A couple of weeks ago, I read on Facebook that Amador Vintage Market (AVM) was open again after going dormant over the winter. My mother and I decided to enjoy the scenic drive to Plymouth and order lunch from AVM last Friday, March 26.
I called AVM a little before 2:00 p.m. and ordered our lunches. My mother asked for a Chef’s Seafood Salad. I wanted to order a turkey burger, but the woman on the phone told me they weren’t serving burgers that day. I was confused because an earlier post had a menu for Friday and Saturday specials, but those specials were only for that week.
The featured special for the week was duck quesadilla but I had a bad experience with duck years ago, so I opted for a zesty veggie panini instead. The woman on the phone repeated my order and said she would start working on it right away without a time estimate.
About 25 minutes later, my mother and I pulled up to the sidewalk close to the AVM front entrance. Once we walked up the short staircase and walked inside, we discovered we were the only ones there. (Indeed, there wasn’t anyone walking around on the sidewalk and only a few people at the park next door.) There was no one at the front counter, though a large paper bag with my name on it was sitting behind the counter.
It took a couple of minutes for the few people working in the back to notice that my mother and I were there. After a couple more minutes, we paid, had our bag of food, and were on our way.
My Meal
My panini was wrapped in a paper wrapper that had a foil outer layer to help keep the panini warm. The zesty veggie panini has garlic mushrooms, grilled red onions, hummus, chimichurri sauce, tomatoes, and arugula on grilled rosemary focaccia bread.
The panini was well made with only a few lettuce leaves and a couple of mushrooms dropping out of the sandwich when I moved it onto my plate. When I took my first bite, I could tell the ingredients were fresh but mild, and the chimichurri sauce only complemented the panini.
Of course, chimichurri sauce doesn’t have a sharp taste to it as you would find in pesto sauce. So, the taste of the sauce blended into the taste of the dominant tomatoes and onions. The sauce had mild to medium heat that didn’t overwhelm the rest of the panini. There was also a powdery feel in my mouth as I ate, so I wonder if I was eating some fresh parsley and/or cilantro.
The bread was fresh and held together well from the first bite to the last with a mild rosemary taste that didn’t overwhelm the rest of the ingredients.
Mom’s Meal
The Chef’s Seafood Salad comes with mixed greens and arugula, cucumbers, bread-and-butter pickled onions, Roma tomatoes, jumbo prawns, flaky salmon, and shredded lobster. The salad came in its own large, lidded plastic bowl that also included two lidded cups.
One cup contained lemon truffle aioli (though my mother thought it was tartar sauce) and the other contained champagne basil vinaigrette. My mother didn’t like either the aioli or the vinaigrette, so she used the ranch dressing in the refrigerator to top her salad. She thought the vegetables were fresh and crisp, and she liked the size of the shrimp.
The flaky salmon was easy to find, but my mother had to dig a bit deeper to find the clumps of lobster in the salad. She wasn’t sure if the lobster was crab instead as she couldn’t taste a difference. The taste also made her wonder if the lobster was canned because the clumps looked the same as in the canned crab that she uses for some of her recipes at home.
The Verdict
The Zesty Veggie Panini isn’t as zesty as you may like, and the mild taste of the sandwich overall doesn’t make it memorable. It’s a sandwich that fills you up for the afternoon but doesn’t weigh you down.
My mother thought the salad was what she needed for a warmer day. She kept some of the salad for the following day’s lunch and she enjoyed the salad as much as she did on the first day.
So, we give Amador Vintage Market a green light. The price for our lunches was a little over $27.
Want to Try Them?
Amador Vintage Market is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. They offer outdoor and limited indoor dining as well as take-out, and you can eat on-site or pick up at the restaurant at 9393 Main Street in Plymouth.
Their website hasn’t been updated to reflect that the restaurant is open again, so you can get the latest menus and other information on their Facebook profile page. If you have questions and/or want to order, call them at 209-245-3663.
Amador Business Ticker food reviews are adventures in local dining with Editor Eric Butow and his mom.
