The Hubs, his visiting parents, and I arrived in Beacon, NY a little later than we had expected, and by the time we set out on foot from the B&B for dinner, it was already nearing 9 pm. We headed over to Main Street, where we passed by a cozy little cafe called the Muddy Cup, which was filled with teenagers scowling out at us, which was amusing because I remember being a too-cool-to-be-this-bored teenager on Friday nights. So though I could almost hear them mutter, teeth clenched, “Peepers! Go home!” at us, I felt for them. On our walk up Main Street, I was surprised to see so many storefronts empty. Beacon is a really cute little town, and it would be nice to see more signs of prosperity there.
We ended up farther up Main Street at Amarcord, a little Italian (mostly Italian–they had a couple Asian things on their menu too, which was odd) restaurant that was fairly crowded for what I assumed was a late dinner hour in this sleepy little town. This, along with the fact that the restaurant is named after one of my favorite Fellini movies, was surely propitious. We waited briefly for a table in the back room, away from the loud bar.
The service was polite and attentive. We each ordered a drink. My glass of red was corked. Strongly so. Without question, bad. I asked the waitress for a different glass of wine, explaining this was corked. She said that that as funny, it was the last glass of the bottle and no one else complained (strange! I found it so strong! I was tempted to ask her to just smell the wine), but then she recommended another wine and took away the offending glass without question, which was nice.
The Hubs started out with an octopus salad—almost more of a tangy marinated octopus—which he enjoyed very much. That was the only starter at the table, besides the complementary bread and tasty tapenade served. Two of us ordered the butternut squash agnolotti with brown butter sage and toasted pine nuts. I found it to be relatively lacking in flavor and overly buttery, but others liked it more than I did. But, it is clear by now that I am picky (op. cit. corked wine episode), so what can I say! The seared pork chop was served with apple sauce, walnut fennel sausage stuffing, and spinach. It was a hefty portion of both chop and sausage stuffing (which was unexpectedly in sliced-puck form) and pretty tasty. The special porcini mushroom ravioli was very salty and sort of a one-note porcini onslaught on the taste buds. It wasn’t the worst thing I have ever eaten, but I couldn’t eat much of it due to the incredibly intense musty-mushroomness of mushroom ravioli topped with a thick mushroom sauce. I didn’t include a photo of it here because it really didn’t make a pretty picture. Trust me on this one.
I think we all agreed that it wasn’t sock-knockingly good, especially for the prices, which I think were a little high for what it was. But it was a fine meal in a comfortable atmosphere, with good company, and a nice way to start our weekend.
Amarcord
276 Main Street
Beacon, NY 12508
(845) 440-0050
Tomorrow–more food in the Hudson Valley area, inclduing a great meal in New Paltz!
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