Offbeat Eats

2024 has definitely been a year where I’ve finally had a chance to visit a lot of places that I’ve driven by a gazillion times, thinking “I should check that place out.” In this case, a trip down south had us swinging through Windsor, VT. The location has a long history, way back in 1962 it was an A&W Root Beer. It closed in the early 1980s, reopening in 1988 as Stub and Laura’s, run by the late, colorful A.W. “Stub” Aldrich until 2008. It had at least one other interim name and owner that I’ve forgotten, but in 2013 it opened in its current incarnation, Frazer’s Place, serving up breakfast, lunch, dinner, and ice cream, with both outdoor seating and a limited amount of indoor dining. And while it’s had a lot of good word of mouth, I never had a good opportunity to stop in until we few weeks ago, when we passed by right at breakfast. So we decided we just had to stop in.

The last few years, Chef Jeff Porter has been moving around a lot. He was getting good reviews in South Carolina when he moved back to back to his hometown of Newport, NH, and after some time working as a chef at one local golf course, he opened a food truck in Newport. After a pretty good start in the food truck, he moved to brick and mortar, moving his restaurant, Breaking Bread, into another country club, the Newport Country Club (which I’ve never been to, but it’s one of those spots that seems quite itinerant, since it’s been a good half dozen different restaurants in my years living here). Finally, a pair of storefronts on Newport’s Main Street became available next to the police station, and he moved Breaking Bread downtown. On one of our recent trips to an event in Newport, we finally had a chance to stop by and check it out.

Shortly before the pandemic (in that era now affectionately known as “the good old days”), on one of our many trips to Northampton, MA, we decided to duck over and check out nearby Easthampton, MA (which, despite the nominally cardinal names, is not east of Northampton, but southwest…), finding a nice little restaurant called Coco that also had an outstanding cocktail bar called The Cellar Bar. I actually quite enjoyed Coco, particularly for their fried chicken dinner, and their creative cocktails (that’s one of the few places I’ve ever encountered Mastika in a cocktail). But that was 2019, and like many, many restaurants, Coco struggled mightily with staffing and finances through 2020 and 2021, eventually announcing abruptly in August 2021 that they were closing permanently. But the underlying demand in Easthampton was strong enough that a handful of employees got together with some other local restaurant owners, and after six months of closure, the restaurant re-opened as Calico.

One of our goals this summer was to head down to Stockbridge, MA, to re-visit the Norman Rockwell Museum to see their Art and Humor of MAD Magazine exhibit (which is on display until October 27th; I really highly recommend it). Stockbridge is about a three hour drive for us, especially if we eschew the particularly boring I-91 drive, so we decided it would be best if we at least got a light meal before heading north. Looking around the greater Stockbridge area, we decided to take a short drive to the south to visit Barrington Brewery & Restaurant.

There were few places in recent history that have had as much anticipation as the opening of Redcan (well, maybe the West Leb Jersey Mike’s, but that’s another matter). With the departure of Trailbreak Taps and Tacos, that moved over to the former Dana’s space in Quechee by the Gorge, there’s been a bit of a hole in the White River dining scene, with much anticipation once the building owner mentioned that he already had a replacement restaurant tenant lined up. The anticipation ratcheted up another notch when it was announced that the new spot was going to be run by Jason Merrill, one of the partners that had previously brought us Worthy Burger and Worthy Kitchen. The Worthys have, in my opinion, lost a little bit of their shine, but are still very popular, especially with the tourist crowd. And Jason has had a lot of chef experience himself, including working at The Hanover Inn prior to its conversion to Pine. Named as a tip of the hat to his mother (who liked Coca Cola), Redcan focuses on high-end American food served small plate style. While they opened in late June (you can read a nice review by fellow UV food reviewer Susan Apel on her Artful blog from her mid-July visit), between inability to get reservations and competing travel, we didn’t get there until August, but we actually managed to get a pair of celebratory visits in with friends.

As Summer started to turn to Fall, we wanted to make sure we hit a few of the hikes that had remained on our to-do list. We had tried to hike Mt Chocorua last year, but poor weather forced us to turn around most of the way up. This time, the weather was looking a lot more promising, and since we wanted to get an early start, we needed a breakfast spot enroute to the trailhead. We’ve found several nice places over the years in Bristol, but this time we decided we wanted to try a diner, so we headed out to the Bristol Diner, located just south of downtown.

A few weeks ago, our friends Geoff and Kristi were headed down to Concord, NH, and wanted to check out two spots in downtown Concord: Nawlin’s (a speakeasy that used to be called Mike’s BARbershop) and Hermanos Cocina Mexicana. It’s been a while (2016 to be exact, when I visited El Rodeo in Concord) that I’ve really checked out the Mexican food scene in the Concord/Manchester area, and a quick look at Hermanos Cocina’s menu looked promising, so we decided to give it a look.