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Early summer 2016 found us reconnoitering
one last sharp downhill turn to Shady Harbor Marina and
its accompanying restaurant, Boathouse Grille.
The menu’s wide range of fifteen appetizers, ten
soups and salads, ten variations of pizza, a dozen
sandwiches, twenty entrées, and fifteen beers on tap
should satisfy most casual travelers. It is a
comfortable, scenic spot on the Hudson River, especially
on a 90 degree day, at 6:30, when the rear-side cliff
casts its shadows onto the nestling restaurant,
dissipating the heat’s intensity.Our choices of the
evening, in the appetizer category:
===> Boathouse crispy bangin’ cornmeal dusted
shrimp, tossed in spicy Boathouse sauce, served on a bed
of arugula (Joyce: excellent)
===> Boathouse creamy seafood chowder, with scallops,
shrimp, clams, celery, carrots, Spanish onions and sweet
sherry cream sauce (Don: meh, lots of sauce, want more
substance and more of what is advertised)
===> Greek salad, with spinach, red onion, cucumbers,
mixed olives (lots), buttery croutons and feta cheese
(Deb T, and a Karneses’ share: a very good salad)
===> Caesar salad, with its crisp romaine lettuce,
buttery croutons, shaved parmesan, and NO anchovies
(Monteverds’ share: a worthy enough salad)
Entrées included:
===> the Chowder described above: (Deb T, Joyce:
advertised as a bowl but it came in a crock the size of a
cup, for the money a tad small; good enough but could
have been more)
===> Fish tacos – three flour tortillas filled
with crispy haddock filet, topped with a cilantro
coleslaw; and an extra charge side salad replacing the
fries (Don: average; the scenery and company made them
better; shared one with Deb)
===> Fish & chips- beer battered haddock, served
with coleslaw and fries (Ken: very good)
===> Catch of day (beef!) – three ounces of
filet mignon, topped with two shrimp, sides of smashed
potatoes and a half-plate of green beans (Chay, Kriss,
Mark: it was good enough but not much for the money; had
expected a heftier piece of meat; one left hungry if
expecting a full meal)
===> Seafood pot pie with shrimp and scallops in a
sweet sherry cream sauce, topped with lump crab meat and
flaky puffed pastry (Deb K: really good, rich and
delicious, and good as advertised)
Desserts:
===> Flourless chocolate torte cake (Don, of course:
appropriately dense and chocolatey, even better with a
half-scoop of vanilla ice cream from Kriss)
===> Vanilla bean ice cream – three generous
scoops, drizzled with chocolate syrup (Kriss: ice cream
servings as they should be)
===> Hot fudge cheesecake (a Karneses’s share
[not sure who did more of the sharing]; good enough)
===> Lemon drop raspberry cake – a four layer,
three inch round (Deb T: excellent)
Two baskets of chewy
rolls preceded the appetizers and were apparently tasty
enough to make us order another basket in short order.
However, it took a loooong time coming. (Did it ever
come?)
Our drink order
strayed from the usual. One glass of wine, beer on tap or
bottled for three, a peach sangria, a cucumber mojito, a
pretty red drink (steel trap mind!), and two Tanqueray
and tonics fit the table.
Service was,
well,… singularly distinctive. Or, as another put
it, “interesting to say the least.” Our intro
to Andrea was her short arms and big head, and that was her
intro. She took care of orders, poured water, delivered
food, cleared plates but I hope inexperience was her
excuse. A bit brusque, not particular personable,
repetitive phrases – I would have to go a long way
back to find a server’s personality this prickly.
Service for drinks and bread was slow. Still, she tried
hard enough to be almost likeable.
A
plus was the Executive Chef (and chief dishwasher, as he
self-described) stopped by near our meal’s end to
ascertain our culinary pleasure. A nice touch.
One of Andrea’s problems was taking orders by an
iPad that required typing the order, clumsiness at its
best. Not her fault but it did not help either.
Ambiance is a strong
suit of Boathouse, especially its setting. Quiet water on
a sunny afternoon cast reflections that are the essence
of living by water. A dozen or more boats were tied up to
the docks, occasionally eliciting a wistful glance. We
kidded the big one was ours. A couple barges chugged
past, with one of them, probably from the Coeymans yard,
muscling one of the enormous girders we thought destined
for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. Quite a sight.
One walks through an inviting door to face a large room
of about thirty tables that could serve as a pleasant
meeting place for a large group. We were ushered past the
bar and TVs and onto the deck. Here, another twenty five
tables, easily seating a hundred or more, waited to be
filled. Our table’s arrangement gave a direct view
of the river for four; the other four sat with back to
the river but caught almost the same view from the
reflective windows facing us. A colonial blue-gray paint
made the deck a tad darker and perhaps cooler. A
fetchingly stylish awning covered the entire deck,
minimizing the wind and allowing the fans to make a
difference. The ninety degree heat felt more like eighty.
A linen wrapped knife and fork set sat beside a small
plate. Centerpieces, other than salt and shaker sets,
escaped my notice. Deck chairs were satisfactory. Noise
level was reasonably quiet until the table of twelve men
were seated beside us an hour into our dinner. A round of
drink quieted them after fifteen minutes.
It
is just darn pretty.
The bill eventually
came to $100 per couple. The first part came to $92 per
couple, we paid, and sat around to talk another fifteen
minutes. Then Andrea re-introduced herself and announced
that she had forgotten to include desserts. Another bill
for $8 per couple. Just damn clumsy. What if we had left
right after paying our first bill?
We mostly agreed that the value was relatively low.
Entrée prices were mostly in mid-20s; add a salad to
that and a diner starts with low-mid 30s for a basic
meal. (Well, pizza or a burger could have been our
choice; a similar situation a few months back at Miss
Lucy’s Kitchen garnered similar comments. I thought
casual summer was pricier than trendy Saugerties. We are
perhaps too accustomed to MVB.)
I think scores would have been higher but
the service was decidedly a factor for most of us. Still,
most of us agreed that on a nice summer night, a drink in
hand, a view across the Hudson River, with good company,
Boathouse is worth a return.
Being a group summer
pick, we met directly at the restaurant, thereby
condensing the list of topics to ponder and discuss,
although an outside witness might not have noticed. The
topics I heard included: a warm summer, mostly, so far;
drying lawns; the Wexler Old-Timer party; relationships;
relationships that puzzle us; relationships that could
have been; the underwear model; Dennis’s trip;
grandkids; things keeping us busy; vegetable gardens of
varying degrees of productivity; Hilton Head; August
plans; Tappan Zee Bridge accident; Saratoga; the Notar
new car; the second Notar new car; having and taking care
of boats; Kriss feeling the one-drink warmth; golf; FB
posts of Paris landmarks with the Quinns in the
foreground; a Monteverd trip to VA after Labor Day; the
whereabouts of the Adamses; grandparents babysitting, or
not; Zoom Flume; bicycling; tile floors; helping at the
church; Finger Lakes trips; Chris’s job; and more. I
know Ken zinged a couple good ones but I have forgotten
them. Shucks, Judy.
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