Acres of Land Winery

There is a dearth of decent restaurants in my neck of the woods.  If you don't want to eat chain food (which I don't), your best bet is to head to Lexington or find the few places around here that don't follow some other cook's recipe.  When we get a new restaurant, especially one attached to a winery, it should be cause for celebration.  Now, Acres of Land has been here in Madison County for a while now, but I had not eaten there until a few days ago.  It is out towards Poosey Ridge (otherwise known as ... never mind) down Barnes Mill, a road that used to be as curvy and hilly as Marilyn Monroe's figure.  I'm sure it can't be blamed on the winery, but much of the character in that road is now gone.  It has been straightened and flattened as much as possible.
If the restaurant is worth it, however, the road can be forgiven.  This was my hope as my husband and I drove down a road I could no longer recognize.  I had had their wine and it was decent.  That was all that I asked of their food.  Decent.  Good would be better and awesome would be great.  But "decent" was all I required.

So we arrived around six o'clock and were immediately seated.  The setting was gorgeous.  I would have preferred to be seated in the room overlooking Madison County, but the room in which we were seated suggested that we would have an awesome meal.  The wood floors shone and the lighting was brilliant, setting off the deep colors of the furniture and ceilings.  It exuded elegance and promised a meal fit for a king.

Right off the bat, it fell flat.  The menu suggested that Acres of Land served country style food.  Fine and good.  Some of the best meals I've had have been country.  But, considering a chain like Cracker Barrel can manage to make biscuits and cornbread from scratch all day long and every day for thousands of customers, I don't think it was too much to expect this restaurant to bring out something other than crackers and butter?!?!  For one thing, if you're going to serve breadstick shaped crackers, make sure they're not stale and please don't give me some fancified butter so I can figure out how it is supposed to be applied to this long skinny cracker or why I would do so.  Also, this was a "nice" restaurant.  Bring me some bread.  I make bread at home all the time.  I used to make the biscuits and cornbread for Cracker Barrel.  It's not a hard thing to do and would probably be cheaper than those awful crackers.  The first impression is the most important  So far, not impressed.

Hoping the kitchen would redeem the restaurant, my husband and I order fried green tomatoes.  Another simple dish.  Start with firm, fresh green tomatoes, a well seasoned batter (just salt and pepper will do it all) and fry them quickly and for just the right amount of time.  The kitchen did not redeem.  The tomatoes were too firm.  Whether this was a failure in choosing produce or frying it long enough to soften them just a bit, I do not know.  But that was not the biggest fail.  Salt and pepper.  That is all that is needed to season a proper tomato.  Other seasoning may be added if desired as long as they don't drown out the beautiful simplicity of the tomato.  But our tomatoes had no seasoning.  None.  Nada.  Zilch.  I believe the intent was to use the corn jelly as the seasoning.  But that is wrong.  First, a fried green tomato has to be able to stand on its own merits before you can add anything else.  Secondly, I couldn't stand the jelly.  If I wanted to put corn on my tomato, I would have asked for it.  And the sweetness of the jelly just did not mesh with the tomato and its batter.  A big fail all the way around.

I might have left at this point, but we were using a Groupon and I was going to get my money's worth.  So, we ordered our meals.  My husband is a chicken liver connoisseur and so this is what he ordered.  I chose fried chicken.  I'm not a big fried chicken eater, but when I do indulge I am picky and expect crispy skin and juicy chicken.  And, again, a well-seasoned batter.  With my chicken, I requested green beans and a baked sweet potato.  For those who have never eaten country style green beans, they are cooked in lard or bacon grease and seasoned with salt and pepper.  They also tend to be overcooked, but I had hopes that these would not be.  My meal arrived and the green beans were as expected.  Overcooked.  At this point I came to the conclusion that the chef was allergic to salt and pepper.  The beans had absolutely no flavor.  If they had been cooked with grease, it was not apparent.  And it was completely obvious that there was no salt present.  A travesty!

So, I moved to the baked sweet potato.  Another simple side to prepare.  A good one should have had butter rubbed over the outside to crisp the skin whilst baking.  Add a little butter and cinnamon at the table and it is very difficult to mess this one up.  I don't think that rubbed any butter, but still the potato was fine.  Not great or exceptional.  Just fine. Way too hard to mess up.  But, that could be said of most of the food that was served and they managed to do it.

Last of all, the chicken.  The chicken was good.  Again, can't say too much here.  The batter was underwhelming.  Very little seasoning if any at all.  The chicken was surprisingly moist and juicy.  But the skin on my wing had separated from the batter and was not good.  The biggest problem here is that the menu made it sound like I would receive a  mix of white and dark meat.  I received one tiny wing and one decent sized breast.  This was not a meal worth 15.99.  I could get one comparable and actually even better at Cracker Barrel.  I hate to keep throwing them up there, but they serve the same food.  And they do it better.

I should say something about the wine since it is a winery.  Originally I asked for a chambourcin that they did not have at the time.  So, I opted for the Kentucky Chambourcin which was billed as a sweet red.  The first taste was okay, but had no depth.  After the glass had sat for a few moments and had breathed some more, I found the wine to be full of flavors.  Oaky and fruity.  A decent red.

Will I return to Acres of Land?  Probably not.  Driving to Richmond and then another 6 miles out just doesn't seem worth it for a meal that cost so much but delivered so little.