Eye on Dining - A Gaslight Movie Dinner

In conjunction with the Summer Film Series honoring Ingrid Bergman, hosted by Wesleyan's Center for Film Studies, several downtown restaurants are offering "CineFare" or Pre-Fix menus before each Wednesday night showing, from 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM (show time is at 8:00 PM). Though little information is provided regarding exactly what menu choices are available, as a Middletown dining scene aficionado I feel compelled to suggest a dining experience for each screening, related in someway (I may have to stretch it a bit!) to the theme, setting, or plot of the movie.

Tomorrow’s film showing is Gaslight, a mystery-thriller in which Bergman stars as a young opera singer sent to Italy to study after her world-famous aunt, also an opera singer, is murdered during a failed jewelry robbery. She marries and returns to her aunt’s vacant home in London, only to endure several strange occurrences and the eventual resolution of her aunt’s thereunto unsolved murder.

In Middletown, of course, it is not a hard feat to find Italian cuisine. This week’s featured movie menu can be found at Tuscany Grill, a CineFare participating restaurant, offering an Italian-American fusion befitting of the movie’s dual settings in both Italy and England. It’s dark, sleek atmosphere makes Tuscany Grill the perfect place to sneak in and hide out, especially if one is an undercover jewel thief. Just be sure to keep a look out for Scotland Yard.

Gaslight-Inspired Dinner Menu
Tuscany Grill

Appetizer
EGGPLANT TOWER (of London) - layered with roasted peppers, seasoned spinach, Asiago and mozzarella cheeses, in a plum tomato sauce

The sweetness of the roasted peppers and salty, gooey cheeses compliment the mild flavor of the eggplant perfectly.

Salad
TUSCAN CAESAR with GRILLED SHRIMP - with marinated tomatoes, calamata olives and garlic croutons

Though caesar salad aficionados would claim that adding tomatoes evokes this classic salad’s title, Tuscan cuisine is much more Mediterranean than its counterparts from the north, which is why the addition of the savory olives and charred grilled shrimp to this salad makes it truly a “Tuscany grill.”

Entrée
BROCCOLI “Rob” & HOUSEMADE CHICKEN SAUSAGE - sautéed in virgin olive oil, Marsala wine and garlic with white beans and plum tomatoes tossed with orecchiette.

Creamy, mild white beans and orcchiette and fresh plum tomatoes balance the spicy chicken sausage and strong broccoli flavors in this very original dish. Ok, I replaced the “rabe” in “broccoli rabe.” You didn’t think these things just fall into my lap, did you?

Tuscany Grill is located at 120 College Street, Middletown.
For reservations call: (860) 346-7096.


Stay tuned for next week's movie menu for The Bells of St. Mary's!