He Ate, She Ate

Dining out has its distinct pleasures, especially when it literally means dining out.

Given a perfect evening, there are few al fresco dining spots in Greater Lansing to match the Riverhouse Inn in Williamston.

We picked the perfect evening. The humidity had tumbled and a breeze that held hints of autumn tickled the fringes of the table umbrellas. We sat with other patrons gazing from a terraced slope that slouches toward the Red Cedar River.

OK, I’m slapping myself awake from this reverie to note that everyone surely wanted to sit outside because it was uncomfortably warm inside the inn. Either the air-conditioning was on the blink or, as some online reviews suggest, it is nonexistent. In any event, the person who greeted us quickly steered us to the outdoor patio, noting that inside was “a bit warm.”

This was on a Wednesday, which is reason enough to have a glass of wine. Lucky us. On Hump Day, bottles of wine are half-off at Riverhouse.

It was our second visit, and this time we opted for entrees instead appetizers and salads. I ordered the whitefish ($24). If taste buds could dance, then mine were doing a spot-on Fred Astaire impersonation. The batter on this whitefish fillet was so delicate that I imagined it to be just microns thick. That ultra-thin coating allowed the sweetness of the fish, and butter, to reign supreme. The fillet was festooned with a splash of grilled tomato chunks and capers, plus a generous helping of fluffy basmati rice. This fish dish was a keeper.

My wife had the pasta with heirloom tomatoes ($17, and an extra $8 for the shrimp add-on). To me, the shining stars were the constellation of cherry tomatoes dotting the plate. One bite, and you knew you were smackdab in the height of tomato season. I’m in full mourning for the end of our summer garden.

On our first visit two weeks earlier, we dined anti-fresco, a word I just made up. The temperature was comfortable indoors, undermining the notion of no A/C.

Indoors at the Riverhouse is a bit quirky.

It’s not tailor-made for people watching. This is an old, brick twostory house that, like many old houses, has several smallish rooms. Instead of tearing out a lot of walls, the proprietors have kept the rooms intact, resulting in a series of compact, semi-private dining rooms.

If there’s room at the small bar, sit there. It offers a great view of the terrace, the riverfront and patrons strolling the grounds or sitting in the riverside gazebo.

My wife had the poached pear dressing ($9), which looked and tasted as if it were poached in red wine. Offsetting the tartness was a slightly sweet vinaigrette dressing. This got two thumbs up, as did my pomegranate seed salad with goat cheese and baby spinach, tossed with a tart vinaigrette ($9).

Next up: Creamed chicken and artichoke hearts soup with tarragon ($5). I could taste fresh tarragon — another sign that Riverhouse strives to make inseason herbs and vegetables a mainstay I had an above-average French onion soup made with veal stock ($6).

We finished with two appetizers. My mini-crab cakes ($12) were average, but I’ll upgrade them from a C to a B because of a smoky-tasting drizzle accompaniment. It sure tasted like smoked paprika, which in the spice world ranks in my Top Ten.

Her calamari ($11) was unbreaded and appeared to be flash-fried. It was served with a slightly spicy sauce. She loved it. I thought it was the most pedestrian dish I tasted at Riverhouse.

On a third, unplanned visit, we sat outside again and feasted on an outsized wedge of grilled romaine lettuce with bleu cheese dressing ($8). Excellent.

This place has its charms, but parking isn’t one of them. The parking lot is compact, mirroring the small dining spaces inside. But don’t worry. We parked in a bank’s parking lot across Grand River Avenue and noticed other patrons doing the same.

A tip of the hat to Riverhouse’s waitstaff. They make you feel welcome without hovering over you like an OCD nanny. And, given the right time and day, they can be very busy. During our al fresco visit, the place was so slammed with customers that our server virtually bounded from table to table. Twice, we saw her actually trotting.

I need to explore Riverhouse more thoroughly. I’m hoping they have a fireplace somewhere. I can see us some dreary and chill night in February, encamped in a little room, dining by firelight. I’ll have the whitefish.

