Cutting Corners...

Some do, and some don’t and that’s why a car tried to enter through a window of venerable Ledo’s in Lexington Park a bit ago. I entered yesterday (on foot through the front door) to join some friends who were kind enough to include me in their luncheon plans. I can’t tell you the last time I was in Ledo’s, certainly measured in years, as nothing had drawn me back. Luncheon on a work week day in Lex Park is always a busy time for almost any spot nearby the base, Ledo's included. And, in fact, we had to wait for a (seat yourself) table which my friends said was uncommon. As fate would have it, it was near the place where the errant car wound up, but we figured it wouldn’t happen twice.

I think there’s been a makeover since my previous visit, and there is a rather nice mural on one wall containing some drawings of “St. Mary’s County History”. The only one that stuck in my brain was an image of the original Cedar Point Light House. Square (the theme of Ledo’s Pizza – “we don’t cut corners”) is carried out throughout the establishment. The Pizza is square, the tables are square, and now so are all the service dishes. Trendy.

The menu (also naturally square or at least a rectangle) is a laminate tri-fold affair with sections for what you would suspect, salads, subs (classic, Angus, and oven baked, plus flatbreads), pizzas, calzones, stromboli’s, and “entrees”, wherein lies the chicken parm, lasagna, fettucini, and other Americanized Italian dishes. As mentioned above, they were quite busy and all the servers were on the go. That may have spared us the “Hi I’m…” at least we didn’t get it, just a question about drinks. Since my companions lunch there more often, they knew what they wanted and suggested I might like the Hot Grilled Chicken Salad which the menu described as: Tender, sliced grilled chicken served with shredded Provolone cheese, grape tomato and bacon over a mix of cool greens. There are choices of dressings, which included blue cheese, a plus for me. So when our server came with the drinks we ordered: my salad (blue cheese); an Italian Salad (honey mustard), and the soup, (Italian) salad, and breadsticks combo (honey mustard), and the Classic Angus Cheeseburger Sub (Hoagie sized, all American, ANGUS burger served “squarely” on a freshly baked roll).

Eventually, the first dish arrived squarely in front of the combo person, however the little tub of dressing was Italian, not the requested Honey Mustard. Attempts to snare the server missed, and she was forced to go get it replaced herself. About 4 minutes elapsed before the rest of the dishes arrived, once again with the wrong dressing for the Italian salad, but fortunately they nailed the blue cheese. The change over to the correct Honey Mustard required another trip to the station. My salad was as billed with the exception that the “grape tomatoes” were a sliced plum tomato. Hey, it’s winter. The bacon appeared to be real bacon as opposed to those “crumble” things from a jar, the chicken was moist and the greens were cool. Everybody was okay with the food. About what you would expect, and I suppose it’s the same every time. Just another place to eat.

What I really DIDN’T like was the method of bussing the tables. When a table empties, pretty soon a person comes out of the kitchen with a tub such as you might use for recycling your household stuff, walks to the table and begins to clear. Remember how Harrison Ford says you can plop the dish down or “slide that sucker in there”, well, you could place the dishes in the tub, or you can drop them in there from about 4 inches, resulting in a loud cacophonous clatter with silverware scattering overtones. And that’s exactly what they do. You feel like you’re dining in the cleanup station. No respect for customers. Not good.

Other Curds:

I heard a good substitute for the end of the meal “R ya’ still workin’ on that?”. A civil “may I clear?” would instead do nicely.

Expect the Olive Garden to open around 12 March

A quote attributed to Jean-Antheleme Brillat-Savarin (French food writer 1755 - 1826) from the cheese book regarding Cheeses: “A dinner without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye”. Ah, those French...

Also from the cheese book – Mario Batali married the daughter of Miles and Lillian Cahn who started the (apparently) famous Coach Farms in New York, purveyor of Goat Cheese to the posh restaurants of New York. Oh, did I mention that the Cahns founded a little leathergoods company named “Coach”? Way to go Mario..

Overworked foodie term of late: "Mixologist"; Used to be just plain bartender..

DFD