Well, it is Sunday morning and I have time to reflect on NRW. This will be the first night in over a week I am not dining out and I feel a bit like a beached whale ready to spend the day on my couch. I do want to thank all the chefs and restaurant owners who took such good care of me over the past week. With the holidays upon us I am in need I a good diet to stay in shape-any suggestions?
On Friday night I ate at the very popular Moorings Restaurant-it was packed and they kindly found a spot for me. A comfort food concept with fried chicken and gravy; steak tips served with scallion penne pasta alfredo; salmon raviolis and a grilled salmon comprised their NRW menu.
A choice of soup, crab cake or salad came as the first courses, I had plentiful green salad with Caesar dressing as he selected the crab cake and opted for a salad with dinner instead of the dessert-that is something I would never do!
I choose the fried chicken. Quite crunchy the leg and thigh were well cooked and the potatoes super creamy. My friend’s steak tips were tender over scrumptious perfectly cooked pasta-the scallions lending a nice touch to the rich cream sauce.
Desserts were white chocolate bread pudding or sorbets and ice cream-I settled on a tasty amaretto gelato to go with my decaf cappuccino. As the restaurant was so busy we did not mind the short wait-it has been fabulous to see the response of NRW by the locals and people from out-of-town.
Saturday night found me with my 2 girl friends dining at One Bellevue-another example of a restaurant in a hotel that we often forget about. This food is too memorable to be forgotten! Chef Kevin Thiele got us going with a special treat-a salmon tartar that was a touch creamy and sweet-the addition of pine nuts and slivers of strawberries made for contrasting flavors that were delicious.
Thiele added a roasted onion soup to the menu which also featured a butternut squash soup. We tried the onion soup-which was fabulous served with gruyere cheese slivers while Thiele made me a warm spinach salad with walnuts, cranberries and Maytag blue cheese-I was feeling like a local celebrity!
Two of us opted for the marinated Flat Iron Steak for our entrée-it came with tangy chive and sour cream potato cakes-excellent accompaniment. My other friend had the potato wrapped cod fish with gruyere gnocchi and braised swiss chard. We were very happy ladies! A molten lava cake-so decadent-and a mixed berry and cream cheese tart rounded out the heavenly meal.
This week has been a true adventure in stamina-to eat modestly early in the day so I can try as much as I can to report on the next day. Believe me it’s not a bad gig to have! Thank you to the Newport Restaurant Advisory Board for asking me to participate and share my experiences with all of those who dined or read about NRW.
I will be continuing this blog throughout the year on restaurants and hospitality in Newport on the NCCVB’s website so keep me posted with what you might like to know. And for those promoting their restaurants what you would like the locals and all the folks who check-out the www.gonewport.com website. As an innkeeper I can tell you this is Newport’s most effective marketing tool-use it!
