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.