Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Westchester Dining | Hastings-On-Hudson

A Laid-Back Option on Main Street

Rainwater Grill in Hastings on Hudson.Credit...Susan Stava for The New York Times

LATE on a Saturday afternoon in Hastings-on-Hudson, Rainwater Grill hummed. Young children coursed in and out of the dining room’s open French doors; diners filled the many tables indoors and the half dozen outside; and a line of hungry customers, with and without reservations, waited to be seated.

The restaurant’s menu is a bit ill-conceived, and the kitchen delivers the goods only half the time. But the price range accommodates all budgets and appetites — from mac and cheese, on the children’s menu, to whole Maine lobsters; from dainty, crinkly potato chips and burgers to grilled sliced hanger steak. Rainwater fills a need in this town for an eatery and drinkery that’s laid-back enough to accept the hubbub of active, noisy children and adults table-hopping with back-fence enthusiasm — activities rarely indulged at the area’s fancier riverfront establishments. Basically, Rainwater is your friendly neighborhood pub.

But its décor goes far beyond that of a local hangout. The space is quite pretty and highly designed, with lots of architectonic details, like geometric baffles on the ceiling, a huge central table that can seat any number of diners and a separate bar done in moody dark ocean blue that frames a small waterfall. French doors in the dining room open to the street, where a few smart stainless tables seat customers escaping the peak-hour din within.

Image
Appetizers include red-curry shrimp, sautéed and served with mango salsa.Credit...Susan Stava for The New York Times

On a recent evening, the breeze passing through those open doors was as refreshing as the pear salad I ordered. Though not so different from many I’ve had elsewhere, on this evening it hit the spot: dewy baby greens, sliced pears, dried cranberries and pecans.

In general, however, quite a few offerings were plagued by seasoning that was either out of balance or totally absent. While charming little saucers of salt and pepper allowed diners to suit their own tastes, most dishes do need some seasoning in the preparation stage to boost flavors. A bit of salt would have enhanced four quarters of deep-fried avocado, an otherwise satisfying appetizer, and certainly an unusual one. It would also have made chunky mango salsa a bit more complex, though the fruity mix did manage to cool the heat from four grilled red-curry shrimp, which had plenty of fire but little if any curry flavor.

Besides a shortage of salt, the unpleasantly soft “grilled” calamari also lacked the smokiness that grilling could impart. And misbegotten Yukon Gold potato pancakes were dark, dense and inedible.

Of the entrees we sampled, a large, melt-in-the-mouth rib-eye called cowboy steak managed to avoid careless seasoning; the meat was juicy and delicious. Lemony pan-seared monkfish, with its satisfying firm texture, also just made the cut. But other main dishes were overly salty or astringent. Spaghetti puttanesca with shrimp and pieces of monkfish swam in a dark brown pool flavored with heavy doses of capers, olives and anchovy; a cup of capers was also dumped on a slightly dry piece of potato-crusted salmon. And a special of curried split lobster turned out to be a needlessly elaborate and messy affair. The meat was difficult to extract from its shell under a heap of slippery sautéed sweet onions and a sprinkling of capers, and the deep-fried spinach leaves that accompanied it were very salty. (Other than spinach, sides were low on greens; a plate of nicely charred asparagus for $6 was a good investment.)

Like some other dishes here, desserts sounded better than they tasted. Skip the black plum tart with an unpalatable crust and consider the cheesecake or the hot apple-berry crisp with vanilla ice cream. And have that second cup of coffee. Part of Rainwater’s charm is that its customers linger.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section WE, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: A Laid-Back Option On Main Street. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT