I'd finally managed to get my messages - no cell service up
in Vermont - and there was an urgent message from the night
before to call the doctor. So I called and received the
news that my father had died early that morning. There was
not much that an extra half day or day would do, so we
decided to continue driving down as planned, just not to
dawdle a whole lot. Thinking back, he had asked me to hug
him goodbye (something unheard of in a very non-touchy-feely
family) before I left on this trip.

After a soft billet for the night, we were out of there at
9:30. My original thought was to take the Merritt, but I
mused that last time it wasn't so nice a drive as it'd been
when I was a kid, so the path of least resistance was 84 to
684 to 287, or so I recalled. Unfortunately, we missed the
684 sign, so instead of a quick freeway ride, we crossed
over at Newburgh and took the surprisingly scenic 9W down
the river. In any case, our destination was Piermont, a
waterside community of new affluence and moderate charm but
now well known as a minor culinary destination. We got there
20 minutes later than we would have had we found our turn.
Xaviar's, the local mecca, was closed for lunch (apparently
serves lunch only Friday and Sunday), but the place next
door, the equally touted but less formal Freelance Cafe
and Wine Bar, was open. Both are operated by that X-prodigy
Peter X. Kelly, who once conquered Kitchen Stadium (what a
lode of horsecrap is that) and sent Bobby Flay fleeing with
his tail between his legs.

Estival (Vinedo de los Vientos, Uruguay) looked interesting,
so I ordered it. It was pleasantly full-bodied, a tad off
dry, somewhat floral but not overtly so, with muted citrus
and stone fruit. Certainly not a Chard, nor a Rhine variety.
Viognier? Never had one like it. I couldn't figure it out
and had to look it up - it's 60 Gewurz, 30 Chard, and a tiny
bit of Moscato.

Carol had the smoked trout and horseradish salad with
celeriac julienne - good but not stellar, the presentation
more interesting than the dish itself. A pair of fried dough
things as the base, then the celery root (good), then the
fish - rather too thick pieces I thought, a little fibrous,
but at least not oversmoked. Drool around the plate. The
whole was not more than the sum of the parts.

She then chose a daily special, pasta alla chitarra with
shrimp, scallops, swordfish, spinach, and lobster sauce.

I ordered just the "moules marinieres with vermouth & pommes
frites" and a Yuengling, asking the waitress if that would
be enough for lunch. She opined that it was definitely an
appetizer, "but a large appetizer." As it appeared that we'd
be a low-ticket table, her level of interest in us declined
at that point, which is fine, as I prefer slightly cool to
overheated. It turned out a largish serving of not what I'd
expected at all, as there was nothing mariniere about the
preparation. It was a bowlful of mussels steamed in cream
with a big pile of allumettes blopped on top. I ate most
of the fries first, then the mussels (delicious), then the
cream sauce (delicious too, but the wine was on the fugitive
side), then the few potatoes that had fallen into the sauce
and plumped up like a weird kind of pasta.

At this point I flagged the waitress and changed our order.
I told her to split the special and put in another order (to
split) of a main course off the regular menu, Montauk fluke
with lump crabmeat and green onion risotto. She danced away
and Carol noticed her gesturing in a chopping way at some
unknown person in the distance.

A couple minutes later, the pasta came out. It was perfect,
just the right size, al dente, a generous serving of seafood
atop each of the splits. The shrimp were good; the scallops
were very good, tender and sweet (Carol, who is sensitive to
grit, got a little, though); but the chunks of swordfish,
two each, a tad under an ounce each, were sublime - tender,
rich, and hugely flavorful. The sauce reminded me of lobster
bisque, which it perhaps was, as the bisque is on the menu.
Some wilted spinach here and there and a few bits of tomato
did no harm to the dish.

As soon as we were done with that, the fluke came out, two
4-oz fillets bedded with a jumbo number of jumbo crab lumps
and a little bit of almost perfect (I got a seed or two)
risotto nestled down by the bottom. Quite wonderful, and a
generous serving.

The wine went nicely with everything except the trout, which
would have been tough to match with anything but Champagne.

Another special of the day was an "individual Callebaut
chocolate cake," which I figured was one of those molten
things: it was. In order to underscore the bitterness of
the bitter chocolate, there was minimal sugar in the dish,
fine with me, but there was also a considerable amount of
salt, which was a little jarring. A scoop of pistachio ice
cream on the side (also a balancing act of salty nuts and
sweet ice cream) provided a dialogue.

