June 26, 2010
It was with fond memories of the original Simply Red Village Bistro in Trumansburg that we headed up South Hill recently to visit Simply Red Bistro at La Tourelle Resort. This cafe off the inn's lobby offers breakfast and lunch, and an excellent Sunday brunch. It's a worthy successor to the Trumansburg original, along with Simply Red at Sheldrake Point Winery.
Simply Red Moroccan Couscous SaladSimply Red has a huge focus on local produce, cheeses, and meats, and the lunch salads are a good place to start. My Moroccan couscous salad featured a lightly curry-spiced couscous over greens and topped with raisins, figs, sundried tomatoes, and olives, and I opted to add the julienned ham from Autumn Harvest Farm on top. And my lunch companion had the outstanding spiced chicken salad, again featuring Autumn Harvest meat, with sprouts and hard-boiled egg.
An artisanal cheese plate appetizer features three local cheeses. Creative sandwiches and flatbread pizzas round out the lunch menu.
On Sundays, stop in for a relaxing brunch on the patio or in the cozy dining room. Keep it simple with a bagel and lox served with hard-boiled egg, or the quiche of the day. I tried the oatmeal crusted french toast, an upgrade to the breakfast favorite, topped with brown sugar cream and beautifully sweet sliced strawberries.
Simply Red oatmeal-crusted french toastMy friends had Autumn Harvest chorizo and poached eggs over creamy herb polenta on a bed of crisp asparagus, one of the eggs Benedict variations on the menu. Another features crab and shrimp.
Brunch is a good time for a cocktail, and the Bloody Mary features vodka by Finger Lakes Distilling as well as lots of spice and flavor. Simply Red's Mimosa combines freshly squeezed orange juice with Knapp sparkling wine. Or the coffee is an excellent brew roasted locally by the Ithaca Coffee Company.
We'd send you to the Simply Red web site to check out the full menu, but their web site pretty much doesn't work. At best, on a desktop computer, you get a pretty Flash animation with lovely food photos, and the opportunity to download files containing the menu. No thanks; this is a huge pet peeve for us, and we'd rather see the menu actually on the web site. And at worst, on a mobile device like an iPhone or BlackBerry, the web site is just plain blank.
Make it to the cafe, though, and the service is excellent, informed, and friendly, and the setting delightful, whether you sit inside or out. This incarnation is much more relaxed and less cramped than Samantha Izzo's original, and she and Mark Fitzgerald, the chef here, have devised a menu that we think is both varied enough and concise enough.
Plan on spending $12-20 on lunch or brunch. Find Simply Red Bistro at 1150 Danby Road, behind John Thomas Steakhouse at La Tourelle Resort, or call 607-273-2734 and tell them you heard about them here.
