19/5/13 – The Hamptons Day 1

Peter collected our hire car at 11am and by noon we were off on yet another exciting ‘expodition’ as Winnie the Pooh would say! Our route, as devised by my iPad, took us over the 59^th Street/Ed Koch/ Queensboro Bridge (I wish they would just give this bridge one name and stick to it), east through suburban Brooklyn and Queens and then out along the Long Island Expressway to the quaint little seaside village of Southampton.

The rumours about the LIE are all true, it can be an absolute carpark, but today we had a smooth run as we rather intelligently travelled on a Sunday! We had heard all the stories and seen all the movies about the Hamptons, but still we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Luckily the summer crowds had not yet arrived (the holidays start next week, with Memorial Day ) and we had a perfectly pleasant time. We arrived in Southampton at 2.30pm and had a late lunch at the Southampton Brewery which, for the record has served 95618 kegs since it opened in 1986.

We were booked to stay at ‘The Butler’s Manor’, an up-scale B&B in the north west section of Southampton, just off the Montauk highway and when we checked in at 5pm we found out the reason for the funny name of this establishment. You see it is run by an English guy who was once a private butler to members of the British aristocracy and his now wife, a hippie ‘California girl’ from the flower power era.

It was great to chat with our hosts and hear the story of how they met and how they came to be in the Hamptons. Our lodgings in the ‘Eton Room’ were luxurious and we had a long hot bath (and read one of the thoughtfully provided waterproof books!) before

dressing for dinner at the Red Bar.

This place is not in the centre of town (where the summer tourists flock) and it is consequently a favourite of the true ‘locals’. There we had the set menu - WS apple and fennel soup, fillet steak with Roquefort and red wine reduction sauce with mash and asparagus, warm pear and blackberry tart and PDS Caesar salad, fillet steak without the cheese but with the sauce with mash and asparagus, bombe Alaska. This was washed down by a delightful local drop – a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Lenz vineyard on the north fork of Long Island.  By the time we fell into our huge, soft and luxurious appointed ‘extra king size’ bed at midnight we were two very ‘happy campers’ indeed.