Lilly's - Lakeville, MA

Lebaron Hills Country Club is a private country club located in Lakeville, MA and is open to members and guests only.  However, hidden amongst this club is Lilly’s – a restaurant that is open to the public and overlooks the 18^th hole of this beautiful golf course. I have dined at this restaurant before and only learned that it was open to the public when I saw them advertised on Groupon. Since this restaurant was very close by to me, I snagged up a $50 Groupon for $25 and we checked it out. After our first visit, using our Groupon, I noticed that Lilly’s gift certificates were also available on Restaurant.com, I waited for a sale and then purchased additional certificates.  I purchased a $50 gift certificate (requiring a $75 purchase) for $8 and a $25 gift certificate (requiring a purchase of $37.50) for $4.  I brought them both with me for this visit since I was not sure how much we would be spending.

Lilly’s advertises seasonal menus, which are always posted on their website, but also has specials available in addition to the menu.  The specials for this night were Grilled Swordfish Steak served over grilled polenta with an olive tapenade and sautéed broccoli ($27) and Prime Rib, served with potato and vegetable of the day (steamed broccoli). The Queen cut was $18 and the King cut was $24.

While we were reviewing our menus, the waitress arrived to take our drink orders.  We didn’t stray from the usual and ordered a Malibu & Diet Coke and a Long Island Iced Tea.  A basket with dinner rolls, both white and wheat, arrived at our table and our water glasses were filled by the busboy. I grabbed a dinner roll and am always disappointed when I find only cold, hard, foil-wrapped butter available. Whipped butter or dipping oil would have made the dinner rolls much more enjoyable, especially in such a nice restaurant. Regardless, I ate a wheat roll while reviewing the menu.

Although the specials sounded great, we opted to order from the menu. I chose the Pan Seared Salmon ($20) served with a roasted corn salsa, fingerling potatoes, grilled asparagus and topped with cilantro-lime cream sauce. My husband ordered the Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin ($17). The menu described his pork as a grilled herb crusted pork tenderloin with roasted fingerling potatoes, and grilled endive finished with a cranberry mustard demi glaze. We both also ordered a half house salad ($4).  (Many of the salads and entrees were available in either the half or full serving, which is great if you have a smaller appetite.) Although they had several salad dressings available to choose from, they did not have French dressing, which was my husband’s first choice.  He chose his second choice, Thousand Island and I chose Blue Cheese.

House Salad

The salads arrived and had a nice selection of mixed greens served with grape tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, shredded carrots, pepperocini’s and black olives. My dressing, served in a small pitcher on the side, was sort of “peppery”, which you wouldn’t expect from Blue Cheese.  The dressing wasn’t bad, just different.

While we waited for our meals, I took a look around the restaurant. The dining room was almost empty when we arrived but since it was a beautiful evening, several parties opted for the outdoor patio seating, or the Sunset Terrace as they call it, which was filled with guests.  We were seated by the back window with a beautiful view of the greens and we were even able to catch a few golfers finishing up their game. There is an adjoining bar that appeared to be for members only and was filled with people that were apparently enjoying a cocktail after playing 18 holes!  The noise level was tolerable and likely would have been drowned out if the dining room was filled with guests. Overall, I would consider the setting to be on the quiet side, making for a relaxing evening.

Just before our meals arrived, the waitress stopped by to ask if we needed another drink – a second drink for both of us, please!

Pan Seared Salmon

Our plates arrived and the food looked delicious.  My salmon was cooked perfectly and the cilantro-lime cream sauce added just the right amount of flavor. While I was expecting the roasted corn salsa to be warm, it was actually a cold salsa with a hint of jalapeño making this a refreshing accompaniment to the rich salmon.  The potatoes and asparagus were “ typical” – nothing fancy but they rounded out the meal. 

My husband loved his pork tenderloin, which was prepared to medium doneness and drizzed with the cranberry mustard demi glaze.  He commented that one of his potatoes was hard - as if it was not cooked long enough. He feared that they were all under-cooked but the rest were just fine.  He even ate a few of mine since my salmon filled me up (or was it the bread? or the salad that filled me up?).



