The Missus and I had the divine–and exceedingly rare–pleasure of an actual dinner out without Little G rolling Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater all about the place. We chose the Iron Horse Grill, a cozy, tasteful joint located inside the old Pleasantville train station house.

Located smack in the middle of the village, Iron Horse Grill wears its train past proudly; the name itself is a reference to the train that first rolled through P-ville around 1846. It’s not hard to envision the old waiting room, people seated along a long wood bench that takes up almost the entire western wall. A miniature electric train adorns a shelf near the entrance. You can see the trains fly by out the window, though you can hardly hear their rumble.

Entrees run around $28-30, and Iron Horse was still pushing a winter menu over the weekend–root vegetables, , braised meats, hearty soups, full-bodied wines.

The room was surprisingly packed for 6 p.m. on a Saturday, but never got uncomfortably loud.  

The Missus had the duck with spiced yams and I had a Chatham cod over potatoes with a beet coulis around it. Unfair as it may be, we always end up comparing suburban restaurants to those in the city. Iron Horse kind of invites such comparisons, with its classy decor, ambitious menu and not inexpensive checks. The Missus thought her meal was city-level in terms of ingredients and presentation, and a bit lacking in terms of flavor. I thought the cod was a tad bland, even for cod, but the beet coulis brought it to life.

We finished off the meal by splitting the warm pecan tart, which was good, but we both agreed it needed a little more “glue” to hold the crumbly dessert together.

The service was perfectly professional; I liked our waitress’s shamrock tattoo on her hand, and when she wasn’t sure whether the Pinot Noir or Sangiovese had more heft, she deferred to another staffer who really knew her stuff. A second waitress kept her cool when the woman seated next to us–some crabby 60-something biddy–went through a ridiculous litany of order specifications that would’ve driven the mellowest of servers nuts.

By our count, Iron Horse falls somewhere between good and very good.

I think everyone on the 5:27 to Mt. Kisco had the same thing on their mind yesterday: This daylight savings time thing sure is sweet.

With the extra hour of sun hitting us fully three weeks earlier than it did two years ago, it warmed the soul to come out of the Grand Central tunnel and see sunlight shining over Harlem, sunlight that lasted all the way to our stop.

For a moment, I cursed the sun staring me in the face as I labored up the giant hill on Broad Street, a big yellow ball just starting to contemplate its descent behind the cliffs separating us from Sleepy Hollow. But then I came to my senses, and realized how much nicer it was than the pitch black and a stiff, frozen wind in my mug.

Cheesy as it may sound, strains of “Here Comes the Sun” ran through my head–all together now, it’s been a long cold lonely winter/It feels like years since it’s been here–as Little G and I ran around the backyard, pretending we were, respectively, Lightning McQueen and and Strip Weathers (ask any boy between 2 and 5 if you don’t know what that means).

We’d kicked winter’s dark, finger-numbing, spirit-sapping, seemingly endless ass. The days of al fresco margaritas can’t be far behind.