Jan. 24, 2003
The Rowe Inn: France on a Budget
January has a way of reminding us how the old becomes new again. We recently visited an old favorite hiking spot at Antrim Creek and were delighted to find a brand new trail network that let us work up an appetite for another old favorite of ours that has renewed itself, Ellsworth's Rowe Inn.

The Rowe's renewal was foreshadowed about three years ago when owner Wes Westhoven elevated Todd Veenstra from sous-chef to chef, but what's new now is the introduction of a bistro-style, weeknight, menu, straight from the provinces of France and priced to please the most parsimonious Frenchman.

     Westhoven, of course, is the fellow who introduced Northern Michigan to serious regional cuisine when he bought the Rowe 30-odd years ago, and the new, off-season, "Bistrot Bridgette" menu shows he's still as enthusiastic about good food as ever, and still ready to adapt to new circumstances. In this burst-bubble era of fading demand for high-end destination dining, he makes outstanding cuisine eminently affordable without losing a petit four's worth of quality. Anyone who thinks that an evening dining at the Rowe needs to cost an arm and a leg has some adjustments to make.

     After that January afternoon of hiking, we sat down with a bottle of spicy red from the Côtes du Rhône (Vacqueyras, 1999, if you're keeping score) and took our time with the menu. It is a Francophile's delight, in French with English subtitles, and draws heavily on Provençe while representing other provinces as well. From the entrée, or appetizer, list we settled on an omelette aux cêpes and soupe a l'oignon gratinée--omelet of porcini mushrooms and onion soup with cheese. From the dîner (main dish) list, we chose crêpes fruits de mer and poulet chasseur -- seafood crepes and roast chicken in a hunter sauce.

     Chef Veenstra's soup was classic French, saturated with onions and rich with flavor. Its toast and cheese topping stopped well short of that gooey, stringy crust that robs so much American onion soup of its liquid and makes it awkward to eat. In the fluffy omelette, the filling of delicately sauced cêpe mushrooms conveyed all the earthiness of a sun-drenched French hillside. Both dishes were just what entrées should be: happy little fanfares of flavor that left us eager for more.

     The main dishes that followed lived up to that promise. The crepes, lightly browned and lovingly paired alongside an escort of buttery vegetables, enfolded generous chunks of seafood and just enough sauce to keep it all moist and happy. Best of all, they were not buried under a distracting avalanche of rich sauce. Demurely self-contained, each morsel conveyed all the flavors of the entire dish. The chicken had the same veggie escort and its smooth, savory sauce could have come straight from the pot of a ferme auberge in the hills north of Nice.

     Rather than dessert, we followed this little feast with one of the five cheese plates that anchored the menu. Our one-ounce wedge of Camembert was served with delicately fanned Granny Smith slices and a cluster of grapes, and a request for a few crackers was met instantly by an attentive, cheerful server who had delivered the entire meal with perfect timing and had politely made sure all was well at frequent and timely intervals.

     Now, we know what you're thinking. You're thinking that this being The Rowe Inn and all, we had to sell our last 10 post-bubble shares of Intel to pay the bill. But when the check came, we were pleasantly astonished to find that this meal, including $20 for the wine, came to exactly $65. What a discovery! Dressed up as "Bistrot Bridgette," The Rowe is truly France on a budget.

DATA: The Rowe Inn, (RoweInn.com) East Jordan Rd., Ellsworth. 231-588-7351. Open nightly. The bistro menu is offered Monday-Thursday until April 30, with first courses from $3.50 - $6.50 and main dishes $8.50 - $14.50. Reservations strongly suggested.