Last night my sister threw a surprise party for her husband and we were all pretty impressed with the quality of the food and especially the service at LA MARMITE (www.LaMarmite Restaurant.com) in Williston Park, NY about 30 minutes east of Manhattan in no traffic. It specializes in French and Northern Italian cuisine with a true French provincial decor feel in a country home, and totally family run.
As we arrived we were treated to many hor's d'oevres from smoked salmon, Pork Shumai Dumplings, crispy Potato Pancakes with Applesauce, Beef Teriyaki and a divine DUCK Sausage en croute with Bordelaise sauce. The three duds were the Scallops (which were sometimes sandy!) in an excellent Whole Grain Mustard Sauce, the dry Chicken Teriyaki and the puffy pastry Gougeres that just could not impress us after the previous night's magnificent ones with Mornay sauce!
The wines were all quite good and I was impressed with the crisp dry taste and lack of floral intensity in the DUE TORRE PINOT GRIGIO, a wine I would serve all summer at home.
The sit down dinner was four courses with a choice of decent FRIED CALAMARI, Prosciutto & Melon that got raves, a rich SEAFOD CREPE in even richer cream sauce and my TOWER of Vegetables made up of portobello, eggplant, zucchini, marinated peppers with a rosemary spike in a vinaigrette that was simply perfect. It was just HUGE as
were most of the portions. A choice of house or Caesar salad followed and I must admit the large crunchy homemade croutons in the Caesar were impressive. The entrees also impressed with superb quality (Will said it was the best he ever had) DUCK a L'ORANGE or DUCK au POIVRE in a rich but not too intense creamy pepper sauce, both served with Green Beans and Wild Rice Pilaf. Each person got a 1/2 of a huge duck that was loaded with meat and only a bit of fat here and there under the crispy tasty skin. SALMON was not chosen at our table, but raves came for the other choices with the RACK of LAMB in Mustard and Breadcrumb crust seeming coming in second to the duck.
Desserts are a presentation here and again huge portions abound...I was stuffed, so opted for the FRUIT & CUSTARD tart and ate the fruit, a bit of the tasty pastry and some of the choux cream. A big hit was the whipped cream endowed ST HONORE a gigantic cake.tart of puff pastry with cream laded with profiteroles on top also loaded with cream! Tiramisu, Chocolate Mousse, Flan and more were all rolled in on a huge cart as everyone indulged and headed home. Boy did we eat too much this weekend!
