Category: Reviews

Sly Bandit — Wilton’s own brew pub

Sly Bandit has been operating in their South Wilton location (14 Danbury Rd) since last summer, and we finally got a chance to visit it last Sunday night. The ground floor is the actual brewery: the pub is upstairs. And yes, there is an elevator.

The beer list changes almost daily: here is the list last Sunday. We tried the Pilsener that time, and will work our way down the list in subsequent visits.

The food menu consists of Shareables like Buffalo chicken and soft pretzels, Flatbreads like Margherita, Spicy Italian and Pulled Pork. These come on triangles of flat bread on a cutting board. You can share them or make a meal of them. This time we had the Buffalo Chicken flatbread ($14), which comes with cheddar and gorgonzola cheese, hot sauce and lime crema. It was terrific, but way more than enough for one.

The main section is called Handhelds (they mean sandwiches) and in addition to a terrific hamburger which comes with fries, presalted with sea salt, they have a Wurst sandwich, a grilled cheese, tacos, fish tacos and salmon. This time we went for the burger ($16), but the Wurst and the pulled pork are calling out for next time.

There are also several salads, two Crockables: mac and cheese and chili and three desserts. We went for the Chocolate Mousse cake ($10.50) this time.

Sly Bandit is a great place to go for a quick meal or an evening. Service is fast and friendly. We’ll be back, and you should give it a try. They are open every night but Mondays. Wednesday through July 2 are Trivia nights, starting at 6:30.

Ventuno is absolutely top notch!

Eating at Ventuno (21 Federal St) is always a great pleasure. The breadth and creativity of their menu makes every visit delightful.

Last week was Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Ventuno gave you a choice of their Restaurant Week menu: 4 courses for $75 or their full menu. The only real difference is that that the smaller menu skips some of the more expensive items, but everything else was the same, and there was plenty to choose from. Either way, you get a selection from Antipasti, one from Primi, one from Secondi and a dessert from Dolci.

We were going to just order from the reduced menu until we discovered the breast of duck on the full menu. Thus, we became a full menu customer.

Our Antipasti choice was a Caesar Salad, made with Romaine, celery, ciabatta-parmigiano croutons, a Caesar dressing and thin slices of parmigiano cheese. Crunchy, delicious and substantial in size.

As a surprise, the waitress gave us an extra little course of the Chef’s Ricotta spread on toast as well. It was smooth, creamy and quite flavorful.

This was followed by Strozzapreti, dre’s spicy chicken sausage, broccoli rabe, and pecorino, served with some extra parmigiano cheese to sprinkle as needed. This was spicy but not overpoweringly so, and quite a change from the usual Nantucket fare.

And finally, the main course: cherry & balsamic glazed duck breast, roasted cherries, farro, radicchio, endive, hazelnut crema & candied hazelnuts, with scallions & pecorino. What a magnificent preparation. Tender, juicy duck breast sitting on the cherries and candied hazelnuts. What could be better?

Well, of course, there was still dessert. We’d had many of the other desserts, so we went with the burnt sugar and orange flan with a candied orange slice in it.

What a great way to finish a terrific meal. We are always really impressed with Ventuno, and hope you will be too!

Le Languedoc — as elegant as ever

Le Languedoc remains one of our favorite island restaurants. It styles itself as a bistro, but it is quite an elegant one, having been in existence since the 1970s. Its core menu changes but a little, but has additions every week to its elegant selections, based on classic French techniques.

You can always count on finding bistro classics such as Steak Frites and their Languedoc Cheeseburger, as well as a number of other outstanding dishes. We very nearly ordered their Seak Frites again this year until we saw that they had a veal chop in the corner of the menu where new additions appear, and we had to try it.

Just as we were about to order, the waitress told us of a special addition that night of a foie gras terrine. It was served with toasts and a generous spoon of blackberry jam to contrast with the smooth silkiness of the delicious foie gras.

This was followe by the veal chop, served with asparagus, and a delicious brown gravy. An incredibly elegant meal.

Meanwhile, our neighbor had the Duxelle stuffed chicken, with corn, bacon & horseradish croquette, roasted carrots, and sherry vinegar jus. It also looked terrific.

And, of course, we had to end with their special Small Town Girl butter crunch hot fudge sundae. Of course we got the petite version, and could barely finish it after all the rich dishes we’d had, but over all this was an outstanding evening and one of the islands highly regarded restaurants.

