3525 Crompond Road, Route 202 Cortlandt Manor, NY (914) 739-7770 Map  First question we heard upon entering was, “Dinner or dessert?” Do you know how that warms our heart? “Both!” we answered and were seen to the dining room, where the booths were comfortable and the décor country questionable. The menu is extensive at Grandma’s, where they keep this Grandma’s-cooking-and-Grandpa’s-at-the-grill theme going. Italian food, steaks, broasted chicken, quiche and wraps – our grandma never made wraps, but okay, whatever. The menu gives you plenty of choices for lunch or dinner, and the drink selection includes egg creams, seltzers and milk shakes. First, you are brought a cutting board’s worth of hot bread. After soup or salad and with the meal to come, you might think there will be little room for pie. You have no idea. John’s open-faced turkey sandwich was just what he was looking for, a trucker’s platter of gravy-ladled slices over white toast, with a larger-than-usual serving of the creamy mashed potatoes. All of the vegetable selections included onions, which John disdains (hey, we all hate something), but the accommodating waitress worked around that by adding extra mashed. Jennifer went with the chicken pot pie (a beef version is also available). And we mean she went with the whole pie! The waitress should have informed us that the dish comes out whole, in a 10-inch pie pan. The leftovers were plenty for both of us next day for lunch. Finally, we came to the best portion of the meal. Twenty-nine varieties populate the dessert list, along with great-looking cakes, quiches, cookies, brownies, éclairs and more. We ran through the pie list: six kinds of apple, three blueberry, a couple of cherry, cream pies from Boston to banana fudge, Mississippi mud, peanut butter, key lime and a tempting Swiss chocolate almond. In the end, we made our selections and formed two pie-selection rules in the process. First, if your waitress at a pie kitchen says she’s not really into pie, ask for another waitress when it comes to getting recommendations. Second, don’t order a meringue flavor late in the day. The evidence: Jennifer’s blueberry pie was good but uneventful despite having been lauded as one of the best in the place. John was seduced by the skyscraper meringues in the pie case and went with the lemon; it was nicely tart, but when he put his fork into it for the first time, the meringue came off the pie like a bad toupée. The pie went well with the meal – all of it was pretty good – but was it worth the hour’s traffic stall we encountered on the Saw Mill Parkway going back to our New Jersey home? Unfair question, but next time we’re at Grandma’s, we’re trying the banana cream. |
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