For The Pleasure of C's Distraction

A few nights back my parents and I went to High Point Restaurant in Monteagle. High Point is one of the 'classier' eating options around but my overall impression of our meal, I'm sad to say, was not entirely positive. We started with the Black Thai Duck appetizer, with sesame/peppercorn crusted duck and 'oriental sauce'. I have remarked, in the past, on my difficulty in completely understanding how I can like duck so much, when farm raised but really dislike it when wild. During my time with the ebf's family I had many opportunities to try the wild duck. The meat was always dark and bloody and the taste, well, I can't remember the taste. I just remember a complete inability to eat it (which as my mother points out is a very rare occurrence). How the same animal can have such different flesh. Tender compared to touch. Tasty compared to not-so-much. Dark compared to light. You get the picture. In any case the duck itself was very good. The 'oriental sauce' was, to my discerning palate, nothing more than soy sauce. I would have preferred to do without it entirely.
We all had the lobster bisque. It was not all that great. Too salty for me and more potatoey than lobstery.
Then we shared a Caesar salad, the dressing of which was nice.
I had the filet mignon with a forest mushroom Burgundy sauce and choice of vegetable. I chose the asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. The steak itself was not so bad, I ordered it medium rare. It wasn't up no David Burke piece of meat but it was tender. The real problem (or problems) with this meal were the sauces. The Hollandaise was entirely unpleasant, could not be saved, after one taste I was pretty sure it was awful and the second taste confirmed it. The Forest mushroom Burgundy sauce was salty and had a strange aftertaste I didn't care for. The mushrooms, because of this, were also left untouched. Thankfully the sauce was more around the meat than on top of it...otherwise each bite would have been a challenge.
My father had the Steak Diane and my mother had New York strip steak. The sauce that accompanied my father's meat was, in my estimation, equally oversalted. My mother's steak came with a blue cheese butter sauce and it, of the three, was the best.

High Point's prices are definitely on the high end of things, entrees range from 25 to 40 dollars. For that price I believe one should expect a quality meal, perhaps not orgasmic or ground breaking, that never makes you tilt your head to one side or pucker your lips in distaste. Usually I have faith that a restaurant will only charge such steep prices if they're entirely confident in their product. I don't know whether High Point's management really think they're serving the best possible food or if they know that, in terms of fancy food, they only have one competitor (Pearl's). Whatever their logic may be, I find myself wishing they'd change it.