We are always delighted with Le Languedoc, and you will be, too!

Millie’s is as great as ever!

If you haven’t been out to Millie’s at the far western end of Nantucket in Madaket, you’re missing one of the island’s outstanding restaurants. The menu is mostly seafood tacos and quesadillas, but there is a lot more to it (beef, chicken and even berries), and all of it is imaginative and delicious. There is now a Mid-island Millie’s at the Rotary as well, serving lunches from 10:30-4, with a similar but not identical menu.

When we rented a house out in Madaket, the first place we’d always go would be to Millie’s for dinner, and sometimes we’d go again on our last day. Now that we stay downtown, it seemed as if getting to Millie’s without a car was too much trouble. It’s not.

We jumped on the Madaket Route WAVE bus in front of the Historical Society (across from the Juice Guys) and rode for 20 minutes to the end of the line at Millie’s. And this year the WAVE busses are free! We puttered around Madaket, and went to dinner at about 5, easily catching a return bus at 6:30. It couldn’t be easier! The busses leave downtown on the hour and Millie’s on the half-hour.

This year they’d added a new dish we had to try: Fried Oyster Mini-tacos with purple cabbage slaw, pickled jalapeño, and lemon aioli. There were two fried oysters in each taco, dotted with a bit of mayo and topped with that pickled jalapeno. They also provided hot sauces to top them with if you wanted. We had them without so we could savor the oysters. These were a great, crunchy appetizer that you could pick up or eat with a fork (or both).

There seems to be a bit more lobster on the menu than there used to be: you get a warm lobster salad, a lobster Po’ Boy and a lobster quesadilla. They all cost around $39 so they all probably have quite a bit of lobster in them.

We couldn’t resist trying the Steps Beach Lobster quesadilla with Lobster, slow-roasted tomato, grilled zucchini, and Monterey jack cheese. The lobster was indeed plentiful and with the cheese and veggies this is a very filling and delightful dish. If it’s too much for you, they’ll box the rest, of course, or you can cheat as we did an pick out the rest of the lobster with a fork! It still is a lot of food and outstanding! You can’t go wrong at Millie’s.

Black-Eyed Susan’s is back for breakfast

Thanks to Michael and Orly LaScola, Chef Todd Edwards and Anna Worgess, who purchased Black-Eyed Susan’s from its previous owner, Susan Handy, the beloved restaurant is back and this year serving its well-regarded breakfasts 6 days a week. (They are closed on Wednesdays.) Breakfast is served to walk-ins from 7am to 1pm.

Being that it is still early in June, we were able to walk in for breakfast without the longer summer wait and sit at a table. The menu is similar to the old restaurant, offering eggs, scrambles, pancakes, hash browns, French toast, omelets and breakfast sandwiches. But even if you have to wait for a while on the benches outside, it’s worth it. It is just about the only breakfast place downtown and it is simply excellent.

We ordered eggs over easy with sausage and their excellent oat bread toast.

But more to the point, we got our tea in an actual teapot: one of the few restaurants in the Northeast that serves it that way.

And did we mention the service? The staff is warm and welcoming, and you can watch it your order being prepared in the open kitchen behind the counter. Our bill for tea, eggs, sausage and toast was $30.49 including $1.99 tax. And it is likely to be one of the best breakfasts we’ll have here!

Dune- one of Nantucket’s finest restaurants

Coming to the island for a brief visit, we ate at Dune first. It has always been one of our favorites, with its imaginative menu and outstanding service. And to our delight, this is Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Dune offered a prix fixe menu of appetizer, entrée and dessert for only $68. As usual the dinner was excellent.

We started with their widely regarded roast oysters (traditional chilled oysters are also available). They are served with chorizo-ramp butter, cucumber, shallots, picked ramps and lemon. You actually get 5 oysters in this dish, but we cropped it down to 4 to fit on the page. The oysters are warm, and you can pick up each shell to drink any remaining juices without bring yourself. Absolutely terrific.

We vacillated on the entrée: considering scallops, swordfish and sirloin before choosing the roast cod loin.

The Pan Roasted Cod Loin was served in a coconut-lemon grass broth along with purple creamers (potatoes), Romanesco asparagus, bok choy, shiitake, fried garlic and basil. They server makes sure you have a spoon so you can spoon that terrific broth over your cod as you eat. The result is outstanding: we didn’t leave a drop behind.

