March 6, 1998
ABBEY GRILL
Food at the Abbey Grill is just divine
The dining room in a former Congregational church is impressive -- yet funky and casual, too

By ALAN ROSENBERG AND AVIS GUNTHER-ROSENBERG
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writers

FALL RIVER -- It's fitting that the latest restaurant in the culinary empire of George and Anna Karousos is called the Abbey Grill: The restaurant is in the parish house of the former Central Congregational Church, a structure built more than a century ago in Gothic style.

And -- oh, well, we can't resist -- the food is heavenly.

If you've been to the Karousoses' signature restaurant, the high-toned Sea Fare in Portsmouth, you'll find The Abbey quite a change. The atmosphere here reflects both the two-story-high vaulted ceiling, the mahogany-covered walls and the massive crystal chandelier that make the dining room uniquely impressive, and the red granite table tops and open kitchen, including a huge brick oven for pizza cooking, that give it a funky, casual feel.

We visited the night before Valentine's Day, and the crowd contained young families, young lovers, elderly couples and everything in between.

Dinner choices, printed on a single sheet, include appetizers, soups, salads, main courses, brick-oven pizza (including potato pizza with onions and ham, barbecue chicken pizza or pizza with lobster, clams and fresh Parmesan cheese) and desserts. There are also several daily specials. Everything is a la carte, with appetizers at $6.95 and $7.95, soups at $3.25 and $3.95, salads at $3.25 to $5.95, pizza $6.95 to $10.95 and entrees $13.95 to $18.95.

All of the appetizers are seafood, including oysters on the half shell, calamari, smoked salmon and lobster cocktail and oyster Alexia -- stuffed with a dressing of pureed lobster, crab, shrimp and scallops.

We tried coconut-crusted shrimp ($6.95) -- three plump shrimp in a sweet, crunchy coconut coating -- and they were succulent, served with salad greens and a soy-based sauce. (The menu described this as "horseradish soy sauce," although we did not taste the horseradish.)

Buffalo mozzarella salad ($5.95) was also delicious -- thick circles of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes drizzled with basil pesto. The only near-miss was French onion soup ($3.95) -- a bit thin and not quite as cheesy as we like.

The appetizers came with slices of crusty bread -- two slices for the two of us, served on a separate plate. Staff were quick to scoop up the empty bread plate and place two more slices on it, but it was an unusual delivery.

Main course choices include rack of lamb with mint pesto, grilled salmon with tequila citrus salsa, grilled sirloin and shrimp in a spicy chourico sauce, duck breast in a wild berry sauce and chicken in lemon Caesar dressing over penne.

The filet mignon ($18.95) -- served with home-style mashed potatoes, glazed carrots and thick-cut homemade crinkle potato chips -- was thick, tender and flavorful, nicely dressed with a black walnut demi glace that added both character and texture.

Our other choice, lobster and littleneck clams ($16.95), was also terrific -- but very different from its menu description of "in a clam sauce over linguini." Instead, it was presented in a rich cream sauce over penne. Nevertheless, the seafood was plentiful and fresh, and the sauce divine.

The Abbey is part of the Karousos family's International Institute of Culinary Arts, founded last fall (daughter Kathy and son Theodore are the restaurant's co-managers), and this is both a part of its charm and its single flaw. The students do the restaurant's cooking, and the results can be a bit erratic.

Besides the two dishes that came to the table not quite as advertised on the menu, the kitchen had trouble timing our meal, so our main course arrived seconds after our salad. Our servers, otherwise energetic and polite, shrugged off our protest; sorry, said one, but he made it clear it was our problem, not theirs.

It was the kind of thing that could have spoiled an evening -- and yet, almost everything we tried was so excellent that by dinner's end we barely recalled the incident.

There are several desserts to choose from. One -- chocolate meltaway ($4.95) -- needs to be ordered with the entrees, since it bakes while you dine. The dessert -- a timbale of deep, bittersweet chocolate cake -- is served warm in a feathered pool of white and dark chocolate.

It is good, but the Abbey's New Orleans bread pudding ($4.95) is better. A thick slab of pudding is served over layers of creamy white chocolate sauce and buttery rum sauce.

Saintly.