(Update: Maple Valley Cafe closed in 2018)
On December 9th, we traveled up to Burlington, VT to celebrate my birthday. En route, we took a short detour to Plainfield, VT, to check out Maple Valley Cafe, which had been strongly recommended by one of Carol’s coworkers.
Located on Route 2 just east of downtown Plainfield, Maple Valley is a slightly quirky place. It’s a café, take-out place and gift shop, all under one roof. But the back of the gift shop holds a surprisingly large dining area, and they’ve got a rather extensive menu of omelets, pancakes, fruit smoothies, and other breakfast treats.
Since I had heard rather good things about them, I ended up ordering the pancakes, getting a mixed pair with one blueberry and one walnut (those that know me know that the combination of these is one of my favorites). And I was rather pleased with the resulting pancakes: two substantially sized pancakes, served up with a really good crisp and a nice amount of real maple syrup (I’d be disappointed if a place with “Maple” in the name used the fake stuff). Texture-wise, these were really pleasant as well, with the batter having just a little bit of cornmeal in it. Overall, I was pleased with these, and am glad to have discovered another Vermont spot with really good pancakes.
Carol did pretty well with her omelet as well, having a nicely-executed omelet and homefries as her breakfast. Speaking of homefries, I did appreciate one of the options that Maple Valley offered: home fries served up with cheese, onion, garlic, and fried carrots (they had a specific name for these, but I have since forgotten it). The result was a pleasant and savory side dish, that was a fair bit more interesting than the typical homefries I get at these sorts of places.
Overall, I liked Maple Valley. It was a pleasant place to have a reasonably priced breakfast, with some of the better pancakes I’ve had in Vermont in recent history. While a bit off our our normal travel routes, I’ll make it a point to come again sometime.
