The Eh! Bay Invitational Golf Tournament is in its 4th edition and I was invited back for a second year. Organized by the Wall family, it is basically a weekend of golf, laughter and all-around fun in the Thousand Islands. Only two foursomes are part of it, and we played Smuggler’s Glen on Friday, Thousand Islands Country Club on Saturday, back to Smuggler’s Glen on Sunday.
After a round of not so memorable golf at Smuggler’s Glen (in my case anyway), we were off to the United States of America.
Our first meal was also not so memorable – dinner at the Dockside Pub in Alexandria Bay.
The Dockside Pub is a very small establishment on Market Street in A-Bay. It is decorated with sports memorabilia and mostly celebrating the exploits (!) of Syracuse’s teams. It is a very casual sports bar, with friendly service but perhaps a little too familiar.
As it is a pub, I decided to opt for an 1812 as a refreshment. The War of 1812 amber ale is the flagship beer of Sackets Harbor Brewing Company, a small microbrewery based in the state of New York. Sackets Harbor was attacked twice by British and Canadian forces during the war of 1812, but they resisted. I suppose they decided to name a beer after the war, disregarding the fact that they lost it in the end. At any rate, the 1812 is a nutty amber ale, with a discreet but present bitter finish. Not a lot of aroma, not very complex, so I figured it would work with whatever I’d ordered.
For my meal, I had the steak and blue special – a thick strip loin served on bread and topped with blue cheese. I suppose it’s a variation of the famous philly cheese steak. But first, I had a cup of chowder as an appetizer – a sad, thin, kind-of-creamy concoction with a grand total of two clams in it. Others around me were less lucky – no clams at all. Some got potatoes though. Lucky them.
As for the main course, my steak was served with french fries, which were eaten with more or less satisfaction, and a side of vegetable macedonia likely directly taken from a can. The meat was tender, surprisingly, and a nice medium rare. The cut was a fair size as well – quite reasonable for the 13$ they were asking for it. But the bread was not needed, and the blue cheese was not very blue and uninspiring. So uninspiring in fact that half way through it, I jumped on the bottle of A1 sauce that one of my fellow golfer ordered to accompany his own mean.
I pledged not to go back there again – but, in all fairness, some of our eightsome ordered the fish special, a big halibut filet, which was lightly breaded and apparently very good. It did came with the same canned veggies, though.
At any rate, I really pledged not to go back there next year.
Hopefully there is something better around the Ship Motel in Alexandria Bay, NY.
