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DINING OUT:
EUCLID RESTAURANT

Route 31 at Morgan Road,
Clay, NY
(315) 622-2750

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by Sue Brode

The time's they are a-changing'. Used to be, if you drove down Route 31 from the four corners just north of Liverpool, that you'd see nary a restaurant except those located in the Great Northern Mall. Now, the area is home to at least a dozen chain restaurants, serving everything from fast food to full dinners. Just a few years ago, you'd have to keep going until you reached the EUCLID RESTAURANT at the corner of Rt. 31 and Morgan Road in Clay. There, you could enter and find a busy bar on one side, a home-cooking' family style restaurant on the other - both run by local entrepreneur Fran Fiorito.

You still can, because the EUCLID continues to serve large portions of good, simple food at affordable prices. Only problem is, these days, some of the people who used to keep going until they got there now stop along the way at one or another of the glitzy possibilities.

Fran's aware of that. His restaurant still pulls in goodly numbers of people, including many who, appreciating the value, the local ownership, and the friendly staff, eat there several times a week. And have for years. Yet he does express some concern about the changing scene. People catch ads for the chain restaurants every time they turn on the TV. So they tend to get a bit brainwashed into thinking that's where they're supposed to go.

Fran - and other local restaurateurs - just want you to keep in mind that they are continuing to uphold a time-honored tradition: the eatery that is a true part of the community, and has sprung up here organically rather than being arbitrarily lowered onto the scene. A house, the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said, should be of a hill, not on a hill; that is, it should appear to have naturally sprouted there, rather than to have beamed down from some foreign planet.
That's true to of some restaurants, and certainly the case with the EUCLID. Nestled at the corner (where the thick traffic caused by heavy road construction several years back is now gone, thank goodness), it looks like something out of Norman Rockwell's paintings of an earlier, more easygoing America. The EUCLID clearly has not arrived, in pre-fabricated form, from some franchise cosmos.

When we arrived on a recent Sunday evening, and took our seats alongside the appealingly rustic wood walls, we wondered why we'd let so much time since we'd made it a point to stop by - and, perhaps, many readers will do the same after reading this and seek it out once again. Not that the place wasn't busy; plenty of dinners, mostly families but singles and couples as well, including people of every age group, were either enjoying or waiting for the large platters of food that arrive steaming from the kitchen.

You know the moment that you look at a dish that this isn't something that the chef whipped up a while back and quickly defrosted from the freezer when an order came in. Everything looks fresh, for the simple reason that it is.

For appetizers, my husband ordered his favorite, steamed clams, and happily found them to be sweet and soft, steamed just enough to snap open the shells without any overcooking. We also opted for the Potato Skins, with Cheddar Cheese and Bacon Bits ($4.50), and discovered that they are prepared here quite differently than in any other restaurant. Fran serves a large order of them deep dish style, cut into strips rather than served as an open half, so that the appetizer is filling enough to serve as a meal in itself, or at least to be spread around between several dinners for tasting.

You'll also find a soup du jour (cup, $2.00; bowl, $2.50) and French Onion Soup ($.3.25 a crock), as well as shrimp cocktail, fried cheese sticks with marinara sauce, garlic pizza, jalapeno peppers, and fried zucchini, cauliflower, or onion rings, wings, as well as a fried combo. Items on the appetizer menu range in price from $2.25 to $6.50.

Many people stop by for one of the highly regarded pizzas, which begin in price at $7.95 for a full garlic or cheese pie. Toppings (at $1.25 each) include sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, olives, meatballs, broccoli, and hot peppers.

Full dinners from the broiler include a wide variety of steaks, chops, chicken, and veal. The steaks range in price from $11.95 for the open steak sandwich (9 oz.) served on toast and topped with onion wings, to $14.95 for the New York cut sirloin steak ($14.95). A popular item is the chef Chicken Breast choice (market price). Seafood dishes, fried - ranging in price from the Fish Fry ($8.95) to the Fried Seafood Platter ($12.95) - and broiled (haddock, scallops a' gratin, broiled shrimp, ranged in price from $9.95 to $14.50 round out the selections. These dinners are served with rolls and butter and a choice of two among potatoes, spaghetti, cole slaw, chef salad, hot vegetables, or apple sauce.

There's also a wide range of Italian dinners, various pastas including shells, Ziti, spaghetti, Ravioli, Lasagna, and others (including chicken dishes) are priced between an economical $6.95 and $13.95, with the large Italian platter (chicken parm, Lasagna, ravioli, and Fettucini Alfredo) at $13.50.

Pasta dishes are served with rolls and butter and chef salad. Many guests arrive with the SPECIALS in mind, for Fran has over the years developed a series of nightly specials (starting at 4 pm) that attract not only locals but also hungry people from some distance away who have heard about the impressive size of the servings in comparison with the relatively inexpensive prices. For your convenience, here are the nightly specials:

Also, there are EVERY DAY SPECIALS, including: Slow Roasted Prime Rib of Beef, 8 oz.: $11.95 • 12 oz.: $14.95 • 16 oz.: $16.95

Each evening also brings a variety of specials. On the Sunday we visited, the seafood was Snapper served in a Bernaise sauce. My husband loved it, and the serving was so large that he had to bring half home for the next day's lunch. I also brought home a large slab of my prime rib, which was cooked to perfection and swathed in au jus.

Desserts include some of the best home-made cream pies (chocolate, coconut, banana, etc.) you'll ever taste.

To compete it in the current market, Fran is working at creating "a new menu that isn't too menu" - for he knows that his regulars love what they get. Instead of changing things radically, he'll mostly add more extras, such as toppings for the steak and prime rib. He's added a Senior Citizen Menu, a New Low Carb menu, and there's a "Kiddie Corner" with eight items priced between $1.50 and $2.00 per child's meal. Fran admits to losing money on every child's meal that he serves, but is proud that the presence of such affordable dinners brings in entire families, including ones with MANY children!

A complete wine list has wine by the glass beginning at $3.00 per, and bottles starting at $11.95.

"Low prices and large portions" for good food is the byword. Fran hopes and trusts that there are enough people out there who like to 'buy local' (including at dinnertime) to continue making his personal project a popular draw, once one puts the barrage of TV ads for chain franchises aside and takes a close look at just what's here.

A wide variety of sandwiches and meal salads are available for both lunch or a light dinner. Banquet rooms are available for between 10 and 100 people. The EUCLID regularly plays host to rehearsal dinners, wedding receptions, showers, anniversaries, birthdays, business meetings, team parties, and company parties.

For reservations, banquet room bookings, or other info., call 622-2750. Please mention to Fran that you read about the EUCLID in TABLE HOPPING