Jeez, so much to write about, that I dunno where to start. Well, lets start with Cafe Miranda in Rockland since its been on my mind recently. We went there last Wednesday at a friend's invitation so that we could have a pre Thanksgiving feast together before all going our separate ways for the holiday.

First I have to say that its a loooooong drive to Rockland for dinner. But we've enjoyed Miranda before and were looking forward to our return. We all settled in and were given menus, which read like novellas and take about as long! I am always wary of restaurants that have such a profusion of things on the menu. I went the easy route, picking two appetizers, ceasar salad and asian dumplings. Greg had fried oysters and something called "the best thing on the menu", which when he ordered it, I thought, "thats a lot of cheek to order the best thing on the menu when you are being taken to dinner." Little did I know it was an actual item on the menu. Mary had chicken paprikash and Vicky had baked haddock. Quite possibly the best dish was Greg's fried oysters in an oyster sauce. They were passed around and everybody raved. The dish was small, having only 6 oysters, so it didn't last long. My ceasar was shot over with way too much lemon, so that was the only thing I tasted, which was too bad because it looked really fresh and had some nice parmasan shavings on it. Greg said his best thing on the menu was terrible, luke warm and tasted too much of uncooked, bottled minced garlic, which stayed with him alllllll night. My dumplings tasted like they were precooked and then warmed over as they were a bit hard, the sauce though was out of sight, very spicy and tongue numbing. Mary said her paprikash was just like her grandmother used to make in the old country (Frankly I didn't know they used paprika in Ireland) and Vicky was very pleased with her fish. The company made the dinner and the atmosphere was warm and cozy. All in all a good solid B-

Enjoy,
Seth