Finally, you get a free dessert this week: a brown butter cake served with cherries, lemon cream icing, and candied almonds.

However, travelling solo, we managed to get a couple of photos of other appetizers. One was roasted red and golden beets with whipped goat cheese,pistachios, balsamic and a red sorrel beet vinaigrette.

And the other was Korean Barbecue Short Ribs, with sesame bbq, napa cabbage, Asian pear, red onion lime vinaigrette, fried shallots and cilantro.

What a terrific re-introduction to Dune’s cuisine. We couldn’t have been happier.

Apple’s “Lessons in Chemistry” made my skin crawl

You probably know that I am not a fan of Bonnie Garmus’ error riddled book, but I thought maybe they would clean up all that mish-mosh in the TV series. After all, there are probably hundreds of people working to produce this series based on the book. Foolish me. It’s worse.

I admit I could barely get through one episode, not only because of the scientific errors, but because Elizabeth Zott’s overwhelming paranoia about being mistreated as a woman is so overplayed. And all of the men in the lab are treated as ignorant, overbearing boors, laying it on pretty thick.

The scientific babble about phosphate rings and the like is better than her talking about covalent bonds in the book. But it’s pretty clear that the actress (Brie Larson) has no idea what any of that babble actually means as she races through it.

The writers took an incident from later in the book where she is a TV cooking show host and moved it into the preliminary scenes as a teaser of what is to come. In the book, she tosses out some canned soup because it if “full of chemicals,” but in this scene she adds “bad chemicals” and implies they will kill you. This is utter nonsense, of course, and nothing but pandering to the fears of the uneducated. The FDA regulates additives and preservatives, and no one is going to die!

Zott tells people that she is interested in abiogenesis, or how life began. But she never mentions that we have a pretty good idea how it began. She should know as every chemist does, about Wohler’s syntheses of urea from inorganic starting materials in 1828, showing that there is no difference between living and non-living compounds.

Soon after that, she is shown beginning her own after-hours research and discovering that the bottle of a compound she needs is empty. So, she sneaks into Calvin’s lab to get one of his. We soon learn that she needed some ribose (a simple sugar) for her experiment. But the bottles they show are narrow necked brown bottles, which would be unlikely to be the container for ribose, a white powder. And, in fact, it would be in a commercially labeled wide mouth bottle, because it was easily available from chemical supply companies. Today, it is sold as a dietary supplement, so anyone can see that it is a powder by a simple search.

Just to extend Zott’s humiliation, Garmus throws in a beauty contest for the secretaries, and Zott is asked to join. All of the secretaries are portrayed as ridiculously stupid, which is simply unreasonable. They are working in a research lab and have to know what they are doing. This would never happen in any company, not even in 1951!

Zott and Calvin join up in the same lab before the first episode is over, and Zott reorganizes the lab to make things easier to find. She put all the spatulas in a beaker near the sink. But the spatulas they show are the kitchen spatulas that you might use to spread cake icing. Lab spatulas are considerably smaller, like these:

You’d think someone would check on that sort of thing.

Calvin’s lab is decorated with huge 1-liter and 2-liter round bottoms and Erlenmeyers, all perfectly clean, because the kind of biochemical research they are interested in is actually carried out in very small flasks with milligrams or micrograms of material.

He is also shown eating food (mostly peanuts) in his lab and leaving them on lab benches, where both he and Zott help themselves. This is a lethally dangerous idea and again would never happen in any real lab. You don’t eat on the lab bench (or preferably at all) in the lab!

Calvin is also shown showering under the lab safety shower. This is very cute, but they don’t work that way. Once you pull the chain, they stay on until you reach up and turn off with the lever. They are made to drench you if you spill something dangerous on yourself. And they can’t be enclosed like that: they have to be accessible from anywhere in the lab within 10 seconds.

And finally, Larson mispronounces citrate with a long “I,” saying sy-trate instead of sit-rate. Surely someone on the staff would know better than that. This is just embarrassing.

“Fun Home” opens in Brookfield

Fun Home is a delightful musical by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, also called “Fun Home.” The musical won 5 Tony’s in 2015, including Best Musical and Best Score. It’s about Bechdel’s like growing up adjacent to the funeral parlor her father runs and about her coming out as a lesbian, and her father discovering he is gay. (The family refers to the funeral parlor as “Fun Home.”)

