It's not quite a tea house, but it has many tea house like qualities. British-themed decor. Vaguely British food. A section of the menu devoted to various kinds of tea. Tea cozies. So what the heck, I'll review it.
The Pandorica is a Doctor Who themed restaurant in Beacon, NY. I went to there on Sunday afternoon with +Christine Dalessio and +Murray Blehart , two of the biggest Whovians on the planet. The walls are decorated with Whovian fan art. The chandeliers vaguely resemble starbursts of sonic screwdrivers. The menu is filled with cute little Whovian puns. The door to the loo is painted like a TARDIS. One TV screen runs Dr. Who episodes with close-captioning. David Tennant was the Doctor for our visit.
The food was pretty good. I had a green salad and a quite solid cottage pie, nicely flavored and hearty. The cheddar on top of the pie added flavor without overwhelming it. They could have used a lighter hand on the vinaigrette dressing on the salad, but I tend to use a very light hand with vinegar on anything that isn't chips. The baked potato appetizer, however, direly needed some sort of flavoring.
For dessert, I had a nice white cake with blueberries and marscapone icing. It was a great idea, but it needed more blueberries or a slightly heavier cake. Not bad by any means, but just a little short of greatness. Chrissy and Murray had "fish fingers and custard" -- which was actually a tiny bit of dipping custard with battered and deep fried french toast-like "fingers."
Rather than trying hot tea on a July day, I opted for the raspberry iced tea, which was splendid. It was fruity without being overly sweet. There was no tang of hibiscus, which means they had to be using a very high quality raspberry tea to make it.
The generally pretty good food was, unfortunately, undermined by simply dreadful service. I asked for a refill of my iced tea three times and did not get it until the entire table was ready for a refill. We waited interminably for our food. A fairly simple lunch with dessert should not have taken over 2 hours. (The downside of having Dr. Who episodes running is that we know how long we were sitting waiting). It was not a particularly busy day and there was no excuse for our waitress's simply disappearing for long stretches of time.
I'd be willing to try the Pandorica again, although on a day that I'm not in a hurry. I hope they get their act together, because there's a gem of a restaurant in there just waiting to get out. Plus, the notion of honey pear tea appeals to me, although perhaps on a day when it is less than 80 degrees.
No comments:
Post a Comment