Slice It Right

Excellent food, decent prices, open to non-members? Wachusett Country Club is our kind of place.

by Margaret LeRoux

Slice It Right
Wachusett Country Club
187 Prospect Street
West Boylston
835-4484
Tues. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Wed.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sun. noon-6 p.m.
Major credit cards
Full bar
Handicap accessible

What would it take to get three non-golfers to dine at Wachusett Country Club's Slice It Right restaurant? On our first visit it was curiosity. I've often driven by the golf course, high up in the hills on Prospect Street in West Boylston, and marveled at the great view those duffers enjoy from the greens.

Inside the restaurant there are big picture windows on the greens side; the night we dined we watched the fat, yellow harvest moon rise. Besides being a clever play on golfing terms, Slice It Right gets it right on almost all the details important to a restaurant. The service was just about the best we've experienced; diners in fancy, high-priced restaurants should be so lucky to have a waitress like ours. She anticipated trouble when we asked to see the wine list.

"It would be a good idea to have a first and second choice," she advised. "Most of the time we're out of people's first choices."

She was right. Our choice, Canyon Road merlot, wasn't available; we settled for a non-vintage Beaujolais ($3). Maybe the management should expand or trim the wine list. I'd rather see a smaller, well-stocked list than an extensive one if the establishment is out of many of the selections.

The decor is also more sophisticated than we expected, with lots of dark wood paneling, carpeting throughout the restaurant, and cloth napkins at each place setting. But the sophisticated atmosphere was spoiled by the soft-rock radio station carried by all the speakers in the dining room. Another piece of advice: this isn't a diner -- no music is preferable to radio commercials.

The menu offers more golf double-entendres with clever illustrations; The "tee off" section is appetizers, "in the rough" offers salads; "front nine" has a variety of sandwiches including burgers and a turkey club; "back nine" refers to main courses -- mainly beef with a few chicken and fish items; "sweet shots" are desserts, and of course, the "19th hole" is for after dinner drinks.

Carrying the golf theme further, bread is served in napkin-lined golf ball buckets. It was good -- hot, crusty, and delicious to dip in the saucer of olive oil with garlic and roasted peppers our waitress brought to the table.

We chose portobella mushroom ($6.95) stuffed with seafood and topped with melted Swiss cheese as an appetizer; we were surprised to receive a plate of six large regular mushroom caps. The seafood stuffing was very tasty, as was the Swiss cheese.

If you're a steak lover, this is the restaurant for you. There are with many sizes and cuts to choose from. I was tempted by steak au poivre in a brandy cream sauce, or a small tenderloin served with stuffed tomatoes and artichoke hearts, but settled on grilled lamb chops ($14.95). One of my companions fancied delmonico steak al bistro ($14.95), a large and tender cut crusted with Dijon mustard and Parmesan cheese. The third member of our group chose the petite filet mignon ($10.95) in hopes of having enough room for dessert.

Our salads arrived just as we finished off the last of the mushroom caps. They were worthy of a much pricier restaurant. The chilled glass plates held a mixture of salad greens, including fresh spinach leaves, slices of red pepper, fresh mushrooms, cucumber, and rings of red onion. There was even crispy, crumbled bacon on top. The dressings were superb; the homemade blue cheese on my salad was the best I've encountered in a restaurant.

Our meals arrived on large, oval shaped plates, and were temptingly colorful. The meat's rich brown was accented beautifully by a mixture of steamed baby carrots and fresh green beans, and on my plate the bright rose colored skin of red bliss potatoes. I received three chops; they were more substantial than the bite-size pieces sometimes served as lamb chops and grilled to a light pink medium rare inside. The meat juices were enhanced with a dash of balsamic vinegar and subtly seasoned with rosemary.

My companion's delmonico steak was heavily marbled with fat, but he didn't mind trimming it; the meat itself was tender and quite juicy. He chose french fries and though they could have been crispier, they tasted freshly cut.

The petite filet was savored by my other friend, who declared it the best filet she'd eaten in a long time.

Dessert choices are mostly standards: grapenut pudding, cheesecake, a chocolate sundae. We spied Snickers pie and decided to share. A good decision; it's a huge, gooey, wedge laden with roasted peanuts, caramel, chocolate, and probably a million calories. The bill for three including tax but not tip was a very reasonable $61.