Pages Loft

First the good: the food. Surprisingly good. Burgers, pulled pork sandwich, club sandwich all got the thumbs up. The French fries and sweet potato fries also delicious, and the portions were big.
Now the not so good: considering the place was literally almost empty, the service was mediocre. And the soda so flat we sent them back.
To be honest my expectations were low, but the food was pretty good!

Ugh. I was taken to the Loft by my family for a birthday dinner. It was exactly as I expected it would be. The waitress was mildly hostile and reeked of cigarette smoke. She told us the specials and immediately asked if we wanted drinks. My sister wanted to ask a question about the specials. The waitress answered the question, then left without taking our drink orders and was MIA for about 10 minutes. My nephew went to the bar to order his drink and the waitress scolded him and told him to go back to the table, then waited another 5 minutes to bring his beer. The popovers came and they were ok. Then came our food. If you imagine what the food is likely to be like at the restaurant at a lower-​end hotel, that’s what it was. The salads were underdressed, the risotto was over-​cheesed, everything was just barely passable. And the waitress, again, was nowhere to be found. She must know better than to come by the table to ask if everything is ok. My brother caught her at one point to ask for butter for his potatoes and at first she couldn’t even understand what he was asking for, then she agreed to bring it and never did. Everyone at our table of 7 left at least half our food on our plates. And then, to add insult to injury, we were automatically charged 20% for a tip because we were a party of more than 6. It was unfortunate for us, but lucky for the waitress, who would have otherwise earned no tip at all.
The only bright point was the band in the lounge next door, which was great. Thank goodness…

Came here just for the fried green tomatoes (don’t know of ANYONE else that serves them) and they were soggy and oily and flavorless. Our table ordered a bunch of different things and surprisingly the German spaghetti was the table favorite. Place has potential and I’d try it again.

Mr. Page did a spectacular job redesigning the entire establishment from the previous restaurant located in that space. Our service was good, so allow me to talk about our food. We ate in the actual dining area and not the lounge.
Popovers — Just as good as you remember them from the pre-2000’s Delaney House.
Beef Tips and Gnocchi — The tips were small, but tasty, gnocchi were a bit mushy, but the peppercorn sauce was outstanding.
Fried Green Tomatoes — This was simply upscale Big E food and the tomato slices we had were close to an inch thick.
Chophouse Salad — This was good stuff. I love a salad that I can just keep diggin’ in and feeding myself. No work involved.
Wedge Salad — This probably has potential, but ours was swimming in a vat of bleu cheese dressing. Perhaps we should have ordered the dressing on the side, but we assumed at an ‘up-​scale’ restaurant, they would know how to properly dress a salad.
Filet Mignon — The filet was great and the Gorgonzola butter was a nice touch. They plopped the filet smack dab on top of the potatoes which not everyone enjoys, but I didn’t mind, although it makes it seem as though nothing is on the plate.
Pork Chop Marinara — The pork chops were cooked perfectly. This dish was more like chicken parm except with pork. It came with three (3) fingerling potatoes. I could’ve used more, but I always want more potatoes.
RIP Mr. Page.

Dad and I got lazy one evening after a full day of walking around Northampton and decided to have dinner in the in-​house restaurant at the hotel we were staying at. Which turned out being the one bleak spot of an otherwise fabulous weekend.
The popovers should have tipped me off. The popovers are one of their things, a server walks around with a huge basket of them, ensuring every customer gets one. This was popover fail. The popovers were huge and warm, which is about the best thing I can say about them. Raw on the inside and not nearly light or flaky enough on the outside.
I wouldn’t necessarily hold the Caesar salad presentation against them, even though it’s a personal pet peeve of mine when ‘salads’ come served with all the toppings on full leaves that haven’t been cut to manageable size, but there was nothing else to like about the salad either. The beef tips & gnocchi was so salty that… and… well, honestly, I don’t even have the heart to go on in any more detail about how terrible the food was here. I’ll just say that the only thing I actually enjoyed was the ice cream that came with the apple pie. I feel 99.9% certain it wasn’t made in house.
I know now that I’ll never be tired out enough to not be able to make it the five minutes down the street from the hotel to any of NoHo’s fantastic restaurants, or even the not so fantastic ones.