Wine Down Wednesdays are offered from 5-7pm at Trio, 15 Kingstown Road in Narragansett. A flight of three red or white wines paired with appetizers is available for $19.95 per person.
Cucina Twist at 2095 Kingstown Road in South Kingstown has halfprice pasta entrees every Wednesday. Appetizers are also half price Tuesday
through Friday from 4-6pm, and all night every Sunday at the bar.
The Grille on Main, 50 Main Street in East Greenwich, has a taco special, two for $5 or four for $8. Chicken wings are 25 cents each at the bar every Monday from 5-10pm.
Ritrovo Italian Pub & Grille, Main Street in East Greenwich, is now open for lunch on Saturdays and Sundays. Wednesday is ladies night with 50% off all nightly specials.
We hear that Dave’s Coffee on Old Post Road in Charlestown hopes to open a second location on Main Street in Wakefield, where Orbie’s and Town Meats used to be located. Owned by David Lanning, Dave’s is a craft coffee roaster that hand roasts its coffee.
There is another “Dave’s” event this month: Dave’s Marketplace at 1000 Division Road in East Greenwich will be hosting a book signing with Ted Allen from Chopped. The event will take place May 15 from 5-7pm.
Woodhouse Fire N Coal Pizza at 402 Main Street in Wakefield now serves beer and wine.
David Roebuck, owner of the Salt Pond Oyster Company in Narragansett, now has a raw bar in his mobile food truck called Shuckin’ Truck. He will sell oysters from his aquaculture farm as well as fresh scallops and lobsters. Look for the truck at farmer’s markets and festivals.
Giro’s Restaurant at 501 High Street in Peace Dale has reopened, serving Italian-American food in a completely renovated dining area and bar. Lunch and dinner are offered every day but Tuesday. Luncheon specials are $5.95 to $6.95.More
What's Cooking
A new online food-ordering service called www.hungryrhody.com is available for University of Rhode Island students, faculty, staff and other area residents. It’s a collection of popular food establishments that allows customers to place orders online ahead of time so food is ready to be picked up without having to wait in line. They include: Domino’s Pizza, I-Slice, I-Zone, Subway, International Pocket, Bagelz, Ronzio Pizza & Subs, Simply Thai, Twisted Pizzeria & Restaurant, Peking Tokyo and PD’s Pizza. Some of the participating restaurants also offer delivery.
By the way, PD’s Pizza has a new owner, Amanda Auble of Coventry, who plans to spruce up the interior of her Peace Dale eatery and update the menu. Watch for the addition of fish and chips and garlic nachos.
Jacki’s Seaside Café is taking over the former location of the Boon Street Diner at 148 Boon Street in Narragansett. They plan to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The new Giro’s in Peace Dale has closed after being open for only one month.
The Maharaja Indian Restaurant & Lounge at the Village Inn in Narragansett has closed, but the good news there is that another concept is on its way just in time for spring.
News Flash
We can’t reveal the details just yet, but watch for a famous Providence chef to be taking over a well-established restaurant in Narragansett in the coming months. We’ll have more news on that next month.More
Jonathan Feiler, sommelier at Ocean House in Watch Hill, has announced the schedule for upcoming wine weekends at the posh hotel. Festivities begin on Friday nights with a wine and cheese reception in the Club Room. On Saturdays, Feiler will discuss the qualities and flavor profile of the wines being tasted. On February 17-18, the wines of Bordeaux will be examined. On March 16-17, the difference between Barolo and Bar- baresco will be explored. The cost for these monthly sessions is $38 per person. For more info, call 584-7000.More
This year is off to a positive start as far as the local restaurant scene is concerned. Where one door closes, another opens.
The Post Office Café in East Greenwich is expected to reopen after being closed for the past year. The interior isn’t the only thing being renovated. Other updates will include menu changes (with light fare such as gourmet burgers being offered), added entertainment and perhaps even a new name for the restaurant, which has occupied that historic spot on Main Street since 1995.
Since two of East Greenwich’s much-loved breakfast spots – Audra’s and Jigger’s – closed last year, many were happy to see the Village Café open on Main Street. Let’s hope the third time’s the charm; this is where The Sweet Nest and Twisted Dogs used to be located. The Village Café, owned by Anne Steger, offers traditional diner fare with eggs, waffles and pancakes on the breakfast menu and soups and salads at lunch. Early morning specials include banana split waffles and cranberry-walnut pancakes. Midday specials will have an Italian bent with veal and chicken parmesan on the menu. Open every day of the week, the café will serve dinner on Fridays with chowder and fish and chips available.
