Gilded Otter
There were many weekends as a kid when we were bundled into the family car for a long drive in preparation for a day in Edinburgh or Stirling or Fife or Dumfries & Galloway. What now seem like insignificant distances now felt like an eternity in the car as a kid. Even worse were the days driving at the start of the summer holidays towards Devon, Herefordshire, Sussex or Wiltshire where certain stretches of motorway where mind-numbingly dull, particularly the M6 in Staffordshire where the road had a resonant whine as the car passed over it.
As an adult you realise that those “long” distances were relatively insignificant and moving to the US has taught how truly tedious roads can be. When we spent time in Raleigh we were centrally placed for weekends in Washington DC, Savannah, the Atlantic coast beaches or The Blue Ridge Mountains. Part of the penance to get there were the Interstates that provided little in terms of entertainment. I-95, I-40 and particularly I-85 showed up British motorways as amateurs when it came to complete mind-numbing tedium.
One of New York’s contenders on this front is NY-17, soon to become I-86, the longest state route in New York with little to recommend it unless you like mile after mile after mile of trees. It’s one of our possible routes to New York City but I tend to avoid it. A few weeks ahead of this trip we’d been on NY-17 and the constantly changing panorama of reds, oranges, yellow and browns had me questioning my decision to avoid it. However, three weeks later we were back on the same road, the leaves had fallen and the resulting grey landscape meant that the time spent on the 67-mile stretch seemed like an eternity. Squared.
And what brought us this way? Another college visit, this time to New Paltz, 70 miles north of New York City and home to a largely arts based college that’s part of the New York state university system.
When looking for places to eat one of the potential candidates was Gilded Otter. The mere mention of the name was enough to persuade my daughter, a mad cat lady in training, that we should visit. After dumping our stuff in the hotel, we strolled through the centre of the town to try dinner there.
The Gilded Otter is a brew pub on the corner of Main Street and Huguenot Street on the west side of downtown. It sits on a slope above the Wallkill River. At night, it wasn’t immediately obvious where the main entrance was so we chose the door nearest the Main Street which was wrong but never mind we still managed to find someone to get us a table.
The high-ceilinged dining room is vast with a large bar area on the Main Street side and a group of large fermentation tanks on the east side of the room. The menu features typical (American) bar fare with the odd dish that suggest more ambition in the kitchen. The home-brewed beers showed an urge to go down the route of pun-based names and the Ottertoberfest and the New Paltz Crimson lager were both nicely drinkable.
As an adult you realise that those “long” distances were relatively insignificant and moving to the US has taught how truly tedious roads can be. When we spent time in Raleigh we were centrally placed for weekends in Washington DC, Savannah, the Atlantic coast beaches or The Blue Ridge Mountains. Part of the penance to get there were the Interstates that provided little in terms of entertainment. I-95, I-40 and particularly I-85 showed up British motorways as amateurs when it came to complete mind-numbing tedium.
One of New York’s contenders on this front is NY-17, soon to become I-86, the longest state route in New York with little to recommend it unless you like mile after mile after mile of trees. It’s one of our possible routes to New York City but I tend to avoid it. A few weeks ahead of this trip we’d been on NY-17 and the constantly changing panorama of reds, oranges, yellow and browns had me questioning my decision to avoid it. However, three weeks later we were back on the same road, the leaves had fallen and the resulting grey landscape meant that the time spent on the 67-mile stretch seemed like an eternity. Squared.
And what brought us this way? Another college visit, this time to New Paltz, 70 miles north of New York City and home to a largely arts based college that’s part of the New York state university system.
When looking for places to eat one of the potential candidates was Gilded Otter. The mere mention of the name was enough to persuade my daughter, a mad cat lady in training, that we should visit. After dumping our stuff in the hotel, we strolled through the centre of the town to try dinner there.
The Gilded Otter is a brew pub on the corner of Main Street and Huguenot Street on the west side of downtown. It sits on a slope above the Wallkill River. At night, it wasn’t immediately obvious where the main entrance was so we chose the door nearest the Main Street which was wrong but never mind we still managed to find someone to get us a table.
The high-ceilinged dining room is vast with a large bar area on the Main Street side and a group of large fermentation tanks on the east side of the room. The menu features typical (American) bar fare with the odd dish that suggest more ambition in the kitchen. The home-brewed beers showed an urge to go down the route of pun-based names and the Ottertoberfest and the New Paltz Crimson lager were both nicely drinkable.
 |  |
The jokey names spread to the food menu and the first of the appetisers to arrive were the “If an otter had wings”. This was a plate of ten buffalo style wings served in your choice of 5.7, 5.13 or BBQ sauce and served with crisp celery sticks and blue cheese sauce. We went for the 5.13 sauce because that was the spicier option. The wings were tender and juicy with an excellent heat from the 5.13 sauce with the blue cheese was a surprising hit with good flavour and generous chunks of blue cheese. A good start.
Next to arrive were the crispy fried calamari covered in seasoned flour and served with a Cajun remoulade and marinara sauce. In contrast to the wings that had been a real pleasure this dish was a total penance to wade through. The squid was disappointingly flavourless and the herbed flour dominated too much with its doughy rather than crispy shell. The marinara was the better of the two sauces but overall this was a dish of bitter disappointment and the limp salad garnish didn't help. No one was fighting to eat any more than they had to and usually plates of calamari don’t last long at all in our presence.
Moving on to main courses, the braised beef short ribs served over horseradish mashed potatoes was better again. The ribs were braised with stout, cumin and paprika and served over horseradish mashed potatoes. The main had been preceded by a limp green salad of greens, tomato, cucumber, carrot shreds and a fine balsamic pesto dressing. The beef was largely good, yielding to the fork although it got a bit chewy in places. The flavour was good especially in combination with the horseradish mashed potatoes. The garlic vegetables were good and crisp but were slightly discordant with the beef and mashed potato. Overall, though, this was a pretty decent dish.
Gilded Otter turned out to be an unpretentious place with a fairly decent standard of food. I wouldn’t say it offered anything outstanding but provides a reasonable food option in a relatively small town. I wouldn’t look on it as a high priority to return to but also wouldn’t object to going back either.
This was the last of our college visits and after four weeks of visiting four very different colleges my daughter’s preference seems to suggest that I’m going to have to get used to driving on NY-17 on a regular basis. Typical.
Overall Rating – 3/5
This was the last of our college visits and after four weeks of visiting four very different colleges my daughter’s preference seems to suggest that I’m going to have to get used to driving on NY-17 on a regular basis. Typical.
Overall Rating – 3/5
