Look! A Real Restaurant in Florence!

So we ate lunch and dinner at Side Street Cafe last week. Side Street is the new restaurant on Maple Street, a few blocks south of Main Street, in the same little set of shops as the pet grooming place. (We didn't plan to do both meals there, but it just worked out that way, as Ella asked to have her birthday dinner there.) The restaurant is owned by chef Pat Shannon, formerly of Del Raye and (briefly, I think) the Tavern on the Hill.

Lunch is counter service with high-end deli sandwich (panini with grilled chicken, fresh mozz, sunflower seed pesto, and greens). It was very good -- interesting enough to be, well, interesting, but not obnoxious or hipper-than-thou.

For dinner we had filet mignon (me, came with some basic veggies and good sweet potato and regular potato fries) and salmon (Dena, came with terrific risotto and asparagus), with fried oyster appetizer w/ spicy dipping stuff (yum) and a burger for Ella (looked good, didn't try it). My steak was very good, though not quite as pink as I'd want for medium rare. Dena's salmon was lovely.

It's BYOB for now, I don't think with a corking charge. Their beer & wine license will come soon. Our full dinner was $70 with tip. Not bad, given the non-tap-water drinks (Dena accidentally ordered a $3.50 bottled water, Ella had soda, Liam had milk) and appetizer. Solid service, though I wouldn't say it was super fast. If we'd been sans kids, the pace would have been perfect. As it was, I found myself impatient from time to time.

It was full at 6:00 on a Thursday night. They only have seating for 24, granted, but still, for the third day open with minimal publicity, that seems pretty good.

And thus did Florence become perfect: A high-quality but still basically casual sit-down restaurant that doesn't serve pizza. Hooray!

Unappetizing

Has anyone ever been drawn into a restaurant, thinking, "I've gotta try out that place," with this sign:

MARGES [sic] KITCHEN
SPECIAL
CABBAGE AND
CORNBEEF SOUP

Hmm?

Apropos of Nothing...

...but is there a more annoying song than The Twelve Days of Christmas?

It's the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall of Christmas carols. Please, make it stop.

(Looking for better holiday music? Listen to the 12/24/2005 archive of Ella's and my radio show or check out Jingle Punx...

Food, food, food

This morning we had a crystallized-ginger scone and coffee at Evolution, the new bakery/cafe in the center of Florence (in the space formerly occupied by Amelie-Louise Bakery Cafe, just behind the Texaco, and, importantly, a block from our house). Evolution is owned by the folks who used to own Fire and Water, which was evidently a legendary cafe/performance space in Northampton. They've done a great job of warming up what was a fairly stark if striking space. The scone was solid, though I have to admit I think the crystallized-ginger scones I happened to make this morning had a better texture.

And last night I had takeout from Chef Wayne's Big Mamou in downtown Springfield. Wow! That's some good Cajun food in a very friendly space.

Frogs and Gorges

I had always thought that images of frogs lounging on lily pads were fictional. But this one has been hanging out on our lily pads off and on for several days:



I can get within about four feet of the pond before it notices me and jumps in the water.

We spent the afternoon at the Chesterfield Gorge. It really is as beautiful as the picture at that site. We spent all afternoon wading, making dams, and admiring the little fish (who were thinking about nibbling on our feet). Top it off with ice cream at the Williamsburg General Store and life's pretty good.

So, You Ask, What About That Garden?

You may have noticed a bit less about my ambitious vegetable garden. That is because, well, it didn't do much. Many of the seedlings just died after being planted, nothing grew large, and the corn is perhaps three feet tall.

I think I needed (a) to do more (read: anything) with the soil, (b) not leave on vacation for three weeks, and (c) do a better job of weeding. I think (a) and (b) were the critical mistakes.

We did get a couple of tasty tomatoes, though only from plants that we bought already started (none from my seedlings), and some of the flower gardens look nice, but it was still a pretty substantial disappointment.

In other disappointing news, Amelie-Louise Bakery (owned by our friends) closed. On the other hand, it's going to reopen in September as a cafe, and I understand it's owned by folks who ran a fairly popular vegetarian cafe in Northampton called (I believe) Fire and Water. That place had performances too, so I have a little dream of them booking kids' music shows in there. Also, the video store in Florence closed, and I've heard that, too, will be a restaurant of some sort. Perhaps someday Florence will have a sit-down place that isn't terrible (i.e., Friendly's).

Radio Radio

For the next week (or some limited number of downloads), a 57 MB MP3 of "Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child," the radio show my daughter and I are producing, is here. Full website, with instructions on podcasting and such, is here.