Tarry Lodge – Port Chester, NY

I am part of a very prestigious club called the Big Eaters, or BEC for short. It is comprised of family and friends who enjoy fine dining. Every few months we go to a new restaurant and fill our tummies with food and drink. Last night we went to the Tarry Lodge, the newest baby of Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali. I was quite excited when these two gentlemen of Babbo fame opened up a place so close to me in CT. The BEC was very excited because this was also our holiday meeting which meant more shanigans than normal.

We had an 8pm reso, but one of our members, a gal who had to haul it from Norwalk, was, not surprisingly, late. Because of this our waiter did not take our order, but was able to answer questions that we had. I loved not being rushed and they really didn’t care that we sat for about 30 minutes looking over the menu and waiting for out last guest to arrive. The menu was quite comprehensive and the wine list looked wonderful. I opted for a classic dirty martini which was very good and then had a glass of red – Joe Bastianich’s very own vino. At the BEC there is a lot of sharing, so normally everyone gets something different and we sample, not share – which is a rule that I am quite fond of.

So appetizers are as follows: beets agrodolce which were marinated in a sweet and sour sauce, octopus with baby potatoes, spinach with gorgonzola salad, chopped salad, and rock shrimp. I ordered the octopus and I thought it was delicious. I also sampled the rock shrimp which was very tasty. It was literally a little bowl filled with shrimp, very satisfying. The apps were very indicative of how good our entrees were going to be.

We ordered black fettuccini with lobster (2 orders actually), orecchiette with sausage and rapini, short ribs, gnocci with braised oxtail, and fusilli alla Crazy Bastard which had sundried tomatoes, artichokes, and goat cheese. We also ordered rosemary potatoes, brussel sprouts with pancetta, and polenta with mascarpone for the table. I sampled everything and I cannot say how good everything was. The pasta was amazing and the short ribs were to die for. The good thing about the gnocci (which was what I ordered) was that they were quite light. It wasn’t that you ate two and felt full, but they were still really decadent. Also I had never had oxtail before, but it was DAR-IS-OUS. Also we decided, all being of Italian heritage, that broccoli rabe is great thing to sample when dining out. You have something to compare it to and this was banging. So so so good.

I felt that the sides should really get their own paragraph. I have recently started to think that think polenta might be one of my favorite foods and this did not disappoint. The brussel sprouts were nothing like the boiled mess that they used to serve at school. These were roasted with crispy pancetta. You have never seen gown women carrying on so much over a vegetable.

I would love to say that our meal ended there, but it didn’t as dessert is always ordered. This is the one course that I don’t mind sharing, mostly because at this point in the meal my pants were already unbuttoned. We had the ice cream sundae with sour cherries, the lemon cheesecake, and the chocolate cake with pistachio gelato. Again, everything was to die for.

It is always after dessert that I begin surveying the meal in my head and thinking how much did we spend and is this going to break the bank? I am happy to report that the price point was very reasonable at $64 dollars per person. Now that also includes cocktails for 6 – and half of us had two each.

The thing that I loved most about Tarry Lodge was not that it had these mastermind chefs and restaurateurs backing it - it was that it had some really extraordinary choices, but it was still reasonably priced. I hate going to a place and they try and serve you these really exotic things, but at such a high price. This was really great, rustic Italian dining. The portions were just right. We were there for a while and I never felt rushed, it didn’t feel pretentious, it was just a great dining experience.

So, all in all, on the button popping scale, I would definitely rank Tarry Lodge as 4 ½ button popper. The only reason it didn’t get the full 5 button popping rating was because we had to wait so long to get a reservation and the whole reservation process itself. It’s not really fair to take off for that, but it’s only because I can’t wait to go back.