Clough Crossings American Bistro — Restaurant in Anderson Township

My family and I went there for my b-day. I made a reservation the day before because they said Fridays are busy, and I'm glad I did because we wouldn't have been able to get a table for 7 right away!

Clough (Cluff) Crossings is in a renovated school building that, along with the decor, makes for a very unique ambiance that adds to the experience. There is adequate parking outside although I can imagine it may sometimes be full.

One oddity of this restaurant is that the women's restroom is upstairs with no assistance for the handicapped, although there is a handicapped ramp outside. The lintels of the doors coming in will prove a minor inconvenience to those using wheelchairs or walkers.

They have daily specials listed on a blackboard in the entryway for the entire week and the dining is split into two areas. It's a bit crowded at times but manageable.

The staff is friendly, patient and answered our questions. The owner was greeting guests at the door and as my wife and bro-in-law (see Tim Miller's comments below) arrived first, he chatted with them and was very nice. I also talked to him and he was friendly.

The menu has a nice array of American and European foods on one side, and alcoholic beverages on the other, including beef, chicken, pork and seafood. There are also desserts available but I didn't notice them on the menu and some are daily specials.

I don't recommend the water there as it has an odd flavor that you may sometimes notice from an ice maker. I even asked for no ice but it didn't help so I got tea.

All of the food was good quality and tasted good, although my niece got the yummy steak taco and we both agreed that the tortilla was odd and too hard.

I had the onion rings, which were standard in flavor (too much batter for me). They brought buttered fake croissants (from Sam's Club) to the table, which were so delicious that I asked for more. I also had the salad with my meal, which was fine (the roasted garlic vinaigrette was very good), and my Ron’s Pan Roasted Chicken was good although I was surprised by the sourness of the artichoke hearts. It was pretty good although not as big a portion as I'd expected and perhaps a tad too expensive.

I tried my son's split pea soup, which was good but not noteworthy. He also had the Grilled Pork Chop, which was very tasty although a tiny bit dry.

My mom seemed to enjoy the Bacon Encrusted Shrimp, although she didn't seem interested in the fried cheddar risotto, but it tasted good to me when I ate it the next day at home.

My daughter and sister both had the Clough Burger and both said it was very good, although my daughter said hers was overcooked (she asked for it to be medium, but it was medium well).

My sister and her husband enjoyed the restaurant's food, ambiance and service so much they're adding it to their list of restaurants to frequent. I hope to go again someday.

They gave me my lemon meringue for free on account of my bday. :)

Everything I sampled off of their plates, aside from the tortilla, tasted good or better.

The bathroom was clean. ;)

One note for CCR: Please make your website's menu better - have links between sections instead of having to go back to the initial list, and add photos to...

We were very disappointed. We chose to try this place due to the high reviews. The outside looks great, and at a first glance so does the inside but..the carpet is old and stained, there was old food bits stuck to the wall of our booth, a dusty spider web that ran from the booth light up the wall, and just an overall dusty dingy appearance once you start actually taking it all in....so it wasn't clean enough for us.

We watched everyone get baskets of bread, but we didn't, when we asked all we got was 2 little pieces on a little plate. Other than giving us our food, the waitress never offered refills, we had one glass of pop each to last our whole meal.. and after she gave us our plates..she never came back until we were done. Terrible service.

And the food...the bread was actually really good, the tiny cup of chicken corn soup was delicious even though there was barely any chicken in it, the mashed potatoes were just wonderful.... but the steak was dreadful. We wasted more than half of it each. A medium steak should not have a solid red center top to bottom with cold spots... and since the waitress never came back at all.. we muscled through what we could and wasted the rest.

Just not a very good experience considering the reviews, and especially for the cost at $40 a Steak Plate. Maybe it was a random unfortunate food situation for us, but the cleanliness of the place and terrible service won't bring us back.

Also, it was a bit awkward having some of the other customers stare at us like we didn't belong there, like we were sitting in their booth or something, it was...

Clough Crossings is an intimate dining venue that deserves your attention. The venue is an old school house, so it's small. Reservations are recommended. There are three small dining areas: the main area is for semi formal seating, there's a casual seating area with a full bar, and a small outdoor patio. The full menu is available in all three dining areas.

We ate in the main dining area, which features an ornate bookcase converted into a wine cabinet. There are booths and tables that you generally get to choose when you reserve a table. There's a wine list that features the range with cabernets, a reisling, and a wine with bubbles. There's domestic and imported beer, but we didn't ask what the bar had. Our table had a bottle of the Alamos Malbec from Argentina, one of my favorite grapes. Grapey on the nose and finish with a the dry pepper and oak notes in between.

Our party ordered the daily special, a Greek pasta. It was a great linguini with olives, onions, feta cheese, tomatoes, and tasty oil dressing.

We saw Derby Pie on the chalk board when we walked in, and it was a dense chocolate pie with nuts, seemed with the perfect proportion of ice cream, and drizzled with caramel and chocolate sauce. Delish! The rest of the menu had a couple of hefty salads, some sandwiches and burgers, and a salmon entree that I want to go back and try.

Treat yourself to a nice dinner and a quiet venue at Clough Crossing. Ask for Dave, he did...