Dining Review | Westchester: A Review of Muscoot Tavern, in Somers

Bright red and oddly shaped, the restaurant, positioned at an angle and tucked away from the intersection of Routes 35 and 100 in Somers, has been in business since before 1925. Helmed by a series of owners and called Muscoot Diner, Muscoot Restaurant, Muscoot Inn — and for a short, wayward time, Little Brauhaus — the Scoot, as it is affectionately referred to by local residents, was taken over last year by Ann-Margaret Wagner and Eddie Lubic, owner of Eduardo’s in Mount Kisco.

The two gave the restaurant a face-lift with a new kitchen, fresh paint and repaired air-conditioning. But evocative details remain: terrazzo floors are worn bare by thousands of feet, bowed walls show the effects of time, and the bar looks like the meeting place it has been for countless get-togethers over the years.

A menu of good-value comfort food adds to the neighborhood-meeting-place feel. No one gets dressed up to go the Scoot, and the food is similarly straightforward. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good — and sometimes very good. Steamed little neck clams in garlic butter broth were plump, sweet emissaries of the sea. A baby spinach salad was just-picked fresh and came with chunks of hard-boiled egg, red onion, terrific croutons, tomato and a vinaigrette that — like all of the Scoot’s sauces and dressings — was house-made. And a New York strip with mushroom sauce was a nice piece of steak cooked just to order and accompanied by garlicky mashed potatoes.

There are items you can get only at the Scoot, like Ann-Margaret’s Famous Fresh Rotisserie Chicken Dinner, half a chicken cooked to crispy but juicy deliciousness with a sweet sauce that married well with the rice pilaf and sautéed spinach sides. The meatballs were huge and garlicky, served with a mound of excellent ricotta over spaghetti, and the tasty clams casino, prepared according to “Eddie’s own recipe,” includes a secret combination of spices. The desserts, which change nightly, are mostly old fashioned and house-made. Though the rice pudding was watery and underdone and the chocolate layer cake was a bit stale, the German chocolate cake, made with just the right amount of shredded coconut and big chunks of pecans, was close to ideal.

Muscoot Tavern gives some nods to contemporary interests. Gluten-free pizza, pasta and buns are available. Whole wheat pasta is on the menu; Captain Lawrence beer, from Westchester’s own microbrewery, is on tap. And when extra virgin olive oil is used on a pizza, it is listed as just “EVOO.” But the approach remains old school. The calamari was served with a solid, basic marinara. The flavorful chicken wings come with classic blue cheese, celery and carrot sticks. And the chicken parmigiano was prepared the traditional way, with plenty of fresh mozzarella and that same marinara over linguine.

There is a popular lineup of thin-crust pizzas baked with fresh herbs. We tried “the Brooklyn,” which was basically a margherita, made with tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella and basil. It was lovely, but the best part of that evening was in simply watching the tables around us. The restaurant has live music on Saturday nights and a local guitarist and singer were playing. Children were happily running around, and their parents were greeting each other across tables. As the waiters deftly wove through the crowd, it was easy to imagine the same scene decades ago. Little has changed at places like Muscoot Tavern, and it is its link to the past — before subdivisions and S.U.V.’s, too-fussy food and “mixologists” — that is the restaurant’s greatest appeal.

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Muscoot Tavern

105 Somerstown Turnpike, (Route 100), Somers

(914) 232-2800

muscoottavern.com

GOOD

THE SPACE An odd-shaped, intriguing space with bowed walls, a low ceiling that opens up in the center and a well-worn floor. Wheelchair accessible.

THE CROWD Casual, relaxed, often families or groups. Waiters are attentive.

THE BAR A cozy, welcoming area along one side of the main room. The wine list is small and mostly house ($7 to $9 a glass; $24 to $75 a bottle), the beers ($4 to $7 a glass) are basic (with a few exceptions, including Westchester’s own Captain Lawrence), but the drinks are big and the bartender is friendly.

THE BILL 14-inch pizzas run $12 to $20; entrees, $14 to $19 or low $20s for the occasional special. Major credit cards accepted.

WHAT WE LIKED Clams casino, chicken wings, steamed clams, fried calamari, baby spinach salad (special); Brooklyn pizza, New York strip, Danish baby back ribs (special), spaghetti with meatballs, rotisserie chicken, chicken parmigiano with linguine, fried lobster tail (special); German chocolate cake (special), lava cake, brownie sundae.

IF YOU GO Open Monday to Thursday, noon to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, noon to midnight; Sunday, 4 to 10 p.m. Reservations for groups of eight or more only. Free parking on site.

RATINGS Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor.