Slight contretemps when I pulled my Visa card out: they
don't take Visa, just AmEx, and I had just the one credit
card with me. Thank heaven for mad money, I told the
waitress, pulling out a traveler's check.

Mr. Kelly was there - I saw some guy on my way to the
restroom: he looked rather like a tired and dissipated young
Kevin Symons. The loud lady down the way confirmed this was
he, telling her table that she'd seen him talking to some
woman (the nerve of him) in the closed restaurant next door.

After that quick 150-minute lunch, it was back southward:
Palisades Parkway, Jersey Pike, and 301 to the Bay Bridge.

Somehow, we found ourselves at dinnertime in the vicinity of
a place Carol had wanted to show me - Lisa's Small Plates
and Wine Bar, in an ugly strip mall beside rte 50 just
before the bridge. She and her friend Eden had eaten there
not long ago on their way back from the beach, and I'd heard
much (mostly good, all amusing) about the place.

When we were seated, Carol asked about the specials, which
on this night, Ladies' Night, were $3 Martini drinks
(Cosmos, real or fancy Martinis, apparently anything in
that shape glass) and $3-a-glass house wine.

I ordered calamari with Thai dipping sauce, which turned out
to be a dish of slightly oily fried rings with the usual
thick sweet-hot vinegar sauce; decent, would have been
better if fried in hotter oil.

Carol countered with oyster sliders, one apiece for $7 -
a bit of hoagie bread, lettuce, tomato, and a big oyster,
also fried in not-quite-hot-enough oil; on the side
remoulade (decent), cocktail sauce (didn't try), and
something that was between Essence and Old Bay.

My duck breast on apple-cranberry chutney came rare as
ordered, plopped atop a bed of not-too-sweet, fairly tart,
not spicy at all fruit sauce: a nice dish even at $11 for
one breast half and no sides.

Chicken pot pie was definite comfort food, mildly seasoned,
the chicken and veggies in tiny tender bits, appropriately
gummable, the pastry also tender. Not my thing, but I guess
good for what it was.

We tried all the house wines but two (the Nathanson Creek
Sauvignon Blanc and the Modifier Noun Cabernet did not
seem to appeal).

Sycamore Lane Pinot Grigio was a totally neutral wine: one
could drink lots of this lemon water and not get buzzed and
perhaps not remember that one had been drinking at all. As
such, it washed down the food nicely but did nothing else.

I asked for the Sutter Home Moscato (yes, that Sutter Home).
The waitress asked if I was familiar with Moscato. I said,
yes, why? She said, some people find it a bit sweet. I said,
put it this way, what would you drink with fried calamari
with Thai dipping sauce? She said, point taken.

With the duck, the Leaping Horse Merlot was surprisingly
decent, with not only the expected massive amount of fruit
but a bit of tannin and structure as well.

Redwood Creek Chardonnay was lightly oaked, a little off
dry, and good with the chicken pot pie (neither of which
I ordered).

Desserts didn't call our name, so I asked for two glasses of
white Port.

Churchill was only a little sweet, quite acid, maybe a tad
corky. Searingly hot, and when I said it had a caramel
aspect, Carol said no, butterscotch, because of the alcohol.
Also white pepper, raisin stems, other harsh things.

Rozes was quite a contrast: unctuously sweet, very smooth,
no alcoholic kick. Flowers and fruits as opposed to spices,
and here was real caramel (we agreed). It was also crystal
clear, while the Churchill was rather turbid.

Halfway through our investigations, the waitress complicated
things by coming back with another glass - she said that
they'd found another bottle of Churchill in the back and had
tasted both, and they thought that the first one they'd
brought had gone off, so here was another. It was very
similar except that it was smoother and not so boozy - we
thought that the first one tasted like the second with a
tot of raw brandy added.

Turns out the specials for Ladies' Night are good only for
Ladies (duh!), and we were charged full boat ($6) for my
glasses of house wine. Not a great tragedy, except that
that brought the price of Sutter Home to $24 a bottle, a
bit much considering that the stuff retails for $5.

From there it was a mere hop, skip, and jump across the
Bay Bridge and home with the top down.