The Brookfield production is simply outstanding, with a 7-piece orchestra directed by Sarah Fay accompanying the cast of 9 actor/singers. We saw the preview performance last night. For us, Tesori’s music was the best part, with complex choral lines and harmonies throughout, as well as a few lively comic numbers like ”Come to the Fun Home” sung by the kids, and “Raincoat of Love,” sung by the whole company.

The story is led by Janice Gabriel as the grown-up Alison, who plays a warm and relatable character who describes her profession as “lesbian cartoonist.” She comments on the various scenes and offers captions, as if they were her drawings, joins the cast in singing several numbers.

The show also has a Small Alison, who is Alison at around 8 and Medium Alison, just off to Oberlin College. (Bechdel graduated from Oberlin in 1981 with a degree in Fine Arts.)

Harriet Luongo as Small Alison leads several numbers with enthusiasm and a strong, clear voice. And Hannah Rapaglia as Medium Alison has two lovely solo numbers as she begins to discover her sexuality and falls for her girlfriend Joan, played with outgoing honesty and charm by Erin Walsh.

Tony Bosco-Schmidt excels as Alison’s father Bruce, who varies from kind and fatherly to impatient and unforgiving as he deals with his own coming out problem. He has a lovely singing voice in the group numbers and in his closing song “Edges of the World,” just before he dies.

Denise Milmerstadt is a strong player and singer as Alison’s mother Helen and is especially affecting in “Days and Days” near the end of the show.

Mason Sacco does quadruple duty in several small parts including being the teenager Bruce seduces, but as Bobby Jeremy, he leads the company in the delightful crazy, jazzy number “Raincoat of Love.”

As Alison’s two younger brothers Christian and John, Jack Hoyt and Sawyer Delaney are lively and vivacious, and sing very well in numbers with Small Alison.

Every cast member in the production is top-notch in their singing and acting, and the directors (Bennett Cognato and Rob Bassett) should be congratulated in putting together this complex show so well.

Fun Home at the Brookfield Theatre is an absolute delight, and you shouldn’t miss it! Performances begin tonight, December 1, and play Fridays and Saturdays for 3 weekends and Sundays at 2pm on the first two weekends.

[Pictures by Stephen Cihanek of the Brookfield Theater]

The Benjamin opens in Ridgefield

Four of us went to dinner at The Benjamin last weekend, and found it quite enjoyable. The restaurant’s name honors Benjamin Franklin, who brought back many of France’s best culinary ideas to the states while he was ambassador. The Benjamin is located in the building formerly occupied by Bernard’s. It opened just this July, managed by Rob Moss, Dave Studwell and BJ Lawless who own and operate Washington Prime and BJ Ryan’s Restaurant Group in Norwalk.

The new Benjamin décor is similar, but much refreshed with the formal restaurant on the left as you enter, and the bar and some high-top tables to the right, looking out over the gardens. The upstairs has more restaurant seating and there is outdoor dining available in good weather accessible from the main floor, and an additional small patio seating up to 24 off the upstairs dining room.

The menu by Executive Chef Benjamin Travers, formerly of The Modern and Café Boulud in New York City, is styled as “uniquely American and French-inspired.” You will find four salads, two excellent soups, two raw bar items and 6 appetizers, nearly all seafood based, but including a seductive sounding charcuterie for $34. There are eight entrees: scallops, duck breast, halibut, lobster risotto, rack of lamb, roast half chicken, filet mignon and a Wagyu hamburger. There is also a vegetarian saffron risotto with wild mushrooms.

Bread is not provided free at The Benjamin, but you can order their Signature Bread Service for $9, consisting of whole wheat sourdough bread with 3 butters. We didn’t try it.

We started with the soups: we tried the Potato Leek Soup ($21) which comes with lump crab, smoked trout roe and a chive. The service is lovely: they bring you a bowl containing the roe and what is essentially a small crab cake, and then pour the soup around it in the bowl. We agreed that this was outstanding.

The other soup is a Chilled Pea Soup ($17) with grilled spring onions and brioche. Rather than the heavy puree you might expect, this is a lighter soup with actual peas in it, along with the spring onion, pea sprouts and pieces of brioche. Again, an excellent choice.

