My wife was off from work on a recent Thursday and around mid-morning I began to think how nice it was going to be to have her home early for a change. In fact, I thought it’d be a shame to let this opportunity go to waste. Being that she usually doesn’t get home from work until 7 PM or later, we rarely eat out during the week. However, since she was going to be picking me up at work on this Thursday afternoon, I started to think of local eateries where we could grab for a quick bite. Unfortunately, regardless of how developed and gentrified White Plains has become, it is certainly not a mecca for fine dining, or even good casual dining for that matter. Then I remember that Thursday nights were 4 for $40 at the Schoolhouse at Cannondale. I quickly logged on the Opentable.com and luckily they had reservations available for 5:30 PM. If my wife picked me up from work at 4:30 PM, we should have just enough time to make it to Wilton for our seating.
Like the first time we dined at the Schoolhouse, my wife and I ordered the exact opposite meals (two choices are available for each course). This made ordering easy, and although there were a few dishes that I could have spent significant time deliberating over, we agreed to share our dishes, so that we each got to sample everything on the four course menu. For the first course, I had the cold zucchini soup with a fried oyster. While I love raw oysters, I don’t always care for them cooked, but these little crispy, briny pillows added so much flavor to this delicate bowl of soup. I also really liked the soup yet while it appealed to my palate, I could see why others may not have found it so enjoyable. The soup wasn’t pureed smooth and instead had a slightly pulpy consistence. It was also garnished with a fair amount of mint which I found refreshing, but others might have thought overpowering. My wife started with a crisp, refreshing salad of string beans, shaved fennel, orange segments and a citrus vinaigrette.
For the second course, I had a perfectly cooked piece of halibut. The dish was adorned with wedges of radish topped with butter and thin slices of cantaloupe. The sweet juice from the cantaloupe nicely contrasted the crispy, salty fish. My wife had pasta served with beets and arugula. This dish resembled a beet salad served over rags of pasta and the classic flavor profile made for a nice second course.
For our final savory course, I had a medallions of pork loin served with kale and a fried pickle. The pork was incredibly tender and flavorful. It also paired nicely with the kale and how can you go wrong with a fried pickle!?! My wife’s chicken breast matched the tenderness and juiciness of my pork loin and the broccolini and porcinis that accompanied the chicken added a nice earthiness to the dish.
Up until this point in the meal, every dish was thoughtful prepared, well presented, and comprised of local, seasonal ingredients. Unfortunately, the desserts didn’t come close to matching their savory predecessors. In fact, the desserts were just bad! I had a trio of root beer, watermelon rind sorbet and some nondescript little cake. I’m not sure what you can do to screw up root beer, but they managed to find a way and the sorbet tasted like grass. My wife had a layering of cake and shaved ice that was inedible.
Fortunately, I’m not a big dessert guy and after the first three courses I was pretty full. And, in spite of the poor dessert course, this meal was well worth the $40 ($65 with wine). Actually, the first three courses were so good at if we lived closer, and I my wife got home earlier on Thursdays, we’d probably go to the Schoolhouse for 4 for $40 much more regularly.
