I remember dinners out with my grandparents at Tomacy’s, in
Adams, when I was a kid. They were huge golf nuts, members at the
Watertown Golf Club at Thompson Park, and I think dinner at the club – or any
club – held an appeal for them that was more indicative of their glory days in
the 60s and 70s, rather than the neon 80s of my childhood.
Even then, the flagstone floor and planters serving as room
dividers seemed dated; by the time I attended a wedding there in the early
aughts, I remember wondering that a renovation hadn’t yet updated the space,
but I did feel a bit of nostalgic affection for all that flagstone.
Well Tomacy’s is now The Adams Country Club, and it has
traded the 70s den feel for a warm, welcoming interior with some of ye olde
flagstone still in residence, but everything else fresh and bright. The two
spacious dining rooms and a big central bar are all framed by huge windows to
let in the view of one of the prettiest, greenest nine hole courses around.
Adams’ CC is billing itself as an Italian steakhouse, which
I find an intriguing concept, as I don’t necessarily think “steak” when I think
of Italian food. The menu is a good mix of north country standards and some
more creative dishes, though I hear the new chef/owner, Michael, is going to
continue to evolve the offerings into the next year. And I get the steakhouse
moniker, as the menu is offering several cuts of beef with steakhouse-style
sides rendered with Italian flavors. Cool idea.
A brilliant idea is the basket of focaccia brought to each
table with a cup of bright green herbed oil for dipping. The bread is light,
airy – less greasy than a lot of focaccia can tend to be, and bursting with the
lively sharpness of fresh garlic and herbs when you dip a slice in that
gorgeous oil. This is a mouthful of warm Tuscany in the middle of a long
Northern New York winter.
I have to tell you first about the mozzarella fritti ($7.99),
because I am a hedonist and I do not believe in saving the best in any way. Guys,
these are not some dinky sticks of fried cheese. Order this, and your waitress
will bring you huge slabs of creamy, oozy mozzarella, breaded in the finest
crispy shell of breadcrumbs and ready to dunk in a homey, deep, slow-cooked
marinara. You know how a fat kid loves cake? Yeah well, Big Hungries love this
appetizer, which has probably ruined me for all other mozzarella sticks.
If you’re a dinner ninja (I am), you’ll scoop one these onto a slice of that fluffy foccacio bread, and then you’ll groan so loudly, they’ll hear you out in the bar. This is miles beyond the dinners I ate here with grandma and grandpa all those years ago.
Tuscan onion soup ($4.99) is laced with pancetta and a load
of thyme. The Tuscan comes in the
form of cippolini onions, which are tiny, flattened out, really sweet yellow
babies that cost roughly three times what your ordinary Spanish cooking onions
would.
The salad course at ACC is served family style, which I
always like. Family style service invites a conviviality that works well in
this kind of setting, and the Italian dressing in the big bowl of salad here
was mild and light, while the salad was packed with grape tomatoes, cucumbers
and black olives. I would have welcomed some roasted red peppers and gorgonzola
cheese in there to further drive home the Italian flavors and dress up this
course, but that’s not to say it wasn’t tasty as is.
At this point, dirty dishes started to pile up a bit on our
table, and there was some lag time before our entrees came. But there were
several really large parties in the dining rooms that night, and I’m betting
that happened to be a crucial point in service for both, backing up the kitchen
and requiring all hands on deck. As soon as our entrees did arrive, our
cheerful waitress was back in fine form, friendly, helpful and attentive.
Scampi served over angel hair pasta ($19.99) was a
carbohydrate lover’s dream, supremely creamy and delicately seasoned. The
shrimp were succulent and plentiful up on top, and all I could think while
tasting it was that if you had just been dumped, this would be perfect comfort
food! It wasn’t overly garlicky, just buttery, and there was a metric ton of
pasta coated in the glorious scampi sauce.
The sides at Adams Country Club are top notch. Again, I
would have really grooved on these as a kid, but I’ll gladly take them now.
Macaroni and cheese ($4.99) was baked with a crusty cheese top and plenty gooey,
just how you want it. I noted that I prefer a sharper cheddar in my mac, but my
fellow diners shushed me and kept on plowing through it.
The twice baked potato ($4.99) was excellence in potato
form. You could taste the creamy sour cream and generous amount of butter
mingling with the fluffy, earthy potato filling, and the top had that same
browned, crusty cheese top as the mac and the soup. There should be a cult
based on browned, crusty cheese.
Chicken alla zucca ($17.99) was one of the more interesting
and inventive dishes on the menu. The chicken was pounded thin and pan seared
with just the lightest coating of flour. The two breast cutlets were smothered
in a pile of al dente pumpkin ravioli, with some dried cranberries, diced
pancetta, walnuts and fresh sage all coated in just a small amount of nutty,
sweet browned butter.
Haddock ($15.99) was ordered E.V.O. and lemon style – you
can pick your prep for each of the four kinds of seafood offered – and roasted.
It was very light and not overcooked, dressed simply with lemon and parsley.
Fish is not my favorite unless it’s raw, but this was good.
We all shared a trifecta of desserts. My favorite, flat out,
was the brownie sundae ($5). I wrote on my notes that it was insane, and I’m
standing by that gut reaction. The brownie base of this behemoth was legit – fudgy,
deeply chocolaty and homemade, first of all. Then they topped it with vanilla
ice cream and some dark chocolate sauce, then jammed a couple of handfuls of
crumbled up Oreos on top, just to prove that they were cool. Well done, guys.
My favorite part was how deep both the brownie and the sauce were, but with
none of the bitterness dark chocolate usually lends.
Dinner for five with two appetizers, three desserts and a
couple adult beverages came to $155.62, and yes, these entrees are a bit higher
in price than your standard family restaurant in the North Country, but what
you’re getting for your money is not standard, nor are the portion sizes.
I award Adams Country Club an eight on the Big Hungry scale,
for the quality of the ingredients, the effort in the kitchen to make each dish
special, and the fun but still relaxing atmosphere. Chef Michael Jeschawitz came
out to greet a few of the tables, including ours, and was personable and
seemingly eager to please his customers – I like to see that.
This is not a meal that will absolutely knock you off your
rocker with cutting edge cuisine, but it is a really wonderful, kind of
different place to bring friends and family and have a well prepared meal with
just enough twists and turns to tantalize your taste buds. I will say, the
bathrooms were chilly, so bring a sweater, young lady! But mostly, bring your
appetite. Order starters, order sides, and enjoy, because between live music in
the bar and plenty of yum in the kitchen, La Bella Fonte isn’t your grandma’s
dinner at the club.
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