RESTAURANT REVIEW:Food at The Clubhouse was a bit of a miss this time

It was time to catch up with an old friend and because she lives near the Clubhouse and we have been there before, I thought it was the perfect place for dinner.

I was surprised, however, when she told me she was reluctant to go there since the last visit was unpleasant.

The service was bad and she had actually walked out, which really shocked me, because I don’t think I had ever heard of her doing that before.

I have gone to the restaurant several times and always had good service, so I convinced her to make a return visit. Plus the food has always been the best reason to go there.

The Thai lettuce wraps are always a safe bet. It is a great accompaniment with a drink at the bar after work. The bite-sized pieces of chicken are in a hoisin oyster sauce that melds well with the iceberg lettuce, though I always thought romaine would be an intriguing option.

Something I hadn’t seen before on the menu was the sweet chili-ginger calamari. The sauce is fantastic, much better than the standard marinara that comes with the appetizer. The sauce is spicy, but not so much that the taste is eliminated.

My friend’s dinner choice was between the vodka pasta and the chicken piccata. The vodka pasta is a penne pasta with garlic cream sauce and house vodka. The chicken piccata is the traditional dish with lemon-caper butter sauce and served with herbed angel hair pasta.

She chose the piccata, and though it is unavoidable for the chicken breast to be a bit dry, the sauce and pasta counterbalance the poultry.

I like risotto and combine it with lobster and rock shrimp. It is a personal favorite, and I was looking forward to it. I was a bit disappointed when the risotto was undercooked just a bit, but the asiago cheese and generous amounts of shrimp made up for it.

While the food was a bit of a letdown, the service was definitely not. Our waiter, Thomas, was extremely attentive and helpful with suggestions on both dinner and wine. On Tuesdays most of the bottles are half-priced and the list is fairly impressive.

So now it is I who will have to give the restaurant a second chance. It was somewhat astonishing to me that the food was not as good as it has been before.