The Fireside Grille & Spirits - Middleboro, MA

I met some friends at The Fireside Grille & Spirits in Middleboro a few weeks ago and had a delicious meal (Braised Short Ribs) so my husband and I thought we would give it another try.  We arrived at 7:30 p.m., which is a bit later than we usually eat dinner on a Friday night, and the restaurant was very crowded.  Fortunately they still had a booth available for us so we didn’t have to wait. I was glad of that since I was starving and couldn’t wait to eat.  I had been thinking about their delicious warm bread with honey butter since we made the decision to go to The Fireside Grille so I’m sure that contributed to my hunger.

 

The Fireside Grille is a relatively large restaurant with many different seating areas.  In addition, they have a function room available and a bar that offers entertainment on weekends. We were seated in the main dining room in a booth along the inside wall.  Looking around, there weren’t many other tables or booth’s available so I think we were lucky to get a table right away.

Once we were seated, the waitress arrived to take our drink order. I was even too hunger to order a drink so I just ordered iced water with lemon.  My husband ordered a 7&7 ($5.50) and we looked over the menu while we were waiting for our beverages.

While I was tempted to get the Braised Short Ribs again, I wanted to try something a bit different and went for the Chicken Marsala ($18.99).  There are a few entrees notated with a star on the menu indicating that it is one of their specialties and this was one of them.  The Chicken Marsala is described as sautéed chicken tenders tossed with mushrooms, shallots and prosciutto in a Marsala wine sauce served over spinach and wild mushroom ravioli.

When I ordered my meal, the waitress was able to up-sell me a dinner salad for an additional $3.00.  I originally declined but my hunger took over during that decision!  I ordered my salad with bleu cheese dressing.

There were several entrée salads on the menu including a Buffalo Chicken Salad ($11.99) that my husband chose. This salad had fried buffalo tenders served with applewood smoked bacon, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, Monterey jack and cheddar cheeses, mixed greens and bleu cheese dressing.  My husband decided to substitute Thousand Island dressing for the bleu cheese dressing. In addition to the salad, my husband ordered a side of Sweet Potato Fries for $2.99.

Warm Bread with Honey Butter

Our beverages arrived along with the delicious bread I spoke about.  I immediately cut a slice from the warm loaf and spread some of the whipped honey butter on top.  Delicious!

My husband took a sip of his Long Island Iced Tea!  Nope, that’s not a mistake…he was actually brought the wrong drink!  The mix-up was discovered by the waitress (when another waitress was looking for that drink at the bar) and they were going to exchange his drink for the 7&7 that he ordered. Since he was enjoying the drink he was brought, he told the waitress that he would keep it.  A little while later the waitress brought the 7&7 that was still sitting at the bar.  She said that they were only going to dump the drink so she figured she would give it to him. Since the ice was melting, she also brought him a glass of “rocks” to refresh it with. (I wouldn’t hold this mix-up against them since they charged him only for the 7&7 and brought him the extra drink anyway.)

Dinner Salad with Bleu Cheese Dressing

My dinner salad arrived and it was an average dinner salad, just as I expected but it did come with about three times more dressing that I needed. The salad helped to stave off the hunger pangs until my meal arrived (the bread didn’t hurt, either).

Chicken Marsala

Luckily it did not take very long for our meals to arrive and the plate of Chicken Marsala that was put in front of me looked amazing.  Along with my meal I was brought a side of parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top.  (I think they could make a slight improvement with this and offer freshly grated parmesan instead.)

 



Buffalo Chicken Salad

The Buffalo Chicken Salad was also nicely presented and it was in a rather unique bowl, which added to the presentation.  The side of Sweet Potato Fries was rather small, but I wasn’t expecting much for the price.

The Chicken Marsala had a generous number of chicken tenders and was loaded with mushrooms and Marsala sauce. The batter on the chicken was almost not necessary since the sauce made the chicken a bit soggy.  Regardless, it tasted great.  I would say, though, that my favorite part of my meal was the wild mushroom ravioli’s that were served with it.  There was a nice, earthy flavor to the ravioli.  This, paired with the mushrooms, was outstanding!

I was enjoying my meal so much that I never even tried my husband’s buffalo chicken or his sweet potato fries. Taking his word for it, it was good.

Neither of us could finish our meals so we wrapped up our leftovers to bring home. The waitress that we had was very attentive and even asked my husband if he wanted some additional salad dressing to take home with his leftovers. 

Our total bill was $45.45 with tax and we were asked by our waitress if we were a member of their Loyalty Program.  We weren’t, so she explained the program to us.  Basically, you receive a rewards card pre-loaded with $5.00 on it and receive rewards for every dollar spent (100 points earns an additional $5.00), with additional rewards ($10.00) loaded on your birthday.  I love receiving rewards (and getting discounts on meals) so of course I accepted the card.  I just needed to register the card on-line and I was good to go!  (The rewards card is also good at Barrett’s Alehouse which means we’ll need to head there sometime soon).  Once I registered my card I saw the $5.00 rewards and the 45 points earned during this visit. 

Overall, we had a great evening and great meal at The Fireside Grille.