We visited the Park Inn four years ago and you can read about that here,  We liked it enough to go back and stay in one of their 5 rooms while enjoying dinner at their restaurant each night.  The first two nights had the same menu, which are in this post, but it changed the last night so that will be a separate blog entry.  Reservations appeared necessary but not hard to get in that there are two rooms for dining.  You enter into a room with a long bar with stools and few tables along the wall.  There are tables in the back and they initally seated us there until we asked to move due to noise in that area.  The second dining room is to your right as you enter and decorated with Glenn Curtiss (an early aviator/inventor from the area) memorabilia.  The bar area is darker than the other dining room that has windows overlooking the town square.  It also had louder music which was added to by the door to the kitchen.  The Inn has a farm so the menu changes seasonally.  The Finger Lakes area of NY is full of wineries and the restaurant features many of them.  The food is good enough we didn’t tire of going and the service is super friendly.   It’s a fun vacation spot with lots of little towns to discover during the day and then a short walk to dinner in the evening.  Hope you’ll try it and like it as much as we did.

Set-up

 

Food

Crispy Goat Cheese was topped with pea shoots and sitting on an orange rhubarb marmalade.  The three patties of cheese were fried to a nice crisp exterior without being overbreaded.  The marmalade was a good mix with the mild cheese as were some pieces of citrus.

 

Steelhead Trout Tartare was seasoned with pickled ramps, topped with crispy shallots and scallion aioli on a bed of fried “wonton wrappers.”  The server said they used the fish trimmings (from the entree plate) to make this dish.  It was excellent.  The fish was fresh and tender and I loved the added crunch of the fried onions on top.  The chips were a bit on the thin side to use for scooping but you could fork it on or eat them with it.  A very good mix.

 

The Bibb lettuce salad was mixed with bacon, scallion ranch, cucumber and topped with focaccia breadcrumbs.  The main disappointment with the salad was that it was not all Bibb lettuce in fact that was a minority component of the very fresh green lettuces.  It was lightly dressed but the crumbs added a lot of texture as did the very crispy bacon sticks.

 

East Coast oysters were served with mignonette and lemon.  They were from Prince Edward Island and medium sized.  The mignonette was quite peppery but still good with them.  It’s hard for me to find a better start to the meal than some fresh raw oysters.

 

The NY Strip Steak was a 16 oz cut served with crispy Kennebec potatoes, asparagus and chimichurri.  The steak was cooked as requested but outshown by the fabulous crispy potatoes.  The chimichurri sauce was too thick and strong – it easily dominated the beef’s flavor.  The asparagus were not peeled but thin enough that they were still nicely tender and edible.  We liked this plate better than the duck.

 

The duck was a smoked cured breast and confit leg on a scallion waffle with kale, and rhubarb sweet and sour.  The breast meat was a nice medium rare and really smoky but the meat was a bit dry.  The confit was tender and juicy but way too salty.  The waffle added a bit of crispness and was tasty as was the kale on the bottom of the pile.  However the plate with the salt and smoke flavors didn’t measure up to the beef.

 

The Steelhead trout was topped with thick pea shoot pistachio pesto on sugar snaps, asparagus, chilled potatoes and green goddess.  The nice sized piece of trout’s warmness contrasted with the cool potatoes.  The green goddess added a bit of tanginess. With the vegetables this one had nice textures and flavors.

 

Pesto pasta had an herb pesto with roast chicken, carrot purée, carrot pieces, onion and cottage cheese.  The perfectly roasted chicken was in shreds that had marvelous flavor.  The cheese on top melded into the mix of pasta, chicken and sauces for a wonderful flavor.  Not a  lot of texture but this was a really tasty dish.

 

Triple chocolate brownie skillet was sprinkled with Maldan salt and caramel and topped with vanilla ice cream.  This was a gooey chocolate skillet.  It came out quite hot and the ice cream melted quickly.  It was rich and really sweet, maybe a bit too much.  We asked for generous caramel sauce which we didn’t need but they brought some in a separate bowl.  It was more than the two of us could eat.

 

Chocolate cake was iced with chocolate buttercream and served with vanilla ice cream.  This was a nice cake but had sat out too long cut and the sides were very dry.  The buttercream was really good but couldn’t save it from the dryness.  The ice cream was fine.