East End Eats: Bobby Van's

It's hard to think of a restaurant on the East End with the history of Bobby Van's in Bridgehampton. It seems a symbol of a time when the Hamptons was known for its small-town friendliness and for its artists and writers rather than its moguls and film stars and glitzy benefit parties.

To the literary crowd which drank late into the night in the screened porch of the original restaurant, across the road from the present site - Willie Morris, James Jones, Truman Capote, Charles Addams, Irwin Shaw, John Knowles, Wilfrid Sheed - Bobby Van's was a second home. In the middle of the restaurant was Bobby's Steinway baby grand, which he would play into the small hours. Sometimes. When he felt like it.

When Bobby Van lost the restaurant in 1986 (by then in its present site) it was spectacularly in debt. The new owners didn't change much, but time had changed the atmosphere: Willie Morris had left and many of the writers had died. Willie's table became known as the widows' table.

When the 1990s arrived and the restaurant was sold, gutted, and transformed from a penumbrous smoke-brown womb into a light, bright, upscale yuppery, there was much moaning and groaning along the lines of "There goes the neighborhood."

But the food was light and bright, too, and the decor was summery and cheerful, particularly the full-length doors which folded back in warm weather so that you could imagine you were in a Parisian sidewalk cafe, or gloat over the less fortunate who were nose-to-tail on their way back to the city.

Did I hear someone say, cut to the chase? Forget the purple prose and get down to the review?

Okay, I admit it. I've been procrastinating - because it's hard to write a review when you have very little good to say.

On a recent evening, the first surprise, not having eaten there in some time, was that the menu was dulled down and the prices were hiked up. Now, when you charge $24 for crab cakes and the cheapest entree is plain grilled chicken breast at $18, you put yourself into a category where judgment is stiffer.

And the judgment started with the bread, which was bad. The sort you squeeze and it stays squeezed. Good bread makes that important first impression, and it really can't cost that much more to provide something decent.

A Mystery

Fazed by the high prices, some of our party chose the prix fixe menu, which at $21.50 seemed a good buy. Others ordered a la carte.

One of us chose creamed spinach from the "side dishes" category as an appetizer, which turned out to be a good choice as it was simple, not overseasoned, and fresh.

But, since it was obviously ordered as an appetizer, why was it served with a giant serving spoon sitting in it? There was no spare plate to put the spoon; one was apparently expected to eat around it.

The Caesar salad was deemed inauthentic, although with good points - the cheese (not top quality) was freshly grated, the croutons were homemade and good, and the salad had obviously been made up at the last moment, though the chef had a heavy hand with the oil.

A green salad was requested with the dressing on the side, which was lucky because the dressing was most unpleasant. By no stretch of the imagination was it vinaigrette; it was pink, with bits in it.

Broccoli soup was salty, floury, lumpy, and tasteless.

Something Positive

Oh well, on to the entrees. Let's start with something positive - a very well-prepared salmon in a Venetian sauce with clams and mussels, which was light, with a complementary flavor. The salmon was juicy on the inside and nicely crisp on the outside.

The steak, perhaps because it was on the prix fixe menu, was not very good quality and came unseasoned, but it was well cooked: medium rare, as requested, and charred and crispy on the outside.

The lemon sauce on the chicken breast was pleasant, but the chicken itself was dry. Half of it was left on the plate.

It was served with a couple of tasteless lumps of overboiled broccoli and cauliflower. The chef must have used his salt quota in the soup, because there was none on the vegetables.

No Comfort

If the chicken was dry, you should have tried the sole - talk about "scattered driftwood, bleached and dry"! Half of it, too, was left on the plate.

It was served with mashed potatoes. It was the mashed potatoes that made us all reluctantly agree that we were not having a good meal.

Mashed potatoes are comfort food. They are rich and consoling and sing songs of home and childhood. Any fool should be able to make them.

These mashed potatoes, on the other hand, were not just disappointing, they were downright nasty.

Dessert

Dessert was not much better. Berries with Zabaglione turned out to be inedible, sour, hard strawberries with a drizzle of thin sauce. They were not eaten.

If ripe strawberries are unobtainable, could the dish not be taken off the menu? Does nobody in the kitchen think to taste them?

The apple pie was only so-so, but - at last something pleasing! - the sorbet and the almond cheesecake were just fine. In fact, the almond cheesecake was delicious. I really enjoyed it. Honest.

But it didn't make up for the rest.

First-Class Service

I have to say that the service was first-class: professional, attentive, really without fault. The waitress served the excellent Merlot as expertly as I have ever seen and happily catered to the quirks of one guest who wanted olive oil, dressing on the side, extra garlic.

But given the choice, one would rather have good food with bad service than the other way about.

Okay, let's qualify this. It's not fair to judge a restaurant on one visit. Maybe the chef was sick. But I have to say I searched around and found four other people who had eaten at Bobby Van's recently. They all gave it a negative report.

In the restaurant world few things stay the same. What's disappointing one year may be great the next. Let's hope that "I'll meet you for lunch at Bobby Van's" will soon regain its familiar, comforting ring.