So-Close Encounters

thaca is the third brainchild of Angie Kirkpatrick, the owner of In Limbo and Maxwell's. The difference between Ithaca and these other establishments is the fact that this restaurant has to feed hotel guests breakfast, lunch, dinner, and room service.(If you want a club sandwich sent to your room at this particular Holiday Inn, you are out of luck. Guests can only order from the Ithaca menu.) Dealing with different menus makes for inconsistencies. I went to Ithaca on three different occasions, and each time I felt like I was in a different restaurant.

On my first visit, I sampled quite a bit of the menu with two friends. From this visit and one that I had later, I found that the appetizers are the strongest items on the menu. The toasted crab meat and shrimp wontons are excellent. They are served with a ginger sauce and a marinated cucumber salad. The vinegary cucumber salad adds a nice contrast to the sweet sauce, and makes light of the heavier wontons. That night we also tried the wild mushroom and chevre strudel. This extremely rich dish could have become too much to bear after a few bites, but the fenugreek and apricot compote saved it. The chef obviously has a great knowledge in the art of contrasting flavors and textures.

Before I move on, I must say that my most enjoyable evening there was by myself with a glass of wine and an order of the Caponata. This relish-type concoction is full of chunks of eggplant, zucchini, sweet red and yellow peppers, capers, and garlic. It is drizzled with rosemary oil, served with garlic croutons, and is one of those dishes that transplants you to a faraway place somewhere in the Mediterranean. With a good book and a crisp wine, what more do you really need?

I wish that I could say the same about the entrees. It's not that they were awful, quite the contrary; rather, they lacked that contrast of flavors that so impressed me about the appetizers. The Thai barbecued shrimp had a rich, gingery sauce, but for $14.99, I want more than four shrimp, and the basmati rice that accompanied the dish was overcooked to a mush. The lamb shank was just as it should be, braised for 12 hours so that the tender meat fell from the bone. My problem was with the roasted garlic and Parmesan creme brulee. The custard texture did not fit well with the meat at all, and my companion referred to it as the "hard egg-yolk-looking thing that invaded his plate." The grilled beef tenderloin saved the day. The beef was cooked to a perfect medium rare and the horseradish demi glaze was a nice change from the tenderloin/fruity-sauce trend popping up all around the city. The onion marmalade on the side was good, too.

My final visit to Ithaca was for brunch. They serve brunch on Saturdays and Sundays until 3 p.m., a nice point to remember for you late sleepers. You can get the usual brunch fare, and they also have a few selected items from the lunch menu. For one price you get a starter, an entree, and dessert. I chose the Grande Duc, a puffed pastry with poached eggs and crawfish tails served with bearnaise sauce and asparagus. On that particular day, they were out of asparagus. The dish was very good, but I know it would have gone up a level if the greens had been included. Also, the bearnaise sauce lacked that kick that more tarragon and white wine would have given it. The onion soup I ordered as my starter was inedible. It was sweet! I don't mean a hint of honey, but syrup sweet! I couldn't take more than two bites. To end the meal, I ordered the fruit tart, which consisted of mushy cooked blue berries on a crust. That's it. Even the homemade ice cream didn't save the boring dessert.

Ithaca is a restaurant of almosts. The dishes are so close to working. I think the place needs just a little bit more time, and a lot more consistency. This includes the service which varies from perfectly professional bartenders to bumbling waiters. The entire staff must continue their journey to find perfection, for they are not there yet. As the Alexandrian poet Cavafy said, "Setting out on the voyage to Ithaca...Do not hurry the journey at all....Ithaca has given you your lovely journey --Without Ithaca you would not have set out."