When Fairway Café Is Off, It’s a Mess

        Was that a dishwasher sitting in for a chef last night at Fairway Café? The marinated chicken was juicy enough but crisped almost to a scorch. Seven slices of yellow beet looked lonely on the plate. The shrimp chowder was a pitiful joke and the hanger steak, sloppily butchered, thick at one end, thin at the other,  needlessly tough.  The burger I raved about a few weeks ago was not rare. Even the flat bread was burned. The only cog turning well was a welcoming staff and an attentive manager but even our favorite waiter was distracted.  When he recited desserts available on the $26 three-course prix fixe, yes, exceedingly generous, they sounded like winter to me.  “Isn’t there anything made with seasonal fruit? I ask. “Berries or peaches you’re selling downstairs?” 

        He shakes his head sadly.  “No. Nothing.”

        We order “the rustic apple tart,” not rustic at all. In fact, very commercial and dutifully warmed in the oven to a burned crisp.

        As we leave I spy a suspiciously fruity pie in the dessert case up front:  “What’s that?” I ask the manager.

        “Rhubarb and strawberry pie,” he replies.

        All this would just be a bad case of when-boss-Mitch-London-is-away except that I have raved about Fairway Café so often in New York and on Insatiable Critic…named it in my Favorite Places for Penny Pinching. Guess we’ll be pinching pennies elsewhere for a while.
 
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