-Mark Nixon

Locked out

We headed to the Riverhouse Inn on one of the last sweltering nights that we had this year. Since a storm was rolling in, we had to sit inside, which was unfortunate. Inside was sweltering. The air was stagnant. It didn’t foster the feeling of wanting to eat, but we sacrificed ourselves and ordered the Montreal steak tips ($11) to start. These were surprisingly sweet, but unpleasantly chewy. They probably weren’t made from the best cut of meat. The breadbasket contained slices of baguette with cloves of garlic baked into it. The accompanying herb butter was cold and difficult to spread.

For my entrée, I ordered the grilled summer lasagna ($16.) A devoted carnivore, I’ve only ever ordered vegetarian entrees by mistake. Since the menu description promised grilled chicken, I figured I was safe. I don’t know if the kitchen ran out of chicken that night or if the bird flew down the hill to take a dip in the river and escape the heat, but there was no chicken in my lasagna.

There was, however, grilled squash, zucchini, eggplant, spinach, red onion, boursin cheese and both marinara and alfredo sauce wrapped around layers of lasagna noodles. The noodles were crunchy, which led me to believe that the dish had been sitting around for a while. This struck me as odd, because almost an hour passed between sitting down and being served entrees. The vegetables in the vegetableonly lasagna were not overcooked, thankfully, but the marinara had a metallic tang to it. There was no side dish with my meal, just a hunk of vegetarianism in a pool of marinara and alfredo.

He ordered a special — airline chicken breast stuffed with Michigan cherries, walnuts, and goat cheese, with risotto and grilled asparagus ($18). “Airline chicken” is simply a chicken breast with the drumette attached. (If anyone truly knows the origin of airline chicken, please let us know — I’m happy to fantasize that Julia Child invented it on a Concorde flight between Paris and Sacramento.)

I took one bite of his chicken and thought, “Wow, I really don’t like goat cheese.” The chicken was cooked properly, but the risotto was completely tasteless. The cherry compote that circled his plate was the highlight of the entire meal. It tasted like cherry pie, but juicier.

We returned for Sunday brunch, with is advertised on their (poor, difficult to find) website and Facebook page (which is positively filled with pictures of a dog). When we arrived, the “Open” sign was off and the door was locked. By chance, I peeked around the corner to the patio and saw people sitting outside. I asked the waitress if they were indeed open and she said yes. The sign is off, I told her, and the door is locked. She informed me that management wants people to come around back, completely missing my point that if the actual door is locked, prospective diners aren’t going to walk around back. They’re going to walk down the street to Tavern 109.

We ordered the Riverhouse Breakfast ($11) and the cinnamon crumble French toast ($10) to share. The waitress didn’t ask the follow-up questions that I expected: Bacon or sausage? What kind of toast? She chose for us, and she chose grilled white toast and floppy, undercooked bacon. While our toast was acceptable, the diners next to us (the only other people there, actually) complained that theirs was burnt to a crisp. A new plate of toast was promptly brought to them.

The Riverhouse Breakfast was a scramble of eggs, red peppers, onion, bacon, sausage and cheddar cheese, topped with gravy. After our experiences thus far, my expectations were low, but this surpassed them. The scramble was slightly spicy, the pieces of bacon were crisp, and the vegetables were still a little crunchy.

The cinnamon crumble French toast was a different story. Three slices of toast did indeed seem to have been soaked in a combination of eggs and milk, but they didn’t taste remotely like cinnamon. When I closed my eyes and took a whiff, I didn’t even smell the faintest aroma of cinnamon. As such, it was standard, unremarkable French toast. My coffee was poured, oddly and awkwardly, from a small sterling silver coffeepot that couldn’t have held more than two cups of liquid. When I added cream, it quickly curdled.

The dish of assorted Smuckers jams and jellies was standard diner fare. I expected something a bit more highbrow, considering brunch for two will run you close to $30, but I also expected the door to be unlocked when a restaurant is open for business. Color me naïve.

-Gabrielle Johnson