Wednesday, December 28, 2011

12/22/11-The Chestnut Grille @ The Bee & Thistle Inn, Old Lyme, CT

What a lovely place to visit at the holidays! We arrived at this gorgeous house for dinner (I wish it was light outside so we could explore the property!) and walked inside to a beautifully decorated house. There were garlands, ornaments, gingerbread houses and other accents throughout the rooms surrounding the foyer. The hostess was so pleasant, taking our coats and showing us to the dining room.

Tom ordered a beer while I had a glass of white wine and bread with a herb butter was brought over. The butter had a very strong garlic and parsley taste so only a little bit was needed on the bread to get the flavor. For an appetizer, we ordered the Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio with Truffle Oil and Aged Gouda--nicely presented and the gouda slices were a nice touch, however the serving was quite small for the price (comparatively to the carpaccio we had at La Tavola, which we liked better than this one). For our entrees, Tom had the Tenderloin of Beef with Wild Mushroom Risotto and Caramelized Onions--the beef was cooked to his liking and the onions were spectacular, giving the meat this sweet and smoky flavor. I had the Braised All Natural Pork Shank with Smoked Garden Chili Peppers, Grilled Asparagus and Poached Fingerling Potatoes-- The pork was not on the bone as I had thought it would have been, but was in small slices (small-ish portion again) with a nice serving of asparagus and a few potatoes around the plate, no chili peppers to be found in this dish, so maybe just used for flavoring--everything tasted good, just kind of an oddly presented dish.

We were heading home to make cookies for the holiday so no dessert for us! Overall, we had a lovely meal together, in a nice romantic setting. Definitely worth a visit if you are out this way!



http://beeandthistleinn.com/restaurant

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