Chocolate Fudge Cake

The waitress knew that we had both gift certificates (we mentioned this to her when we were seated) so she added up the bill for us before finalizing it. The bill was $71 – just shy of the $75 requirement. Should we use the $25 gift certificate or splurge and buy dessert to reach the $75?  After hearing the three dessert options (Irish Mousse Cake, Turtle Cheesecake and Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake), we opted for dessert and ordered the Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake ($7.95) ala mode ($1.50).   The fudge topping on the cake was rich and creamy but the cake itself was a bit on the dry side. My husband didn’t complain and ate it up – noting that Chocolate Cake and Vanilla Ice Cream was one of his all-time favorites.  Score one for Lilly’s !!  (Or should I say they got a “hole in one”?).

While it may seem that we splurged on this meal (total cost with tax and gratuity was $99.17), once you subtract the Restaurant.com gift certificate value of $50, our total was $49.17. The gift certificate had originally cost me only $8 – making the grand total for the evening $57.17, which is right in-line with our average spending.

As you know, I still have a $25 Restaurant.com gift certificate to use so we’ll be back to visit Lilly’s sometime soon.

The Nephew's - East Freetown, MA

The Nephew’s is an Italian/American restaurant located in my hometown of East Freetown. On nights when we don’t want to stray too far we will often dine at this restaurant.  It is located at 2 Crossroads Drive, directly off of exit 8 on Route 140.  We practically have the menu memorized so when we decided that we were going to eat there, I automatically began thinking about what I would order.  Given the rainy weather, tonight I was in the mood for a nice comfort food – lasagna.  While lasagna is not one of my favorite foods, The Nephew’s does a great job with dish and this is one of the few places that I would even consider ordering lasagna.

We arrived around 6:30 and were promptly seated in one of the many large booths available in the dining area. Given that it was Friday evening, I was a bit surprised that there was not a wait to be seated (the wait on a Friday night can sometimes range from 10 minutes to more than an hour).  They do offer call ahead seating, which I would recommend if you are planning to visit on a weekend.

Once we were seated by the hostess, our waitress Debbie arrived to take our drink orders.  I ordered my usual Malibu Rum with Diet Coke (I don’t need to say “no lime” when I’m here since all of the waitresses know me). My husband ordered a Sam’s Seasonal (summer) bottle.  As soon as the drinks arrived, the waitress was ready to take our orders. 

My husband ordered first.  As he does quite often, he tried to order the Texas Ribs but they were out.  This is typical so if you are planning to head to The Nephew’s for ribs, don’t get your heart set!  We were told a while back that the number of rib orders available depends on the number of prime rib sandwiches they sell the night before (the ribs are made from the prime rib bone and are absolutely delicious when they are available).  Second choice for him was the Steak Pizzaiola sandwich ($10.95). This sandwich is a New York sirloin steak (cooked to your desired doneness) smothered with fresh mushrooms, onions and peppers topped with red sauce and cheese served on an Italian roll. Hold the onions for him!

As planned, I ordered the lasagna ($11.45), which came with a side of plain or garlic bread and a side of extra sauce. The lasagna is layered with meats and cheeses with an additional layer of melted cheese on top. For an extra $2.25 I ordered a tossed salad with blue cheese dressing (I should mention that I love the blue cheese dressing at The Nephew’s).

The salad was out first and the dressing was delicious as always.  The salad is always nice and crisp with a mix of iceberg lettuce and fields greens topped with tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions and croutons.  Since I can never finish my salad, my husband shared it with me.

When the waitress arrived with our meals, I ordered a Closed Meatball Sandwich ($6.25) “to go” (for my daughter).  Although they charged an extra $.75 for cheese, it is still a good deal for a fresh made meatball sub.

I finished just more than half of my lasagna and decided to take the rest home.  Debbie boxed up my leftovers, brought out my daughter’s sandwich, and brought us our check. We paid for our dinner with cash (they DO NOT accept credit cards at The Nephew’s) and we were out within an hour.

Overall, this was another satisfying dinner at The Nephew’s – we’ll be back!

