While the Hamptons may lag behind NYC in sheer quantity of restaurants, there's plenty of really good food to be found out here. I've already raved about Le Chef, but Red Bar is sneaking into second place in my list of overly-indulgent restaurants.
Just before Mom arrived on her visit, I had a great accomplishment at work that really required celebrating, so I wanted something special for our first dinner in town. I had heard good things about this Red Bar place (and I just really liked the name) so off we went. From the time we looked at the drink menu, I was pretty sure that we'd made a good choice. First, they serve Chimay ale, which I love. They also had a very nice collection of Long Island wine, including several favorites from my friends over at Channing Daughters.
And then we heard about the specials. They were doing really astonishing things with Nantucket scallops that evening, and we had a wonderful scallop ceviche along with a salad loaded with pears, candied nuts, and Stilton cheese. After that, there was another scallop entree (can you really have too many scallops in one meal?) and a whole roasted red snapper.
Now, the snapper was a little intimidating. When the food came out, my mother was presented with this rather large whole roasted fish, bones and head and all. The women in my family won't let much come between us and our seafood, but we really were both stumped as to how to proceed. Cut the head off? Pick off the good bits, like a lobster? Are you supposed to eat the fins??? What are we supposed to do now??!? Mom was looking like she thought she'd been cheated and was eyeing my scallops in a most distressing manner.
Just when I started to think I was going to have to defend my entree with little more than a butter knife, help arrived in the shape of a Brazillian waiter who traded a few snippets of Portuguese with Mom as he quite deftly turned the Plate O' Monster Fish into dinner and whisked away all the icky bits. He warned us to watch out for more bones, and we did have to be careful. Totally worth it.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Why, oh, why would a blogger ever leave home without a camera? I ask this because words will certainly fail to do justice to my latest favorite Hamptons moment. The thing is, when a Hamptons girl is stopping by the drugstore on a Saturday evening for some Chapstick, she just wouldn't expect to need photographic documentation - which is why I don't have a picture of the fire truck parade.
Mom was here for a visit over the weekend, and at some point on Saturday her Chapstick went missing. So on the way back from duck pizza at World Pie out in Bridgehampton, we stopped by the local chain-drug-superstore. Chaos ensued, as it turns out that Mom is just a little bit picky about her skin care products (we don't think of ourselves as high maintenance... we just want it how we want it. I come by it honestly). Mission more or less accomplished, we headed back to the Jeep to the sound of blaring sirens rolling past.
Refer back to my post of 9/11 of this year if you need a refresher, but that many sirens that close to me does still make me a little bit skittish. All downtown NYC 9/11 survivors, I think, quickly identify and assess such things - almost without realizing it. In my case, I couldn't smell anything burning, so I looked around to find the emergency vehicles. They were on the side road at the intersection with Main Street, and they didn't seem to be moving very fast, so Something was clearly Up.
But... they seemed brighter than usual. A LOT brighter than usual. And looking down the street, there were a bunch more coming along.
So it turned out we had stumbled upon a parade. All of the fire trucks were wrapped up in string after string of Christmas lights, from the front bumpers to their ladders. There were wreaths and light-up, blow-up reindeer and Santas on the roofs, and assorted light sculptures attached to the back ends. The firemen were following along behind in their gear. The very last truck was carrying Santa and Mrs. Claus through town, presumably to preside over the Village Christmas tree lighting in the park.
What else could we do but stand out there in the cold and watch Santa drive by?
Naturally, immediately upon returning home, the Chapstick turned up in Mom's pocket. So the trip to the drugstore was a wasted one... right?
Several lessons learned, here: Sometimes it takes a little insignificant chaos to get you into the right place at the right time. Take the &%*@! camera - it's small. The best holiday moments are the unexpected ones. But most importantly: You don't ever have to be too old, too stressed out, or too jaded for Santa Claus.
Mom was here for a visit over the weekend, and at some point on Saturday her Chapstick went missing. So on the way back from duck pizza at World Pie out in Bridgehampton, we stopped by the local chain-drug-superstore. Chaos ensued, as it turns out that Mom is just a little bit picky about her skin care products (we don't think of ourselves as high maintenance... we just want it how we want it. I come by it honestly). Mission more or less accomplished, we headed back to the Jeep to the sound of blaring sirens rolling past.
Refer back to my post of 9/11 of this year if you need a refresher, but that many sirens that close to me does still make me a little bit skittish. All downtown NYC 9/11 survivors, I think, quickly identify and assess such things - almost without realizing it. In my case, I couldn't smell anything burning, so I looked around to find the emergency vehicles. They were on the side road at the intersection with Main Street, and they didn't seem to be moving very fast, so Something was clearly Up.
But... they seemed brighter than usual. A LOT brighter than usual. And looking down the street, there were a bunch more coming along.
So it turned out we had stumbled upon a parade. All of the fire trucks were wrapped up in string after string of Christmas lights, from the front bumpers to their ladders. There were wreaths and light-up, blow-up reindeer and Santas on the roofs, and assorted light sculptures attached to the back ends. The firemen were following along behind in their gear. The very last truck was carrying Santa and Mrs. Claus through town, presumably to preside over the Village Christmas tree lighting in the park.
What else could we do but stand out there in the cold and watch Santa drive by?
Naturally, immediately upon returning home, the Chapstick turned up in Mom's pocket. So the trip to the drugstore was a wasted one... right?
Several lessons learned, here: Sometimes it takes a little insignificant chaos to get you into the right place at the right time. Take the &%*@! camera - it's small. The best holiday moments are the unexpected ones. But most importantly: You don't ever have to be too old, too stressed out, or too jaded for Santa Claus.
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