food 101 bar & bistro
19 College St., South Hadley, 535-3101
Hours: Dinner only. Tue.-Thu. 5-10 p.m., Fri-Sat. 5 -11 p.m., Sun. 5 – 9 p.m. Closed Mondays.
Prices: $6 to $26.
This South Hadley eatery across from the verdant campus of Mount Holyoke gets an A for atmosphere and an Incomplete for the food. Chef Alan Anischik (formerly of Tosca and Table 9) offers a menu that is a survey course in fine dining. On sampling the pan roasted Statler chicken breast with spinach and caramelized onions over roasted tomato risotto, one wonders, “Is this on the test?”
But don’t take my word for it. At “food 101” the response to the cuisine is generally positive: “Great, look how red this tuna is!” “Awesome pommes frites!” and “Just look at it—ravioli all lined up on the plate like soldiers!” Then there is always, “I hate to be picky, but….”
Every dish on the menu is an embarrassment of riches, but Picky Eater said, “I don’t know if this matters, but I can hardly taste the arugula…” The salad in question consists of roasted peppers, cucumbers, calamata olives, tomatoes, gorgonzola and radicchio with a light basil dressing, all of which serve to crowd several delicate sprigs of arugula like a big family on a small couch. (But the restaurant gets extra credit for offering the peppery green, barely in season at this time of year.)
Popular items on the menu are the lobster risotto (with sautéed green squash and basil oil), the pommes frites (with spicy ketchup and wasabi mayonnaise) and the pan-seared sea scallops (with cauliflower risotto, crab-mache salad and warm curry oil). The lobster risotto is cooked perfectly and, although an appetizer, could easily make an elegant meal for $9. Always a hit with the kids, pommes frites for grownups are reminiscent of the European model, with hand-cut potatoes and high-end ketchup, but why the surprise attack of wasabi mayonnaise?
For lovers of duck, the grilled Maple Leaf Farms duck breast (with caramelized onion-dried cherry compote and Brussels sprout-potato hash) is very moist and locally grown. The hash is simultaneously creamy with crispy notes of Brussels sprouts—not an easy feat. Finally, the scallops are plump, sweet and as good as any you’ll find elsewhere.
Other dishes are a mussels app that consists of fresh mollusks immersed in a nice tomato broth with a wedge of crostini on the side and little slices of chourico. A bite of the mussels says “roll-in-the-ocean” and a bite of the Portuguese sausage says “New Bedford take-out.” Even the UN couldn’t make this work.
It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to see that food 101 is a pretty high-end establishment. The little pools of light at each table create an island of calm and sophistication that makes it the perfect venue for an Ivy League indiscretion or a place for students to take their parents. At the bar, locals sip $12 glasses of Syrah while watching games on a tasteful flat-screen TV.
My ideal meal on a visit to Food 101: Pommes frites, a salad of baby spinach, smoked bacon, shiitake mushrooms, goat cheese and endive in a dijon vinaigrette, and a main course of pan-seared sea scallops with cauliflower risotto, crab-mache salad and warm curry oil. Beverage: Rosenblum Syrah. Picky Eater’s choice: Semolina fried oysters with spicy remoulade, no salad and julienne chicken, roasted red peppers and chourico in a spicy cream sauce tossed with penne, hold the chourico. Beverage: water.
