The only time I ate here previously was several years ago, when it was still the Chimney Rock (a small chain with restaurants in nearby Bound Brook and Flemington). My memory of it? Decent, but not so good that I ever was tempted to darken its doorways again.
From what I've read online, it's still owned by the Chimney Rock people; only the name has been changed-- I guess to...protect the innocent?
Some days ago, it was the weekly "date night" with my old friend (we pick a place to eat, and I listen to his litany of problems, trying to interject a friendly "suggestion" when/if I can). We usually take his car, but I was driving on this particular night because the door of his used (and battered) vehicle had been literally torn off its hinges by another recklessly speeding driver (that's my friend's version of the story; I'm not saying I doubt the veracity of it, but my friend is a horrible driver, and every time we've had a "near death" experience...and we've had a few...it's always and invariably the other driver at fault. Anyway...). Being it was night, I didn't want to drive too far, as my night vision sucks, and I've become an extremely timid motorist when it's dark (which is usually why my friend drives).
I pass Vintage Tavern constantly, as it's not far from where I live, and I suggested it as a possibility. He had no objections.
Everything seems the same as it did when it was named Chimney Rock, from the exterior of the restaurant to its spacious parking lot. Inside, we were seated at a table near the bar.
Very loud music was playing, and it seems Vintage Tavern acquired its playlist from Dunkin Donuts Radio. Meaning-- it was obnoxious, pounding noise, as insistent as a dentist's drill trying to work its way through the skull into the temporal lobe. My friend immediately objected (his ex-father-in-law once described him uncharitably as a "delicate vessel") but I was less annoyed about it than I had been at the Dunkin Donuts (for clarification, see my review of the Dunkin Donuts in nearby Berkeley Heights). After all, we were in what was clearly marked as a "tavern," and loud music typically gets played in them (at least in the ones that I used to patronize back in the day). Obviously (and sadly), this is the kind of "music" young people listen to these days. The times when a tavern featured a jukebox with "Redemption Song" (a beautiful, poignant Bob Marley song) or "Dead Flowers" (one of my favorite Stones songs, next to "Sway" and "Stray Cat Blues") on it are obviously long gone. I don't know if the people running the place heard us, (how could they? given the loudness), but the volume was thankfully turned down to a less skull-shattering level, maybe because more old people (like us) were starting to enter the establishment.
Our server was prompt and personable. I ordered a Coke; my friend ordered an ice water "without lemon" (he's concerned that the people slicing the lemons in whatever restaurant we patronize might have feces under their fingernails). We both had the French Onion Soup. Over the years, I've grown tired of French Onion Soup, but this version was not bad. Or maybe I was just hungrier than I initially thought.
My friend ordered an open steak sandwich, which he liked. I had the Chicken Pot Pie. It was ok; certainly, better than what I had some months ago at the Cracker Barrel in Clinton. Still, I keep seeking the "perfect" Chicken Pot Pie, and this wasn't it. (I'm not sure where I acquired my idealized version of the dish; I think my mother bought a "homemade" version a few times at a "farm store" near where we lived in Bernardsville when I was a teenager, but not very often. The last time I ate it was a frozen-food purchase from the local supermarket, and it tasted like damp cardboard slathered with wallpaper paste). Not that I'm trying to damn the Vintage Tavern version with faint praise; it wasn't bad, and I definitely wolfed it down with alacrity. Then again, I think I was hungrier than I had initially thought.
I couldn't resist dessert; a vanilla ice cream-brownie combination with whipped cream that satisfied my sweet tooth and seemed to put a final nail in my ongoing "diet" plans, at least for the time being.
Our server was perfectly fine, patient when we took a long time to order between courses. She'd come by the table, and say, "You guys still picking?" At one point, after she had walked away, I joked to my friend, "I'm a-pickin' and you're a-grinnin'"...recalling those childhood days when my father was a regular watcher of "Hee Haw" on TV and enjoyed the "antics" of Roy Clark and Buck Owens. My friend, whose father regularly watched the same show, laughed appreciably. Like I said...we're old.
Vintage Tavern isn't haute cuisine, but the food is pretty good, the prices reasonable, the service friendly.
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