Though such timing miscues aren't usually sufficient to kill a truly spectacular supper, they are certainly capable of maiming, if not actually murdering, a decent meal. At Fiddler's the service in general alternated between gracious and bungling: The staff seated us and spread napkins across our laps but didn't replace silverware between courses, dropping knives and forks from the dirty plates back onto the tablecloth. The bill for clean linens must be enormous here, and not only because paprika stains.
Fiddler's occupies the former Soren's Food Among the Flowers space, a labyrinth of private and public dining rooms that host everything from business parties to birthday parties. Interior design changes have been made: The stone fountain in the center of the main dining room, oddly crowned by what looks to be a gold-plated trophy, still trickles water but it is no longer hung with roses. In fact, all the flowering foliage (for which Food Among the Flowers was renowned) has been replaced with synthetic ivy, which is wound around accent woods, coaxed up the red brick walls, and hung from the ceiling near the stained glass windows. The effect of the fake greenery is certainly not as startling, but the lingering "organic" scent that sometimes accompanied a Food Among the Flowers meal has been banished. Ornate chairs complete the European ambiance, bringing patrons out of the garden and into the dining room.
If we hadn't already felt like we were on the Continent, the plethora of paprika would have provided a good clue. In addition, most of the dishes are meat-based; sauces are made with heavy or sour cream. With that in mind, we checked our diets at the door and ordered gnocchi paprikash as an appetizer. These weren't gnocchi at all, at least not in the Italian sense. Rather, they were delicious, chewy bits of egg pasta more like dense German spaetzle. Chopped mushrooms, billed as "exotic" but tasting garden-variety, topped the pasta, as did a smooth, mild pepper sauce liberally laced with cream.
The same sauce blanketed the two so-called crepes Suzette. The traditional French recipe calls for simple egg-and-four pancakes to be spread with a mixture of butter cream, sugar, curaaao, and the juice and zest of a mandarin orange. Packed with a healthy portion of minced veal and chicken, Fiddler's crepes Suzette couldn't have been more different, having only the pancake in common with the original. With tangy pepper sauce gracing the top, the dish was assertive and enjoyable, reminiscent of cannelloni. Proceeding with such syllogistic nonsense -- that anything rolled in a flat sheet of dough is crepes Suzette -- could wreak some havoc in other ethnicities, too. Moo shu pork? Burrito? No, no, these are crepes Suzettes.
Another appetizer, the smoked salmon with horseradish, was a sharp, pleasant counterpoint to the crepes and gnocchi. Mildly smoked salmon was served with grated horseradish, tiny capers, a tomato flower, and two triangles of cream cheese. The basic and bland white cheese balanced the vinegar of the capers and soothed the nasal sting of the strong, cleanly flavored horseradish.
In contrast, bean soup was a heartier starter. Plump beans and chunks of beef simmered in a rich beef stock were served in an unusual way: A small metal soup tureen was hung from a cast-iron stand that stood directly on the table. Some Sterno had been smeared underneath, chafing-dish style. When lit, the fire kept the soup -- a generous portion -- bubbling.
The transition between appetizers and entrees was eased with a complimentary and highly credible caesar salad, crisp romaine accented with pungent Parmesan and garlic croutons. Usually, the kitchen delivers a special-recipe cucumber salad before the main course, but cucumbers were apparently a precious commodity the night of our visit. Hence the very welcome substitution.
We might have wished for more of that sort of intervention as the meal progressed. The third appearance of paprikash, this time with white-meat chicken and a bread dumpling, made us long for goulash or stroganoff (also available), and was an ordering mistake for which we'll accept blame. The kitchen, however, will have to own up to cooking the poor bird dry.
Similarly, too much fire rendered a fillet of yellowtail snapper rubbery. Broiled with lemon butter, garlic, and fresh herbs, the fish was burdened with a heavy champagne cream sauce. The delicate flake and flavor of the fish was lost, due to the excess of heat and the overpowering alcohol content of the sauce, which seemed to rival in proof the wine we were drinking .
The white wine sauce that dressed the grilled pork was subtler. Sauteed mushrooms covered medallions that were neither tough nor tender, cooked to a medium consistency. The off-putting feature of this plate was the vegetable side dishes, which accompanied the other entrees as well. Soggy, cold French fries were a low note, but the vegetable melange -- corn, peas, chopped red peppers, snow peas, water chestnuts, and broccoli florettes -- sour with lemon and with a weird Asian emphasis, made no connection to the food whatsoever.
I don't like to test a restaurant by ordering the menu's most difficult-to-prepare dish; I prefer to do it by ordering the simplest. Roast duck with sliced oranges was half of an extremely well-done bird, served with two garnish-type slices of the promised fruit and laid on an unappealing pile of braised red cabbage. The duck, we suspected, was the dish for which our party had waited almost an hour. It practically splintered under my knife, and the first mouthful was so chewy it seemed the duck was fighting back. Short of doing myself injury, I gave up and turned my attention to the limp fries. Another disappointment.
Dessert, a choice between sweet crepes or one of three strudels (apple, cherry, and blueberry) couldn't entice me after the duck fiasco. The waiting time also discouraged us -- just getting the check was a fifteen-minute procedure, albeit an amusing one. The waiter brought over a miniature fiddle case, complete with exterior latches and the restaurant's name inscribed upon the lid. (These souvenirs are actually available for purchase for $90.) Inside, the bill lay upon the red plush lining like a corpse in a coffin. It seemed a fitting place to lay our money to rest.
