Cumberland restaurant seaworthy

5 0'Clock Club on course for fresh, tender seafood

Sunday, July 23, 2006

We started out skeptical about the Five O'Clock's nautical décor.

Outside, a weathered concrete Triton blows his conch-horn. Inside, doors have porthole windows; the reception desk is a binnacle post; bar tables have cute mini-anchor insets; and the front dining room sports a wooden main-mast top with crosstrees and papier-mâché parrots. Stained-glass sailboats, backlit, heel toward stained-glass horizons.

We half-expected our servers to call us "matey."

But our skepticism dissolved when we discovered the 5 O'Clock's commitment to fresh seafood. The American Fish and Seafood Co. of Minnetonka, Minn. - the restaurant's fishmonger for the past 19 years - delivers fresh fish two or three times a week. Offerings vary but always include fresh walleye, salmon and sea scallops.

Co-owner and chef Tammy Steinburg told us proudly, "Our scallops melt in your mouth." In fact, this was true of all the fresh seafood we tried here.

Even the shrimp, which is high-quality frozen, was more tender and tasty than at most other restaurants. No wonder: each shrimp in the several preparations we sampled was cooked perfectly.

Peruse the posted evening specials - and order whatever's fresh. A large Canadian walleye filet, deep-fried, offered a tempura-crisp, paper-thin coating and fall-apart-moist flesh, $19.95.

A filet of Norwegian salmon, unusually succulent, came glazed with caramelized orange sauce and garnished with fresh scallops, $17.95. There was much béarnaise sauce beneath, a heavenly house-made froth of egg yolks, butter, tarragon and tart white wine. Only the still-flabby bacon enfolding the scallops kept the dish from masterpiece status.

Beefsteaks are also wise choices at the 5 O'Clock - especially the tenderloins and New York strips, which are hand-cut in-house. We tasted tenderloin unadorned in the Surf and Turf, $25.95; covered with melted cheese and napped with cream sauce in the Filet and Scampi au Gratin, $25.95; and bacon-wrapped in the Blue Cheese Queen special, $27.95. Each came expertly cooked, juicy and full of flavor; one arrived a shade more rare than we'd ordered.

Here's a valuable secret: The Five O'Clock grinds the meat for its 8-ounce hamburgers from the trimmings of these fine steaks.

Pork is available in two forms. The restaurant doesn't own a smoker, unfortunately, but the baby-back ribs still are well- prepared and pleasingly lean; share the Rib Sampler as an appetizer, $14.95. A Black Jack Pork loin chop was dry and chewy, and its beautiful blackberry-bourbon sauce was less intensely flavored than we wanted, $18.95.

The Poulet Champignon, $14.95, blanketed a moist grilled chicken breast, fresh button mushrooms and fresh fettuccine in a mildly salty sour cream-chicken sauce.

When composing your meal at the 5 O'Clock, beware. It's easy to go overboard with richness. The popular Stuffed Scampi Roasts, $19.95, turned out to be rich enough by themselves: big shrimp filled with lump and imitation crab meat (surimi) and cream cheese, coated in garlic-butter bread crumbs, wrapped in bacon, baked. Impossibly, these over-the-top roasts also were served with the rich béarnaise sauce described above and with a mountain of Fettuccine Primavera sauced in thickened heavy cream and cheese.

It was too much.

We advise confining richness to only one part of your meal. If you choose soup, consider the evening's Specialty Soup à la Minute, usually cream-based. We tried a Cream of Morel Mushrooms with Wild Rice, $6.95 a la carte, and a Cream of Shrimp with Champagne, $7.95; both were elegant, balanced, satisfying and leagues better than the 5 O'Clock's standard French onion and clam chowder.

Among rich side dishes, the beloved Wisconsin-style Potatoes au Gratin come baked in a good sharp sauce based on cold-pack cheese and sour cream. The restaurant pipes its signature Duchesse potatoes into a many-fluted island in a lake of rich and surprisingly light chicken velouté, a classic French sauce. Best of all the starches are probably the fresh fettuccine noodles, $2.95 extra; sauces include Alfredo, primavera and marinara.

We recommend three of the seven house made desserts, all $4.50. The Hawaiian Torte modifies a recipe by the mother of co-owner and chef Kari Nesseth-Klein. A zingy cream cheese-coconut frosting nicely counterbalances pineapple-studded layers of buttery-sweet, moist cake.

At room temperature, the Triple Chocolate Torte's frosting becomes wonderfully creamy and flavorful. The cake itself has the style of a Viennese Sacher torte: semi-dry, with a restrained sweetness.

Ice cream aficionados should try the icebox pie: toasted coconut and pecans alternate in layers with a smooth concoction of whipped cream, cream cheese and condensed milk. Before serving, the top is festooned with chocolate and caramel.

Steinburg is the third generation of her family to own the 5 O'Clock. Nesseth-Klein, who holds a degree in hotel and restaurant management from UW-Stout in Menomonie, came aboard when Steinburg's parents retired.

When you visit, you'll find them cooking, hosting, waiting tables - or doing all three at once. Hands-on dedication by owners and a talented staff is one reason for the 5 O'Clock's decades of success.

They run a tight ship.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.