City Restaurant Week: Hotel du Pont (lunch)

PATRICIA TALORICO'S REVIEW:

They were ready for us - or someone has a good eye.

Eric and I dined today at the Hotel du Pont's Green Room and while I made the reservation under a different name, we weren't exactly incognito. (Read Eric's review below.)

In fact, after the first course, the dining room manager came over and asked if the dish met the critics standard. Chef Patrick D'Amico later poked his head out of the kitchen and came over to our table.

Oh well. So much for anonymity in tiny, little old Delaware Maybe Eric and I should have worn wigs like former New York Times critic Ruth Reichl used to do. (But sorry, that's just, well, bizarre. And don't you think it would have been even weirder for us to don wigs and pretend to be other people when the staff spotted us immediately?)

Last year, we had a disappointing experience at the Green Room: They didn't give us Restaurant Week menus until we asked and the service was slower than Ryan Howard's base running.

But it was a completely different experience this year - the Restaurant Week menu is now opposite the regular menu. And the service was much improved, though it does go at what I like to call a fine-dining "Green Room" snail's pace. (If you're on a one-hour lunch plan, let your server know.) But take your time if you can; this is your chance to enjoy one of the most beautiful dining rooms in the state, if not the country.

Rainy days and Mondays may have kept some of the Restaurant Week dining crowd away. The Green Room was less than half full. I hope it picks up later this week, because this was a nice meal. And anytime you can get a $15 two-course lunch at the Green Room is a bargain.

Eric had the cold champagne and cantaloupe soup and I opted for the greens with candied pecans and an apple-balsamic vinaigrette. Soup was very good - it has touches of mint and infusion of cardamom and tiny confetti of fresh cantaloupe. On a cold, rainy day, I would have preferred something hot, but D'Amico told us he planned the menu when the temps were hitting 70 and above. (Like last week.) Maybe it's me, but chilled fruit soups remind me of smoothies. I usually have my fill after three or four spoonfuls.

On the other hand, the dressing on the salad was delicious. D'Amico roasted apples and blended them along with aged balsamic and olive oil for the sweet dressing that paired beautifully with the candied pecans. It was simple and light.

For main lunch courses, you get a choice of a grilled chicken breast sandwich with melted white sharp cheddar, guacamole and spicy chili relish - along with French fries and coleslaw. The second choice is pan-seared salmon with sweet onion puree, roasted fingerling potatoes, pink grapefruit and cilantro salad.

The chicken is definitely a "guy" kind of meal and the fish is the "girl" meal. (Guess what I ordered?) Yep, salmon. My one quibble - my salmon was slightly overcooked. But again, both are fine meals. Drinks aren't included - coffee was $3 and iced tea was $3. The Hotel also gives you a basket of warm rolls - made in house - and a plate of their famous almond flavored coconut macaroons for dessert.

Total cost: $36 (We added a generous tip on top of that.)


ERIC RUTH'S REVIEW:

Eating at the Green Room during restaurant week is like getting invited to your friend's brother's wedding reception in the Hamptons -- for a moment, even we working-class slugs get to act like royalty.

For the price of admission (a paltry $15), there may be no cheaper ticket to the loftier echelons of Wilmington culture, making it all the more perplexing why more people don't leap at the chance.

On this drizzly and gray Monday, just a few tables were filled, though I'm more inclined to blame typically meager marketing efforts than meteorological conditions.

A shame, considering it's the perfect chance to see why the Green Room continues to astound me, both for its regal nature and its occasional mindless lapse.

Chef Patrick D'Amico's lunchtime offerings for Restaurant Week are thoroughly pleasing, if occasionally shy on the kind of upscale refinement we associate with the GR -- the simple mesclun salad benefitted from a fruity, aptly balanced apple-and-balsamic dressing, but cried out for a few more titillating details.

Chilled fruit soup deftly balanced soft sweetness of cantaloupe against champagne, bracing the fruit softly against a background of cardamom and mint.

Such coolly fruit-forward dishes will suit hotter days far better, and maybe warmer weather will also thaw out the Green Room's glacially slow service a bit. Still, if I have to cool my heals waiting for lunch, there's no better setting for just sitting, especially when patience is rewarded by an elegant (and somewhat overcooked) plate of roasted salmon with a subtly rich beurre blanc.

It's a dish with far more elitist credentials than the chicken breast sandwich D'Amico has crafted, but maybe a little less excitement as well -- chicken's the kind of humble character that benefits from sassy treatment, and here D'Amico gives it his all, offsetting the slow burn of pepper relish against creamy coolness of avocado.

It's messy, it's drippy, it's thoroughly un-Green Room -- and it's completely delicious. Who needs fancy, when $15 buys so much fun?