This Bear Likes it’s food on time

By Antoinette May Herndon

My on and off love affair with Plymouth’s Dancing Bear began casually in a bar. Their bar.

Charles and I had taken to stopping by the newly opened saloon for a drink before having dinner at the fabled Taste a few doors up Main Street.

We were drawn by the Bear’s lively old west ambience. Housed in the lower floor of the historic Plymouth Hotel, the bar is a mellow mix of old bottles, scarred mahogany, and cowboy mementos. The ownership is new but unquestionably the tavern has seen plenty of action in its 127-year history.

Besides, Larry Worman, one of the two new owners, is a great bar tender. A deft mixologist, with a friendly line of patter and a flair for invention, Worman earned a place in my heart early on with his creation, the Dirty Martini.

Worman’s Dirty Martini appears to be three parts gin, one part olive juice. Though a classicist when it comes to martinis, I was curious, then delighted by his dark variation.

Charles and I enjoyed talking with Worman and his partner, Bill Bain. They’ve high hopes for their bistro which opened in April. “Our food is just as good as Taste’s,” Worman told me, “but without the pretension. Call us ‘casual chic’.”

Could be. The drinks were good, the bar crowd friendly, and just beyond, the dining room with its clusters of neatly set tables, looked inviting. Often we were tempted to linger, but there were always those reservations waiting at Taste.

Finally, on one of those “What shall we do?” evenings. We bit the bullet. So to speak. Entering the Dancing Bear is a time trip. Imagine stepping into the Long Branch Saloon. But where were Matt Dillon, Miss Kitty, Chester and Doc?

We didn’t have time to miss them. Worman and Bain took good care of us. It was Wednesday night, the restaurant just busy enough. We got plenty of attention; the service was splendid, the food full of innovative surprises.

Naturally, I began with a Dirty Martini ($7. Charles his usual

scotch $3.50).

We shared a perfect salad—pears with spinach, red onion, walnuts, blue cheese, croutons and grain mustard vinaigrette. ($8.50) For a main course I ordered a half-rack of St. Louis Ribs. I don’t believe that I have ever had better ribs in my life ($15.95.)

Charles had Jambalaya—Andouille sausage, shrimp and chicken tossed with vegetables in a Cajun cream sauce. ($19.95) He loved it.

OK, you know how it is when you discover a new restaurant. First of all, you can’t wait to go back. Secondly, you’re a fresh convert, eager to proselytize, to bring others into the fold. Within a week we were back at the Dancing Bear Bar & Grill this time with Dick and Sally Tuttle in tow.

Oh, dear! What a difference. To begin with, this was a weekend. The Dancing Bear appears to be a victim of its own early success. There simply aren’t enough servers.

We should have remembered the old “out of sight, out of mind” adage and stayed inside the restaurant proper. Instead, we opted for music in the patio. This involved descending a long flight of poorly lit stairs.

The music was pleasant--once they turned down the amplifier, allowing us to hear actual words of our own and occasional snatches of conversation at our table. It was a victory, but a relatively small one. We had come to the restaurant with dreams of drinks and food dancing in our heads,

The patio is a long way from both bar and kitchen. It’s a formidable task for waiters to navigate the narrow stairs carrying drinks and dinner. Charles, Dick and I waited 30 minutes for our cocktails. Sally had ordered a bottle of wine with the idea of sharing it but the waitress had no corkscrew. Charles finally had to go back upstairs for assistance.

Dinner came an hour later. I’d ordered the Texas brisket ($15.95) but may have been too cranky by this time to properly appreciate it. Sally had the St. Louis Ribs and professed to like them. But Sally is always so polite. I’ll never really know.

Dick

and Charles, so happy to have finally gotten their drinks, dug right into their food. Dick, a former judge, is always measured in his opinions; I’m not sure how he felt about his Jambalaya. Charles showed a starving man’s gratitude for his Eggplant Parmigiana ($19.50).

Now, let me admit: I take a sorority girl’s approach to writing this column. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” I WANT restaurants to flourish, I WANT people to go out to dinner. But this is a service column, and it’s you readers who pay the bill when you go out. There are a number of eateries that I’ve chosen not to write about because the food just didn’t measured up.

That’s clearly not the case with the Dancing Bear. People are already talking about it. The Shenandoah Valley is being touted as the new Napa, Plymouth positioned as its gateway. Big cheese culinary columnists will soon be profiling the Dancing Bear for prestigious Eastern publications. It’ll become a Destination, maybe the next French Laundry. But forewarned is forearmed.

You won’t go wrong on a week day night. Expect fabulous food and all the TLC you can handle. Of course, Fridays and Saturdays are when we all really want to kick back and party, so I’d suggest making reservations for a table in the main dining room.

You might also get your own drinks at the bar and take them to your table. The waitperson may not pass your way for a long time, so scan the menu at the bar. You want to be ready to order when opportunity finally knocks at your table.

Call it defensive dining, if you will, but the gastronomic pay off is worth it. The Dancing Bear is a rising star. You read it here.

VITALS: Dancing Bear Bar & Grill is located at 9356 Main St. Plymouth. Phone: 680-9009. Open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The bar stays open later on weekends. Credit cards accepted.

amherndon@sierralodestar.com

PICTURES

Larry Worman pours a Dirty Martini

Two scenes of the Dancing Bear Bar.