Over the summer, The Man and I decided to celebrate surviving a year of homeownership. We had been given a giftcard to Pluckemin Inn, and this seemed like the perfect time to use it. We made the mistake of not making a reservation before popping in on a rainy Friday night - we won't do that again. We ended up waiting for about a half hour before seats opened up, and they were at the bar, not the dining room. No big deal, we were fine with that.
When we sat down, we weren't given menus or silverware. Actually, no one even acknowledged us for at least 10 minutes because so many people were at the bar. When we finally got menus, we made quick work of deciding what to order - duck for me, steak for him. As the menu here is seasonal, I honestly don't remember what the names of the entrees were. I just know that our stomachs were full and our wallets a little lighter after we walked out.
Since we had plenty of waiting around to do from the time we were seated until we finally got our food, we got to look around and observe the bar area. It was dimly lit with lots and lots of wood. They clearly wanted to appear classy and high end, having a bottle of Louis XIII on display above the bar. Considering how busy the place was, I guess people like that. The bar was full of regulars based on the conversations we overheard. It was pretty loud, which is pretty expected for a bar area. I hope the noise level in the dining room is much lower as The Man and I could barely hear each other where we were.
Our meal was quite delicious. My duck was cooked beautifully and the golden beets underneath it gave a nice flavor contrast. The Man enjoyed is steak, cleaning his entire plate. We lingered over our dinner without either bartender even so much as looking in our direction, my glass having been empty for about half my meal. I understand that it was a busy evening, but any bartender worth their salt would not have missed an empty glass. Eventually, one of them wandered over and asked if we wanted to order dessert. Since we had already spent so much time there, we decided to go for it - some sort of chocolate confection for him and the sorbet flight for me. We again waited for far too long for our order, but we thought it would be worth it based on our entrees. We weren't so lucky this time. Our desserts weren't bad or anything, but they weren't anything special either. Enjoyable to be sure, but we were expecting more from them, I guess. After spending a few hours at the Pluckemin Inn, we finally paid our check and wandered out into the night.
Overall, the food was a 4 (5 for entrees, 3 for desserts) but the service barely made a 2. I think our experience would have been better had we come on a weeknight when they wouldn't be as busy and had gotten to sit in the dining room. The place is pricey, and we probably should have ordered from the tavern menu because we felt kind of short-changed paying as much as we did for sub-par service. I have a feeling we'll end up back there eventually, but we're not in a hurry with all of the other nice restaurants in the area we could try instead. read more