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Dining Review | Connecticut: A Review of Spicy Green Bean, in Glastonbury

Wendy Carlson for The New York TimesColorful décor and convivial atmosphere define the dining at Spicy Green Bean in Glastonbury, Conn.

Let me begin my salute to B.Y.O.B. restaurants with a miser’s confession: I almost never spend more than $50 on wine. Whatever your particular price ceiling, bringing your own wine to a restaurant makes sterling sense. That $50 bottle on a restaurant’s wine list probably cost them $19, while they’d charge $100 for the $50 bottle you’re bringing. With the money you save, you can order a lot of extra starters.

Sliders stacked so high they sway.

And you’ll want to order them at Spicy Green Bean. The chef-owner Kathy Denisiewicz’s casual hole-in-the-wall eatery has built a cult following with its wildly eclectic, food-of-the-mood fiesta of delights. The dinner menu, rife with exclamation marks (“Super Duper Suppers!!!”) and neon-colored letters, hews to a simple format: each week, four different appetizers and four different entrees, as well as a big menu of sandwiches, soups and wraps, some listed under “Kooky Konkoctions.”

If it sounds cloyingly cute, the food is not. We enjoyed superb starter dishes, one after another. French onion soup contained a floating grilled-cheese sandwich made with sharp Irish Cheddar and bearing a dab of bright-green basil pesto. Pork sliders offered candied slabs of pork belly, fried nearly crunchy, on sweet rolls with lettuce, tomato and sriracha mayo. Equally yummy was a tower of fried green and vine-ripened red tomatoes layered with mozzarella, thin-sliced avocado and a generous pile of crab salad.

On and on it went, a jamboree of tastes. We dug eagerly into pancakes mined with spring peas and scallions and topped with smoked salmon, crème fraîche, dill and capers and bits of red onion. We fought over a plantain stuffed with ground beef and chorizo, welded together with melted Cheddar and slathered liberally with a cilantro-laden tomato salsa. Surf-and-turf sliders, stacked so high they swayed, combined a deep-fried oyster and seared steak and was garnished with lettuce, tomato and a horseradish cream. To make her out-of-this-world shrimp toasts, Ms. Denisiewicz coats slices of country white bread with cream cheese and scallions, crab Rangoon-style, then fries them and tops them with shrimp and a sifting of a secret spice combo from what she calls the Shaker of Love. (“Nice try,” she chuckled, when I asked later for the ingredients.)

Our final appetizer, an Asian short rib with macaroni and cheese, wasn’t on the menu, but a woman at the next table was eating it, providing my chance to utter the immortal restaurant line, “I’ll have what she’s having!” And sure enough, the dish proved the high point of the evening, a surreally tasty pork short rib, deep-fried till crisp, then tossed with salt and a sweet chili sauce combining scallions, brown sugar and habanero.

After such thrills, some entrees proved anticlimactic. A playful variation on surf-and-turf included a shrimp and crab custard too soupy in consistency and blasted with tarragon; the steak, a generously sized New York strip, got lost amid a busy orchestration of quartered tomatoes, pimento cheese, crisp-fried prosciutto and arugula. Fish Français suffered from an overly brothy sherried herbed butter sauce, with wilted spinach and fried twists of soppressata that overwhelmed the swai, a mild-tasting Asian white fish. Sweet-potato falafel, dry and bland, needed more tzatziki. And a platter of classic Italian treats — breaded fried chicken cutlet and eggplant Parmesan served with a meatball over bucatini in a heavy tomato sauce — seemed aimed at aficionados of diner-style red sauce.

Some entrees bowl you over through mass alone. Buttermilk fried chicken, half a bird served on a large tray with baked beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and corn, seemed sized for family sharing. A bowl of linguine smothered basil-and-sundried-tomato-inflected chicken sausage in roasted onions and bell peppers with an over-the-top creamy, cheesy red-pepper Alfredo sauce. A towering Cubano burger took a thick hamburger and piled it high with pulled pork, ham and cheese — a dripping colossus of a meal. I haven’t taken this much food home in a long time.

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Defense Department Working Harder to Educate Vets About Disability Review Options

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Mini Display review: Use your iPhone or iPad as a 2nd display for your Mac.

