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Breaking bread

An evening at Harrington Farm Country Inn & Restaurant

178 Westminster Road, Princeton, 464-5600
www.harringtonfarm.com
Wed.-Sun. 5-9 p.m.
Reservations strongly recommended
Major credit cards
Wine and beer
Not handicap accessible

by Jim Johnson

The Harrington Farm Country Inn & Restaurant is the area's best restaurant. Period. The location is glorious -- a 1763 farmhouse set near Mt. Wachusett. The service is expert, thanks to a warm and knowledgeable staff. The decor is elegant yet quaint. And the food is incomparable.

After dining there recently, I decided to take a different approach to this review and put in a call to innkeeper and chef John Bomba. A few days later, I was standing in his kitchen, watching him and assistant David Vadenais perform their magic.

The duo maneuvered in a space barely three feet by 10 feet, surrounded by convection ovens, a multi-burner gas stove and oven, and prep counters covered with cut vegetables, squeeze bottles with sauces, and plastic containers filled with herbs, spices, and mixes. As orders came in, Bomba headed to the refrigerator to pick out key ingredients like filet mignon, duckling, rack of lamb, salmon, or tuna.

"The trick is to do as much in advance as possible but not so much that early preparation causes the dish to lose its freshness," he explained.


On Wednesday, June 18, Harrington Farm is holding a special four-course dinner with wines from Trefethen Vineyards. A representative will explain a variety of wines matched to each course.


When an order came in from a table of three, I watched as he ladled a broth of white fish bones, fennel seeds, and saffron prepared earlier into a skillet. He then tossed in clams, then shrimp, then scallops based on cooking time. To slow the simmering, he lay the pan in the window. Soon, one lucky individual would be enjoying poached shrimp, sea scallops, and little neck clams ($22) served with angel-hair pasta in a shellfish broth.

I also watched as Bomba placed Moroccan-spiced rack of lamb ($23.50), already coated with spices, into the convection oven. A mint demi glace stood at the ready.

The third member of the party had ordered pan seared sesame coated yellow fin tuna ($18), and Bomba rolled the tuna in crushed sesame seeds and coriander and seared it in a frying pan. A few moments in the convection oven cooked it enough to leave a purple, sushi-like center.

While Bomba worked on the entrées, Vadenais prepared the appetizers. He poured sweet corn with onions, garlic, and cilantro into one pan and black beans with cumin, coriander, tomatoes, and jalapeño pepper into another for the side-by-side duo of grilled sweet corn and black-bean soup ($4). ("One's sweet, the other's spicy," Vadenais explained. "It's a yin-yang approach.") As they heated, he tossed two giant spinach ravioli stuffed with scallop mousse and shrimp ($8) into boiling water. Both dishes were ready almost instantly.

Vadenais also prepared accompaniments for the entrées. He heated up couscous -- with bits of eggplant and peppers and hints of tahini -- for the lamb, and tossed a handful of spinach into the deep fryer for the tuna. As the time approached to serve the entrées, he plunged a variety of fresh vegetables into water that had been richly seasoned and topped with a sheen of oil. As the fish simmered to perfection, Bomba tossed a clump of pasta into seasoned water for its final moments of cooking.

When the entrées were ready, the choreography began.

Bomba inspected white dishes and placed them on the serving area. On one plate, he cut the lamb and lay it in a semi-circle around a mound of couscous that Vadenais had placed there seconds earlier. As Bomba placed sliced tuna across the center of another plate, Vadenais dressed it with pickled ginger and fried spinach, decorated the rim with wasabi sauce, and drizzled miso sauce on the fish.

While Bomba placed clams, scallops, and shrimp around the angel hair, Vadenais drained the vegetables and set them on each plate, starting with a crisscross of asparagus. Bomba dabbed stray sauces and gave a final inspection before the server carried them into the dining room.

Since the dishes were bound for others that night, I can't tell you for sure how they tasted. I've had each of them before, however; if past experience is any indication, they were great.

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