A Ship Sans Rudder
The collective consciousness of the Middletown cognescenti has long dreamed of a restaurant at the river’s edge that would provide fine foods, beverages, and a warm place for a romantic interlude to complement its superb location at the bend in the river.
Let us imagine such a restaurant. It would be large enough to host a celebration, like a wedding, yet designed to provide nooks and alcoves where couples could dine in privacy. There would also be open, gregarious spaces where thirty-somethings could see and be seen. Maybe even a small dance floor. Lighting would be indirect so as not to cause reflections or glare that would obstruct the nighttime view from expansive windows looking up river towards a picturesquely illuminated bridge, or down river towards the dabs of light along River Road. Music would be live and soothing or piped in gently to the alcoves and booths. Tabletops would be dressed in white linens while stemware and silverware would be elegant and worthy of its patrons. Fully leaded crystal wine glasses, flatware of substance, napkins of cloth. Do we need every plate to match? Do we need every knife to brother-up with every spoon? No, we do not. As long as they are quality, bought even at a second-hand store if necessary, they will provide their own unique character to the setting.
And what about the food? Of course we want good value. We want the same for the wine and beer list. Do we dream of $30 entrees and $100 bottles? No, we do not. We dream of something chosen with care by someone who has put his or her heart and passion into the choosing. We want a menu that reflects someone’s good taste, experienced palate and a chef’s consummate skill. Do we want an extensive menu of frozen and reheated foods? No, we do not. Let’s have a small menu with freshness as its key ingredient. We want a wine list of favorites that are consumed by someone who actually drinks wine and actually eats from the menu in order to pair the beverages with the flavors of the food. Let that wine list be populated with the honest produce of family-owned wineries, not that stuff squeezed through a lab coat in Modesto, Parma, Adelaide or Lyon. We want beer - of course we want beer - but please make it varied and not simply different brands of “light” beer. Is that too much to ask in this golden age of the micro-brew? I think not. Let’s have beer that a man or woman would be proud to pound.
And what about the general appearance of this imaginary restaurant? Should it have the smell of lavatory cleanser upon entering? When you pass the live lobster tank, should it have more than two tired looking miniature lobsters in it? When you trudge up the stairs to the Dining Hall should it shine with bare, lacquered wood tables while above it, on the third floor, as if in heaven itself, you can wistfully see through the glass the white linen almost waving from a dark dining room? Should the lights be draped with a month’s worth of cobwebs? Should you have to be seated by the chef because the hostess is en absentia? Do we really need to have our chair pulled out for us? No, we do not. But it would be nice. Do we have to listen to the commercial radio station blaring from the open kitchen? Apparently we do. Do we need a fire in the gorgeous fireplace? Apparently we do not. Do we need food with flavor? Yes. Please. That is our dream.
As for Harbor Park, dream on Middletown, dream on.
Just the facts:
Two appetizers, one entrée, one beer, one bottle of wine = $68.04
Our waitress was excellent.
7 comments:
so much wasted potential at Harbor Park... i completely agree
Brilliant review. Fun as well as very accurate.
As a business owner in town for the past four years, I'm totally support all businesses in town, and our self try the best to make our restaurant as a destination in town.
Almost a year's ago, we have a new comer open a bar next to us, the customer they brought in, the business they running is totally affected our business. Our front space always filled up of empty beer or wine bottle, cigarettes, napkin and everything you can named it. Because of that, we take away our patio and outdoor setting, our customer been asking for money when they walked out from our restaurant.
All these thing happen, I never complaint to you or to any officer in the town hall. But, my patience is up to a limit, I found out, they install a heavy sound system(seems like they want to changed to a dance club or a disco),they really affected my business, the heavy music and the vibration start border my diner at early 7.30pm.
I'm curious, did the town issued the license or permit to them? As my knowledge, they suppose to get an approval from the zoning department, but, we didn't get any information from town.
The North end of Main Street have a very bad reputation, if the disco or dance club draw all the nasty people and drug's dealer to the center of the street, I even cannot imagine how Middletown can be a good living and good investment town. I strongly believed, if that happen, a lot of business will move away from town. Seriously, we'll be the first one. The December issue of Hartford Magazine, just gave us a FIVE STAR review, we are one of the four or five restaurant which awarded Five Star review in the history of Hartford Magazine.
We been opened for just four years, but the reviews we have and the reputation we built is not any restaurant in Middletown can compare. We never complaint, we support all activities in town, we have a very small request, we just need a good environment for all healthy business and build Middletown to a destination for restaurant and shopping.
I assume the above comment was from Forbidden City on Main Street. Forbidden City is an amazing asset to the city of Middletown. Sophisticated food, wonderful service and a great atmosphere. It would be a huge loss and shame for Middletown to lose such a restaurant because of noise, trash and a negative element.
that bar next to Forbidden City is nothing but trouble.
nice review. well written.
i also LOVE Forbidden city. such a wonderful restaurant.
I think this is an important point being made by the five-star rated restaurant business.
In Middletown's business growth in the past few years, most of it being restaurants and bars, we have gotten the bad with the good. The North End bar scene is pretty toxic and ugly, especially what spills onto the street outside the bars at night. Cigarette butts, beer bottles, gum in the pavement, public urination, etc., with the bars not even cleaning up after themselves in consideration of their neighbors or the town. A marked difference from before those businesses were there. Now we see it also mid-town and in the South.
How do businesses that are trying to be clean and upscale, doing really good things for the cultural reputation and growth of this town, survive and thrive if the businesses around them bring everything down to caveman level? Why would any new businesses that aren't the same type of thing want to move here? How will this all play out? Is Middletown's Main Street, through it's renaissance, to become just a rough and tumble saloon town? I think the writer of that comment also has a point about Town Hall. Where are they in all of this?
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