Mini Display review: Use your iPhone or iPad as a 2nd display for your Mac. | iMore.com Skip to main content Android BlackBerry iPhone / iPad Windows Phone webOS SIGN UP|LOG IN iMore Forums Apps Games Accessories Reviews How-To Podcasts Contests iPhone iPad mini iPad iPod touch Apple TV iOS iCloud iTunes Mac Hot: iPhone 5S Guides: iPhone buyers | iPad buyers | iOS users Free: Wallpaper | iPhone apps, games | iPad apps, games Shop Online Cases Chargers Screen protectors Headsets & More Free shipping on orders over $50 Mini Display review: Use your iPhone or iPad as a 2nd display for your Mac. By Leanna Lofte, Thursday, Apr 11, 2013 a 2:20 am 8

Mini Display is a new app by Edovia that converts your iPhone or iPad into a second display for your Mac. Need extra screen space for your Twitter client or a place for your Photoshop palettes? Then Mini Display may be the perfect solution.

To use Mini Display, you must first download the Mini Display Connect client onto your Mac and enable Screen Sharing in your Mac's preferences.

Once your Mac is ready to go, you're all set to connect with your iPhone and iPad. Simply login with your Mac's credentials, choose if you want to restore windows, and if you're using a Retina iPad, decide if you want high resolution and less space, or low resolution and more space. You can also choose to leave the password field blank so that you are required to enter your password every time you use the app. Edovia also makes Screens VNC, so they know how to handle iOS device to Mac interactivity, and it shows.

Once you connect, you've got a second display for your Mac! Its default location is to the right of your Mac's display, but you can change it in the Display settings in System Preferences on your Mac. You can also interact with windows on the screen with gestures, using a three finger swipe to bring up the iOS keyboard, for example, and logout by simply pinching to zoom out.

The goodEasy setup and useCan be used in both portrait and landscape orientationsUse your iPad's Retina display to create an ultra-crisp external screenRestores windows you place in it.Use your device keyboard and touch gesturesOption to prompt you with your password when you connect to your MacThe badDisplay refresh can lagThe bottom line

Mini Display is a really great companion to any Mac, especially 11" and 13" MacBook Pros that have limited screen real estate. Unfortunately, it doesn't run perfectly smooth and the lag is bit annoying, but if you choose to use Mini Display for things like a Twitter feed, to-do list, email client, or anything else that you aren't constantly interacting with, then you'll find it to be a great asset. And it's much cheaper than buying second monitor.

$12.99 - Download now

Leanna Lofte

App and Photography Editor at iMore. Mother, wife, and math instructor. Follow her on Twitter @llofte and send her apps to consider for review at iosapps@imore.com

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8 13 123 0 More of: Apps, App Store Apps, Featured, Reviews, App Reviews
More of: mini display ? PreviouslyVerizon CEO says he sold Steve Jobs on LTE for iPhone 5 Next up ?Mail Pilot for iPhone and iPad review: turn your inbox into a productivity powerhouse There are 8 comments. Add yours. Easy-G says: Apr 11, 2013 at 5:46 am - 7 hours ago

"Unfortunately, it doesn't run perfectly smooth and the lag is bit annoying, but if you choose to use Mini Display for things like a Twitter feed, to-do list, email client, or anything else that you aren't constantly interacting with, then you'll find it to be a great asset."

Or just run a lag-free Twitter client, to-do list app, or email client on the iPad and save yourself $13.

Reply R1cki97 says: Apr 11, 2013 at 6:44 am - 6 hours ago

Is it available only for macs?

Reply PassOutPete says: Apr 11, 2013 at 8:54 am - 4 hours ago

I was happy to see this article. I have long since been interested in trying to turn my iPad into a secondary screen for my MacBook. But everywhere that I look, I yield nothing.

To me, the one and only con of screen lag may in fact 86 this app for me. Do you know of any other applications that have a fluid like feel to them? Something similar to Apple TVs air display, but for a Mac/iPad?

I know that there has to be something out there somewhere that can and will do exactly what I want. It's just a matter of finding it and executing! But nevertheless, thanks for another wonderful review. It really did shed some much needed light on something that has boggled me.

Reply kevinbhayes says: Apr 11, 2013 at 9:35 am - 3 hours ago

How does this compare to AirDisplay?

Reply PassOutPete says: Apr 11, 2013 at 11:24 am - 2 hours ago

Thats what I want to know, too. I've been looking and looking but find no comparisons anywhere. I'd be nice to know something before I drop 13 bucks, ya know.

Reply czhDavid says: Apr 11, 2013 at 9:57 am - 3 hours ago

Apps like that have been here for a long time... and usualy sucked

Reply PassOutPete says: Apr 11, 2013 at 11:25 am - 2 hours ago

Well, is there a decent one available? Maybe even a wired version???

Reply rj5570 says: Apr 11, 2013 at 11:42 am - 1 hour ago

too bad, I really would like a good solution for this. I have no patience for a lag, so I will not be trying this. Wish you could use airplay to add an iPad as another monitor.

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