Sunday, September 11, 2011.
Nothing Bad. Crab Cakes Under Eggs. DiMartino's.
Even those of us who weren't paying much attention had their antennae tuned to the possibility that on this tenth anniversary of a bad thing another bad thing might happen. Even Mary Ann--who waves such things off fatalistically--spent a lot of the day watching the towers fall on television. I tried to keep my thoughts as far away from all that as I could.
While nothing happened, the two of us had a routine Sunday. We began with breakfast at Mattina Bella, at the suggestion of Mary Ann, who despite her claim that she doesn't like breakfast had a stack of pancakes. For me, poached eggs on top of crab cakes. I thought it would be on the order of the crabmeat-and-mushroom eggs I had here a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't as good as that. I'll bet the food cost percentage on the crabmeat-and-mushroom stuff was very high, such that the regulars might chafe at paying an appropriate price. I'd pay $20 for that dish, but in Covington everything must be cheaper, despite the rigors of math and logic.
It was a beautiful day (just like 9/11/01 was). I spent some time cutting vines and bushes around the water well pumphouse. A guy is going to come tomorrow to put a new roof on the little shed, which has been without a roof for a couple of years. My do-it-yourself days are over, and good riddance, I say.
I bought some shrimp for a new dish I have in my head. Mary Ann was enthusiastic about the idea until it got to be dinnertime. The shrimp need to be peeled, however, and Mary Ann never allows me to do such projects. But she didn't want to do it either. Let's go out, she said.
One of her ideas was a return to DiMartino's. That didn't ring my bell at first, but after the idea bubbled in my brain pan for a couple of minutes, it sounded better and better.
DiMartino's has four locations around the city. Their newest and fanciest is in Covington. It looks like a classy bistro, but operates like a fast-food restaurant. You place your order and pay at the counter, behind which--in blinding fluorescent light--is the whole kitchen. The lights are appropriately low in the dining room, where you wait at a table for the server to find your number and bring the food over. Could it really be that much harder to have the same server take the order, too? Apparently the management seems to think it is. Well, I say here and now it's too much trouble for a customer to have to tromp back up to the window, stand there squinting in the light bath, and order another glass of wine or a dessert, waiting to have your credit card run a second, third, and fourth time for what in any comparable restaurant would be just once.
There is no printed menu, either. You stand there and stare at the menu on the wall, and try to figure it out. One question I had concerned the difference between the grilled redfish with garlic potatoes and the grilled fish with garlic potatoes. (I'll bet you have to read that sentence over again.) "The $11.95 fish is tilapia," the counter girl said, explaining everything.
Now the good news. The herb-studded redfish ($17.95, and well worth the difference), its buttery sauce, and the potatoes were all excellent. I have been served worse in restaurants at twice the prices and ten times the pretension. This is a good thing. Still doesn't let them get away with the order-at-counter thing, though.
Mary Ann was equally happy with a salad with grilled chicken. A modest Italian salad that came with my entree was also good. So was dessert, even though it was a no-brainer: spumone from Angelo Brocato's, which simply cannot be beat.
I guess you could get away without tipping very much here. That will not help attract great dining room personnel. Indeed, only once in the meal did a server come by the table. But I couldn't bring myself to it. Twenty percent it was.
I chalk this up to yet more evidence of the replacement of fine dining everywhere in the world.
DiMartino's. Covington: 700 S Tyler St. 985-276-6460.