Our companion who ordered the Olive Oil Poached Halibut ($39) praised it highly. It is served with herbed couscous, fennel, picholine olives, pistachio, and beurre blanc. He noted that it was a good-sized portion and was particularly drawn to the fennel flavor. It certainly looked delicious.

Several of us were drawn to the Rack of Lamb ($49) served with charred eggplant, baby zucchini, piperade lamb jus, and mint. There certainly was plenty of delicious lamb there, but served on a big cutting board, the chops quickly cooled and by the time we got to the last two, they were pretty cold. Since lamb fat congeals above room temperature, many restaurants serve lamb on warm plates. This would have been better.

You will note that none of the dishes on the menu come with much in the way of vegetables or starches. Instead, like a steakhouse, you can order side dishes from the menu. But their choices are minimal, and things like mashed potatoes, beans, carrots or broccoli are absent. You can only order French fries, truffled fries, mushroom fricassee, truffled fingerling potato or roast breakfast radish and red onion.

And consider the lowly hamburger (albeit Wagyu), which is already $25 by itself. With fries, you’d be paying $37! That is a bit much.

Phobe Damrosch, in Service Included her delightful diary of working the first year at Per Se, listed among Diner’s Rights, the right to salt and pepper. At The Benjamin, they will bring around a giant pepper mill and grind where you point. And while they let you touch the salt mill, they whisk both away so you have no chance to add salt or pepper later in the meal. A little dish of salt would help here.

Desserts

There are eight desserts from Pastry Chef Melissa Knauer, formerly of Arethusa A Mano in Bantam, CT. The two we had were excellent.

One dessert we ordered, chocolate mousse with caramelia chocolate and caramel sauce ($14), was quite showy and spectacular, and big enough to share a bit. The other, Strawberry Profiteroles ($13) was quite a surprise. The two “cream puffs” were filled with a delicious, smooth strawberry mousse and served with sliced strawberries and a shortbread crumble.

Overall, we enjoyed our visit to The Benjamin, but the entrée prices are high for Fairfield County, with most of them in the high thirties, and the lobster risotto a eyebrow-raising $58. Only the burger (without fries) and the vegetarian entrée were under $30. The outdoor dining option on the first floor is an elegant little grove to the right of the building, but the upstairs patio is quite plain by comparison, especially considering the elegant interior.

Nova Cafe opens in Wilton

Nova Cafe opened in Wilton just a few days ago and it seems to already be a big hit judging from the steady flow of customers. A sister to Ridgefield’s Tazza Cafe, Nova has a similar but not identical menu.

Nova Café’s menu includes a variety of breakfast sandwiches, oatmeal and overnight oats dishes with various fruit and granola toppings, acai bowls and pastries for breakfast. For lunch, they offer some very interesting wraps like Buffalo Chicken and Chicken Gorgonzola, hot pressed paninis like Monte Cristos and Chipotle Chicken and signature sandwiches including roast beefs and smoked turkey and brie. They also offer sourdough cheese melts and about a dozen creative and delicious sounding salads.

We had breakfast there today, a little after the rush, around 9:30, and were impressed with the pleasant and hard-working staff and the delicious breakfast sandwiches.

One of us had the Bacon Egg and Cheese sandwich ($6.95) on a croissant (they were out of the hard rolls, but the croissant was delicious. In fact, it clearly had 2 eggs in it.

Our other choice was called Power Start ($7.95) and it was my favorite, made from eggs, ham, cheddar on toasted multigrain bread. As you can see from the picture, they did not skimp on ingredients. It was great!

Nova has a selection of their own coffees for sale as beans, or you can grind them on the spot.

One display case shows some of the pastries available, here mostly muffins and scones. Earlier they had a wider selection of pastries. The other display case shows the sandwiches and wraps prepared for the lunch rush.

While they clearly do a significant take-out business, there are a few tables in the main dining room and quite a few more tables in the airy secondary dining room. Considering the early, enthusiastic response to Nova, they will certainly need all those tables.

Our bill for the two sandwiches, coffee and tea with tax, and 15% tip was $25.50. We’ll be back for lunch sometime soon! Hours at their 200 Danbury Rd address are 6:30am to 6:30pm Monday through Saturday and Sunday from 7:00am to 6:00pm.

Welcome to Wilton, Nova Cafe! We wish you well!