1149 Bar and Grill - Seekonk, MA

I had a couple of movie passes that were about to expire so we were venturing off to Showcase Cinema in Seekonk to add a movie to our date night.  Since I’m not familiar with the restaurants in Seekonk, I went to Restaurant.com to see if there were any good deals in the area.  I found 1149 Bar andGrill, located at 965 Fall River Avenue in Seekonk.  This was perfect since it was only a half mile from the theater.  I purchased a $25 certificate for $10.  Minimum purchase with this certificate is $37.50 but after reviewing the menu, I knew we wouldn’t have any problem reaching that minimum.

When I was checking out their website, I noticed that they had on-line reservations available (powered by Open Table) so I went ahead and made a reservation for 6:00 p.m. (our movie started at 7:40 so I was hoping this would allow us enough time to enjoy our dinner without feeling rushed).

We arrived at 1149 Bar and Grill just before 6:00 and was immediately greeted by a hostess in the lobby. I gave her my name for the reservation and we were promptly seated in the dining room side of the restaurant at a large booth near a window.  Chris, our server, arrived at our table within minutes to serve us water, take our drink order and inform us of the evening specials.  Specials?  For some reason I wasn’t expecting there to be any specials but I was pleasantly surprised by the choices.  Because I had reviewed the menu in advance, I thought I already knew what I was going to order but when Chris described the baked scrod with crab stuffing served over “over-night tomatoes” ($24) and the half rack of baby back ribs served with homemade coleslaw and cornbread ($17.99), my husband and I decided to stray from the menu and go with the specials. (There was a third special – an eight ounce filet mignon for $25 – which we pondered over, too.)  In addition to our meals, we also ordered a side of Red Bliss Mashed Potatoes ($4) at Chris’ suggestion since it made a nice accompaniment to both of our meals.

We ordered our “usual” drinks, Malibu Rum and Diet Coke ($6.50) for me and a Long Island Iced Tea ($10) for my husband, and was quickly brought a basket of bread with whipped butter on the side. The bread was absolutely delicious. I’m not sure how many varieties they typically serve, but our basket had three different types: multigrain, white, and kalamata olive. My favorite was the kalamata olive!

Drinks arrived and were made perfectly.  A Long Island Iced Tea can either be really good or really bad and this one was really good.  Two for two so far – good bread and good drinks!

It didn’t take long for our meals to arrive and I immediately noticed how nicely plated they were.  My scrod was garnished with micro-greens, snipped chives and a drizzle of what appeared to be a balsamic glaze.

My husband’s meal looked a bit more basic, but it also came with a slice of watermelon to complete

the barbeque experience!

I was curious about the “over-night tomatoes” so I tried those first. I had a hard time trying to pin down the flavor but they somewhat resembled a grilled sun-dried tomato soaked in a broth. I’m not typically a fan of cooked tomatoes, but I really enjoyed these with my scrod.  The scrod was fresh and perfectly cooked, getting lots of flavor from the tomatoes.  The crab stuffing, which was actually on top of the scrod rather than stuffed inside, was a bit on the spicy side but had a nice flavor.  A few spoonfuls of the Red Bliss Mashed Potatoes rounded out my dish and I didn’t leave a single bite on my plate.

Of course I tried my husband’s ribs and cornbread, too.  The ribs were cooked with a dry rub and finished with a sauce to give them a great barbeque flavor.  The only negative is that they were a bit too charred on the back-side of the ribs. I enjoyed my bite and my husband ate them all so they were obviously very good. The cornbread on his plate was delicious as well – very sweet and very moist – just like cornbread should be.  Coleslaw and Red Bliss Mashed Potatoes rounded out his meal and the watermelon slice made a nice ending.

Looking around the restaurant, I noted that it was very clean and well maintained. The dining area is large enough so it did not feel crowded and we didn’t hear any noise from the bar side of the restaurant, which was good. I wouldn’t say it was quiet, but I wouldn’t consider it loud, either. The staff at 1149 Bar and Grill was very pleasant and a manager walked around and asked how everything was. No complaints here!

Total bill for the evening was $62.49. With our Restaurant.com gift certificate deducted and tax added, we owed $40.10.  Since gratuity was not included, we also added a $12 tip for Chris! We left the restaurant at 7:05 with plenty of time to make it to the movie.

I think I made a decent choice when picking the restaurant for this week and would recommend 1149 Bar and Grill.