ADAMS — Just north of the sprawling (or is that huge?) Fuccillo Auto Mall on Route 11 in Adams you'll find Adams Country Club.
For years it was Tomacy's Restaurant, known for its huge (or was that sprawling?) family-style buffet dining. The inside has been revamped — you'll find big LCD panel TVs in the bar area — and we understand the 18-hole course grounds are much improved.
The bar overlooks the dining room, which overlooks the golf course and the manicured gardens. We were there on a lovely summer-like evening and thought we'd be climbing over golfers to get to the bar, but that wasn't the case.
The menu has a good assortment of casual fare like pizza and wings, salads and "sand-wedges" (that's sandwiches in golfspeak). There's a "little pros" section for kids under 12.
Entrée selections begin with an invitation to try the "new mix-and-match combos." For $15.99, you get a 6-ounce seasoned sirloin steak and your choice of grilled shrimp, shrimp scampi, broiled or grilled salmon, grilled chicken breast or half rack of ribs.
Or you can start out with the ribs and choose from the same stuff (shrimp, shrimp, salmon, chicken or steak) for $15.99.
Hey, that's almost the same thing, isn't it? Why can't we just choose two items and get it over with?
Alissa was happy to put in our appetizer order to give us more time to decide on entrées. The waitresses were dressed in black with bright, colorful ties — a casual yet classy look.
We passed over the mozzarella sticks, Buffalo chicken wings and blooming onion in favor of things that would give the kitchen a bit of a workout.
Bruschetta ($5.99) was predictable, Italian bread covered with diced tomatoes, garlic, onion, olive oil and cheese. There was enough for everyone at the table to sample.
Coconut shrimp ($5.99) looked exactly the same as the coconut shrimp we've had at other restaurants recently. There's a good chance someone in the kitchen grabbed a handful of these babies from a box in the freezer and chucked them in the fryer until they floated. Apricot sauce was good.
The "authentic" Maryland crab cakes ($5.99) are made with "real" blue swimming crabs. The only problem is, blue swimming crabs come from China. But I guess you wouldn't rush to order it if you saw Chinese crab cakes on the menu. Other than a little description deception, we thought they tasted fine.
We were pleasantly surprised to find them served over a subtle-tasting sauce that looked like canned tomato soup but was actually a lobster bisque sauce.
Portobello fries ($4.99) were pretty neat. A large portobello mushroom was cut into wedges, battered and deep-fried. The crunchy exterior allowed you to pick up the wedge and dunk it in creamy horseradish sauce.
Dinners come with choice of house salad, Caesar salad or soups of the day.
The house salad consisted of crisp iceberg lettuce along with fresh cucumbers, carrots, tomato wedges and red onion. The usual commercial dressings were offered, and we had no problem with the unsurprising Parmesan peppercorn.
Caesar salad utilized the darker, limper parts of a head of Romaine, awash with sharp, noticeably cheesy dressing.
I firmly believe that if a restaurant's homemade soup is good, then the entrées are going to be good.
Salsa soup with chicken and rice tasted exactly like vegetable beef soup. We thought the kitchen made some kind of mistake, but Alissa asked and found out that the chicken is sautéed in salsa. That's why it's called salsa soup.
When Alissa asked how I liked the homemade mushroom soup, I was at a loss for words. I didn't want to tell her it was white and pasty and you couldn't really taste mushroom and didn't the dairy man drop off any heavy cream that day and don't they have any sherry behind the bar? So I just didn't say anything.
OK, bring on the entrées.
We got two of the mix-and-match dinners ($15.99) — one sirloin and shrimp scampi, the other ribs and broiled salmon.
The 6-ounce seasoned sirloin was over-seasoned and overcooked. It was ordered medium, but there wasn't a trace of pink in the center. Granted, it's hard to cook a skinny little steak like that without overcooking it, but most kitchens cringe when an order comes in for anything past medium, so why would they let it go out like that?
The shrimp in the shrimp scampi dish were cooked perfectly, swimming in a garlic-oil sauce that had a strong overtone of white wine. This got mopped up with a piece of the long, soft garlic roll that sat all by itself on a cutting board.
Most of the steak and all of the fake mashed potatoes went back uneaten.
The "slow roasted" baby back ribs were difficult to saw apart with a serrated knife and were slathered with a boring barbecue sauce, nothing like the popular Dinosaur sauce that sets the standard for many rib lovers. Had they been properly slow roasted, the meat should have been falling off the bone. I suspect they came precooked from a restaurant supplier and were merely warmed up in the kitchen, sauce and all.
The broiled farm-raised salmon was moist but lacked any salmon flavor. I'm not sure it was not the best quality salmon available to the restaurant.
From the non-mix-and-match portion of the menu we ordered grilled salmon and shrimp combo ($15.99). Hey, sounds like a mix-and-match dinner to me. Even the price is the same.
The grilled salmon had the same nondescript taste as the broiled salmon but with grill marks. The shrimp, 10 of them altogether, were perfectly grilled on big, fat skewers and hit with a generous shake of Old Bay-like seasoning. Uncle Ben's-like wild rice accompanied.
"Traditional" chicken Parmesan ($12.99) was pretty nontraditional, if you ask me. A thin, oval, prepackaged-looking, flavorless chicken breast was blanketed with melted provolone and a swipe of smooth, overly sweet marinara sauce that would have brought tears to an Italian's eye. And we're not talking tears of joy here, either. This just wasn't a good sauce.
There are a lot of good marinara recipes out there. Maybe the kitchen just hasn't found the right one yet. Geez, if you have to, run down to the supermarket and get a jar of Paul Newman's marinara.
Desserts were all commercial and generally good, averaging $4.50 per serving.
Chocolate cake was moist and chocolatey, jazzed up with lines of soft white chocolate drizzled over the top. Strawberry cheesecake was enjoyable. Chunks of strawberries were incorporated into the cheese filling itself, not on top.
Dutch apple crumb had a thick deep-dish crust and soggy crumbs, which you'd expect from a product that was made long ago and far away.
The price? It came to $112 for four with tax but before tip.
The verdict? Two forks for the food, three for the ambiance and four for Alissa's service, which was smooth, attentive and personable, complete with a smiley face on our guest check.
You can contact Walter E. Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Adams Country Club
10700 Route 11
Adams
232-4842
HOURS: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday
Open at 11 a.m. Monday for lunch only
RATING: 2 and one-half forks
