Restaurant review: Stonehaven

Stonehaven has a couple of strikes against it before I even taste the food.  First, it has no working website.  It has an address, but it has never had content so you can't view their menu online.  Second, the menu is very limited.  If you don't like shellfish, can't have cream sauces, and aren't willing to overpay for a steak, there isn't a whole lot for you. 

Stonehaven is the former La Cave on Blowers Street.  They've removed most of the little caverns so it is *slightly* more open.  It is still a woefully small restaurant; there are several tables mere feet from the front door.  Hope you don't mind a draft.  Fortunately we were seated in the restaurant proper.  Our server was friendly and the chef didn't mind substituting once I explained I was lactose intolerant.  Mike and I both ordered the Devilled Chicken. It comes with a white wine cream sauce; I was told mine would be made without the cream.  What did I receive?  No sauce at all. Two large, overcooked, dry, tough chicken breasts.  It took more time to saw my way through it than eat it. I'd been told the mashed potatoes contained no cream; turned out they did so they gave me a baked potato (very good) with bacon bits (very cold, but at least they were real).  The dish also came with some tasty basmati rice and some perfectly tasteless carrots and green beans. 

One more problem with the entree:  I don't like peppercorns.  The chicken dish (the ONLY chicken dish on the menu) said peppercorns.  I guess that's what makes it devilled.  I was expecting the usual whole peppercorns I could push off the meat.  Nope, these were ground peppercorns.  I had no choice but to eat them and suffer. 

Mike liked everything about his meal.

Dessert for me was the Gingerbread Tower; Mike had a caramel and chocolate swirl cheesecake.  The gingerbread was very good but again overdone, and it came standing in a sickly-sweet sauce with candied pecans.  I left the bottom of the gingerbread to avoid the sauce.  Again, Mike was happy with his food.

The wait between ordering and eating was unacceptably long.  I only stayed to use a gift certificate we've had for this restaurant for almost a year.  The bread "basket" consisted of four small, toasted pieces of garlic bread with a spinach dip on the side.  They were gone in four bites. 

The final bill was waaaay too expensive for the quality of food received.  You can get better selection, better prices and much better food at many other downtown restaurants.