They’re doing something right at The Cellar Door—because this small and homely oldie was chock full of diners for a Sunday night. We were delighted that the menu still has such fantastic combinations of food that we needed several minutes to decide what to order. Eventually we did, with some help from our friendly server, and then settled back to wait. The veggie stack with goat’s cheese, zucchini, eggplant and capsicum was delicious. The portion was enormous and with plenty of cheese. It was so yummy that, despite its size, we easily polished it off. The soup of the day was almost as impressive: Cream of cauliflower with blue cheese and a tasty crouton crusted with pine nuts. It was rich and full of flavor without being too heavy. With such stellar entrees we were very excited about what surprises the main courses would hold, but we were a little disappointed with the result. The ribeye was cooked exactly as we’d ordered it, but we found the béarnaise sauce a little odd; there was a taste we couldn’t identify that just wasn’t quite right. The roasted chicken wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with pesto and bocconcini sounded like it was going to be amazing and was our server’s recommendation, but it was a little bland. The proportion of stuffing to chicken wasn’t even, so while some pieces had enough cheese and basil, others were just plain chicken. We had a tough time choosing our dessert, but finally settled on the pavlova to share. The meringue was sweet, crunchy and lovely, but the vanilla cream tasted a little sour. Our cappuccino was also disappointing, being only half full of coffee and with far too much froth. After such a promising start, we felt let down that the rest of our meal had not been so successful, but given its longevity and popularity, we would probably be willing to give this little place another try.
