Cape May- The Chalfonte Hotel

When in Cape May, we always have our favorite dinner spots. But occasionally we do like to step outside of our routine and experience something different. Tonight, after much deliberation, we decided upon the Magnolia Room at the Chalfonte Hotel. The Chalfonte (pronounced Shall-font) is a huge, beautiful, historic, southern-looking hotel, just blocks from the heart of Cape May. We have this joke that you must say the name with an accent- it's just the kind of name that lends itself perfectly to that sort of thing.

Years ago, we went to the Chalfonte for their Sunday brunch, and although I don't remember what I ate on that occasion, I've heard it was very memorable.

So we figured it would be a good choice to give them a try for dinner tonight. Let me just say that it was a roller coaster of tastes. There were some very high highs, but there were also some very low lows. Allow me to explain.

When we walked in, I was struck by two things: the first was the emptiness of the restaurant. Considering they had told us when we could arrive, instead of us requesting a time, as is typical of reservations, I had expected to find the place packed. Not so. There were maybe four or five tables of people. Not packed at all. The second thing was the brashness of the swanky music in the background (or really in the foreground). They had this gaudy, ostentatious dinner-music track playing for a while until one of the waitresses finally had enough and switched over to something less abrasive. But back to the food.

The reason we'd come was to get the fried chicken. Apparently this fried chicken is a pretty big deal here. But when we looked at the menu, we discovered that you could only get it as part of the pre-fix menu for $35. That seemed like a lot of money to me, and I seriously contemplated getting the vegetarian entree (some very ordinary sounding pasta with basil and mozzarella), but in the end, I was persuaded by the rest of the table to go for the fried chicken. After all, if you're only going to dine in the Chalfonte once, don't you want to be able to say you ate the chicken that everyone talks about? I did.

As part of this over-priced fixed menu, we got to choose an appetizer or soup, and salad, in addition to our entree. After trying fried oysters (and enjoying them!) the night before, I thought it would be a good choice to order them here. For my salad, I chose the salad of the day, which was a tortellini salad with crab meat.

While we waited for our food to arrive, we scarfed down what would become possibly the best part of the meal: the rolls (if only I'd known it then).

The rolls were hot when they arrived at the table, resting over cool slabs of butter. They practically asked to be pulled apart, they were so tender and flaky. And with a little bit of butter on there- mmmm....they were so good! Mom and I honestly could have made a meal out of those rolls- and that was before we knew they were made with ice cream! 

I am not kidding you. You are reading this correctly. They are made with ice cream. Apparently the famous roll lady, whose name is escaping me, makes the dough on the stove, and then instead of adding milk, she adds ice cream. Sounds like a perfect substitution to me! No wonder these babies are so special...it's not every day you eat a roll with a secret ingredient like that. :) And they're made daily, too, so you know they're going to be fresh. (As a side note, when we asked if we could have more rolls, we were denied because our waitress said they only had 15 more for the night, which kind of surprised me since it was only 6:45ish, but hey, I guess the rolls are in high demand.)

After these pillows of wonder, the meal took some strange turns. 

 The fried oysters, though very fresh (as evidenced by the juice that seeped out of them when I cut into them) had a kind of unpleasant, fishy taste. I had really liked the ones the day before. These ones made me want to gag a little, so I gave them out to others at my table (who enjoyed them). And the chicken salad (to the left side of that picture) was tasty once you pulled the chicken bones out.

The tortellini salad was good. It was a cold salad with tomatoes and crab meat on top.

There was nothing wrong with it, there was just so much food that I had to pace myself and take most of this home with me for tomorrow. The weird thing was that at this point, I already found myself quite full. It wasn't like I'd eaten more than a bite of the oysters, and I hardly had half of the salad...so, was that roll filling me up? Perhaps. But I had to save space for the moment I'd been waiting for...the chicken.

Although there were some inconsistencies around the table as to the moistness and size of the chicken, I found mine to be delicious. The skin was, by far, the best part. It was perfectly crispy- exactly what I would expect from good fried chicken.

I mean, look at it.  That's some finger lickin' chicken, isn't it?

Although the chicken was delicious, and the rolls were heavenly, I think it was a lot to pay for a dinner of fried chicken. Honestly, they suck you in with that three course thing so you have to spend more money to get their most famous dish. And that's fine. I understand the business behind it, but I was not thrilled with my appetizer or salad. (The salad was fine, but it wasn't anything I was jumping up out of my seat about.) I felt bad leaving there, knowing we'd spent basically two night's worth of money on this one dinner.

The Chalfonte was a big disappointment. I'm glad to have had to experience, after all it's a Cape May classic, but I wouldn't do it again. There's just so many more places in Cape May that I actually enjoy. But I guess that's the risk you take when you try something new. I just feel like we wasted a dinner here, ya know? And I don't like feeling like I wasted any of my meals when there's so many places I want to try.

But, oh well. I just have to chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. There's always more food waiting just around the corner.