightful one. Located in a featureless shopping and office plaza near Hanover, N.H., Monsoon's bright, dramatic looks would fit nicely into any East or West Coast chic urban area. All the design elements - from the curved punched metal panels hanging from the ceiling to copper tubing used as napkin rings - add to the hip, lively feel.
Luckily, the food lives up to its looks. The cuisine ranges through several Asian countries, from regions of China, to Malaysia and Thailand, but Mike Kao, the head chef, one of five Asian cooks, is Taiwanese satay platter with a skewer of tender, slightly smoky beef and one of pork and three beautifully grilled shrimp was served with three sauces - a spicy peanut, nuoc cham fish sauce, and a soy sauce. A grilled squid salad had lots of spice, plenty of lime and cilantro accents, and a sprinkling of tiny fermented black beans. Sui mai dumplings arrived in a covered metal container, each little pinched dumpling filled with pork dotted with a dollop of hoisin paste. The dumplings were delecand Chinese dishes dominate.
At the beginning of the meal, the waiter brought shrimp chips and a little platter of spicy bean sprouts and boiled peanuts, and we were immediately smitten. A satay platter with a skewer of tender, slightly smoky beef and one of pork and three beautifully grilled shrimp was served with three sauces - a spicy peanut, nuoc cham fish sauce, and a soy sauce. A grilled squid salad had lots of spice, plenty of lime and cilantro accents, and a sprinkling of tiny fermented black beans. Sui mai dumplings arrived in a covered metal container, each little pinched dumpling filled with pork dotted with a dollop of hoisin paste. The dumplings were delectable and beautifully made.
In a special fish dish, mahi mahi was crusted with ground pistachios and flavored with kaffir lime, its flavor and textures delicate. Twice cooked pork with chunks of Napa cabbage, big black mushrooms, and plenty of chilies was a robust contrast in its hoisin-based sauce. Even the more mundane-sounding Chinese dishes were skillfully made. Cantonese-style lo mein with pork, snow peas, and other Asian vegetables was delicious, many cuts above the same dish often served in Chinatown. And a very simple stir-fry of broccoli and garlic balanced well with the more complex dishes.
Desserts followed the Asian theme but were Western in size and style. A coconut mousse cake was pretty and quite good, much more interesting than a three-chocolate mousse cake.
One advantage of eating here are the prices - even the seafood dishes were mostly below $15, making this chic outpost a true find.
The Simon Pearce Restaurant in Quechee isn't new, having first opened for lunch in the early '80s. But as the famed glassworks and its expanded store of glassware, pottery, fine furniture, and clothing has grown over the years, the restaurant has also gotten more ambitious. also. It's a pleasure to dine here, using the beautiful pottery and glassware shown in the store, and the staff seems to revel in the gracious feel of it.
The menu under chef James Henahan, who has been at the helm for almost a decade, is eclectic, ranging from some Southwestern dishes to incorporating Asian elements. Some of the best dishes reveal his Irish roots and the influence of the Ballymaloe House in southwestern Ireland where he once worked.
House smoked trout, moist and plump, was spiked with a searing chipotle vinaigrette. A creamy mussel chowder had just a hint of smoke in its smooth tastes. Veal sweetbreads, just lightly breaded, were pleasingly succulent, touched with just a little mustard sauce. The accompanying red pepper polenta tasted fine although the color, a dayglo orange, was a little odd.
Henahan and his staff have a way with pork. Chile-cured grilled pork tenderloin was elaborately buttressed with a black bean and roasted corn salsa. But the real interest on the plate was the quality of pork, silkily tender. That was true, too, of another pork dish, garlic roasted loin with a port glaze.
In fact, he did well with all the meats. A grilled chicken breast with a tomato risotto was delicious, and grilled filet mignon under a mustard and black peppercorn sauce was a fine piece of meat. The fish dishes were less satisfying. A special of wasabi-crusted tuna proved rather disappointing; all the elements were there - soba noodles, slices of pickled ginger, and daikon radish - but the dish was pallid anyway. And cod, supposedly horseradish-crusted, was under such a storm of frizzled julienned leeks that one couldn't distinguish the fish from the mashed potatoes under it.
The Irish theme carried through to dessert. The apple cake was by far the best dessert we tried, its humble deliciousness outclassing the woefully tough profiteroles with ice cream and chocolate sauce. The cake matches the ambience, warm and comforting, always a sure bet.
Tips & hits