It was sad to see Tricia’s Tropi Grille in Jamestown close, but the good news is that it will reopen as Jamestown Fish, an upscale seafood restaurant, thanks to the owners of the Narragansett Café across the street. We hear the chef there has an impressive resume, having worked at three New York kitchens: Colicchio & Sons, Gramercy Tavern and Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
It was also sad to learn that the Cheeky Monkey closed for good in Narragansett. However, that space is now taken by SoHo, a contemporary Italian restaurant with a martini list that features a 10-ounce martini and drinks named after famous artists. Located at 21 Pier Marketplace, SoHo is the dream of Lisa Delfarno-Lavigne …More
One of the hottest chefs in Providence has relocated to the suburbs. Kevin Millonzi, the culinary star who made the Atomic Grille and Restaurant Prov shine, has opened Millonzi’s in West Warwick. This is a modern-day neighborhood restaurant serving global cuisine. One of Millonzi’s signature appetizers, the Tuscan Potato Chips with Gorgonzola Gravy is not to be missed. The menu also offers pizza, burgers, sandwiches, pasta and a good selection of entrees, from New York sirloin to ribs with root beer barbecue sauce. And for dessert, I recommend the Baklava Cheesecake.
Siena Cucina and the Savory Grape will host a wine dinner on January 17 at 6:30pm. The all-inclusive cost is $65 per person. Call 885-8850 for details and reservations.
Good news! The Post Office Cafe on Main Street in East Greenwich will reopen after being closed for the past year. The once-popular restaurant is undergoing renovations and is expected to reopen early this year, possibly with a new name.
The culinary program known as Farm + Vine at the Ocean House in Watch Hill is dedicated to the rich bounty of Rhode Island, on land and in the sea. Monthly dinners with different themes will take place in the hotel’s restaurant, Seasons. Culinary weekends, led by experts in the field, are being planned, specially designed to provide unique experiences and to demonstrate the farm-to-table philosophy of the Ocean House. Farm + Vine dinners are set for January 4 and February 1. A local cheese weekend is tentatively scheduled for February 12. Stay tuned for details.
If you have news dealing with food, restaurants or chefs, feed it to Linda Beaulieu at Lindab2720@aol.com.More
Congratulations to Donna Marie Ranucci of Coventry, who was selected to appear on the Rachael Ray Show as part of the “Hey, Can You Cook?” cooking challenge. Although she was not the grand prize winner, Donna had an experience she will never forget. Not only did she have to fly to New York where the show is taped, she went on to Mexico, making 10 airplane trips in one week. For the first challenge, the contestants went to a chocolate factory in Oaxaca and learned how to make chocolate.
For their next challenge, they had to use the five basic food staples of Mexico: corn, chili, cactus, squash and verdolaga, an herb. The contestants were given 500 pesos to purchase everything they needed in as little as 30 minutes from vendors in an open-air market.
Each contestant had to overcome perhaps the biggest challenge of all, the language barrier. They also had to use an authentic Mexican grill, using charcoal, a few sticks and matches.
Despite generally good comments from the judges, Donna did not survive the first elimination round. She was paired with Timothy Morris of Washington. Their dishes – which included a stuffed chili pepper with peach mango salsa, olive oil and garlic, drizzled with chocolate, and a dessert of sliced pineapples with hollowed-out centers and melted chocolate with vanilla beans and Mexican liquor – just did not rate high enough.
Donna is the author of Donna’s Dishes: Cooking for a Cure, a collection of 150 hearty, healthy and inexpensive family recipes. She donates 30 percent of the proceeds from the book to different charities. For more information about Donna’s book, contact her at dmarieranucci@aol.com.More
Have you ever been to a meat cutting party? The culinary crew with the Newport Restaurant Group gathered recently to do just that with an entire grass-fed, crossbred Red Devon steer, provided by Greg Lynch and Patrick Beck, partners at New England Grass Fed LLC.
The steer arrived frozen, and it took more than 24 hours for it to defrost in the walk-in cooler at Castle Hill Inn in Newport. Eight chefs participated in the meat-cutting experience, dividing up the meat for restaurants in the Newport group: Trio in Narragansett, Boat House in Tiverton, Waterman Grille and Hemenway’s in Providence, 22 Bowen’s, The Mooring and Castle Hill Inn, all in Newport.
According to Beck, the chefs were excited to see the dense, dark red meat and the internal marbling. He pointed out that the buttery yellow fat was full of B vitamins and soluble Omega-3 fats. “The Devons retain the old qualities that make them hardy, a good all-rounder for the small traditional farmer,” Beck says. “Because they don’t grow so big, they were overlooked for many years but have recently emerged as the class of the field among those who know truly outstanding grass-fed beef.”
Steaks, roasts and short ribs piled up during the meat-cutting party. The meat was trimmed, and those trimmings were used to make kielbasa, salami and bresaola. Some of the meat was ground for burgers. All in all, the chefs got nearly an 80 percent yield, pretty remarkable when 60 to 63 percent is normally considered a good yield from a butcher.More