Robinhood Free Meetinghouse - Georgetown, Maine

The Robinhood Free Meetinghouse, located in an old church in Georgetown, is quaint, particularly when seated upstairs overlooking the pews. And the drive to Georgetown can be lovely, especially on a hot summer night with the convertible top down.

The best part about a meal there is the biscuits, which you can now find in your local grocery store if you live in Maine, and at any one of the dozens of retail outlets, such as Saks Fifth Avenue or Dean & Deluca that stock Chef Gagne's creation. Request the biscuits upon arrival at the restaurant, otherwise, for a table of four, you are lucky if one biscuit graces your breadbasket. Speak up and your reward is a basket full of the 72 layer cream cheese biscuits in all of their glory. 250 calories each and a full 14 grams of fat, they are sinfully delectable. The Parmesan Herb are my favorite.

The portions at Robinhood are generous, so a selection from each of the menu categories of Appetizer, Salad and Entree will leave you holding your stomach on the way out - especially after indulging in the biscuits. We seem to forget this on each visit, and with eyes larger than our stomachs, overindulge at each and every meal there. Our most recent visit was no exception.

I started with the Black Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna. Supremely fresh rare tuna was sliced thin, topped with delicately sliced scallions threads and served with wasabi, pickled ginger and a soy and ginger dipping sauce. The ginger in the sauce gave the dish a spicy kick; the tuna simply melted in my mouth. Aside from the biscuits, this was the best dish I have had in all my years of dining at the Meetinghouse.

My three table mates all selected the Four Mushrooms in Puff Pasty, a blend of button, shiitake, oyster and portabella mushrooms, leeks, garlic, and a touch of cream, all housed in a delicate pastry shell. The earthy mushroom medley was enhanced by the touch of cream, adding the right amount of moisture to the morels. I would have added a splash of sherry and salt to the mushroom mixture while cooking, to help bind the flavors together, but the absence of those enhancements didn't stop my dining companions from finishing every morsel on their plates.

I was intrigued by the description of the Endive Salad, served with balsamic glazed mushrooms, spiced pistachios, fried garlic and topped with a lemon Dijon vinaigrette. The endive, sliced into thin long strips, must have been prepared and plated earlier in the day, as it was ice cold and void of taste. The mushrooms were charred to the point of tasting burned; the pistachios were slightly soft and nutty, but lacked spice. This dish just had too much going on and the ingredients did not compliment one another.

The potato leek soup, selected by my husband, would have benefited from some additional blending or a pass or two through a chinois to smooth out the potato pulp. Our friend's Caesar salad looked and tasted rather ordinary. The Spinach Salad with red onion, strawberries, almonds and balsamic syrup was a beautiful presentation, but lacked any "wow" factor. The intermezzo of blueberry amaretto sorbet was a nice blend of the two ingredients, even if it was slightly gritty.

Potato Crusted Salmon was my choice for the entree, which consisted of a beautiful and thick piece of salmon, topped with a thin potato hash brown. When I found that the potato did not add anything to the fish, I removed it and enjoyed the fish by itself, even if it was then rather bland, despite the thin lemon butter sauce gracing the plate. The pile of Swiss chard remained untouched after the first bite revealed it had been long overcooked.

My husband's Scallops with Grilled Mushrooms and Cold River Lemon Sauce was the "chef's choice" of the evening. Apparently the chef loves lemon. Lots and lots of lemon, as that was the overwhelming taste of everything on the plate, even disguising the flavor of the mushrooms and truffled parsnip puree. The Sirloin au Poivre with Horseradish mashed potatoes was overcooked and served with the same mass of Swiss chard that accompanied my salmon. The Butternut Squash Ravioli was the best of the entrees selected that evening, served with a sage butter sauce, Parmesan cheese and thick stalks of asparagus.

Planning ahead, the four of us had ordered pumpkin spiced souffles when placing our dinner order. So when our waitress presented us with dessert menus after dinner, it was apparent she had forgotten the souffle order. She guised her mistake by telling us there was a large party downstairs and that it would be awhile before the desserts arrived. As it turns out, the respite between courses allowed our meal to digest a bit so we were ready to dig in when the souffles were presented thirty minutes later. The cinnamon creme anglaise that we poured into the pumpkin souffle was thinner than most that I have had, and effectively seeped into every nook and cranny of the souffle. This dessert was excellent, with the strong taste of cinnamon and dash of nutmeg complimenting the pumpkin.

Service was sub par the night we dined, perhaps because we were one of the few occupied tables upstairs. We have received better service when seated in the main dining room on the first floor. Several times we found ourselves without silverware for the next course and drinks were not refilled in a timely fashion. A nice touch on the service front was that each course was delivered by at least two waitstaff so that all four of us were presented with our food at the exact same time, something you typically only experience in finer dining establishments.

If you live in the area, this is likely the best dining choice locally. I'd recommend sticking with the appetizers, which are clearly where the chef focuses his effort and creativity. For others, it's not what I could describe as a culinary destination. Buy the biscuits at your local supermarket and save yourself the trip and expense of dinner at the Robinhood Free Meetinghouse.