Offbeat Eats

This summer we also had annual trip over to Lake George, NY for the Ohana Luau By The Lake (“The Best Little Event in Tiki”), which had us doing another nice morning drive across Vermont. We were craving breakfast, and pancakes in particular, and I realized an interesting change in Vermont over the last 20 years or so: Despite the very active, well-published, and well-earned reputation of “Vermont Maple”, Vermont doesn’t actually have a lot of pancake houses any more. When we moved to Northern New England, there were a lot of places in Vermont, but the ranks have thinned. Don’t get me wrong, there are a good number of decent pancake houses still sprinkled around Vermont, including Sugar and Spice in Mendon, VT, but even more that have closed (like Eaton’s Sugarhouse in Royalton, Blanche and Bill’s in Bridgewater), and a few more that are closing down (like Penny Cluse). This is one place where New Hampshire seems to be holding on a bit better (with Polly’s up north, Parker’s and Stuart and Johns down south being the most notable. But one Vermont place that I knew was still in business that I hadn’t yet checked out was Johnny Boys Pancake House in Rutland, VT. While it too has seen some downsizing (their original location was in Killington, their second location in Rutland is the one remaining), our trip through VT to Lake George was the perfect opportunity to stop by and finally check out Johnny Boys.

This summer, after a particularly brisk and windy hike up with our friend Alex to Mount Cardigan from the AMC Cardigan Lodge, we decided to stop on our way home for an early dinner. Since our route took us right through the Potter Place part of Andover, NH, we decided it was a good opportunity to stop in and visit The Refinery.

At one point last summer, my friend Geoff declared “I’m craving a good steak”. Well, aside from Jesse’s Steakhouse in Hanover, NH, the general Upper Valley region doesn’t have a lot of steakhouses. But in the interest of getting out and about, and trying a few other places, this drew our attention to the other major “Steak House” in the Upper Valley: BlackRock Steakhouse in Springfield, VT.

Our last evening in Rapid City, after a nice walk through town and visiting Lost Cabin Brewery, we decided to check out Blind Lion, one of Rapid City’s cocktail bars and dinner spots. Blind Lion is a speakeasy, one of those hidden bars without signage that have become quite popular in recent years (I particularly enjoyed a 2017 trip to Kansas City where we visited two great speakeasies: Manifesto and Tikicat, both of which have, unfortunately, closed). And, more importantly to Offbeat Eats, Blind Lion also also offers a dinner menu, so we set off for the west end of Main Street to find the establishment.

After completing our hike of the northern section of the Centennial Trail, culminating in a hike up the very scenic Bear Butte, we headed back to Rapid City. While most of our group was departing immediately, we decided to linger another two days, relaxing and checking out some of the local sights. First up was a repeat trip to Tally’s Silver Spoon for another righteous breaking (“After the doing, there is the un-doing”) and settling back into the Hotel Alex Johnson. After some light exploration, including a visit to the excellent Museum of Geology at the nearby South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, we decided it was time for lunch, checking out a place fellow diners at Tally’s had told us about: Bokujō Ramen.

After meeting my fellow hikers for our Fitpacking trip along the Centennial Trail, it was time for a big dinner to fuel us up for our trip. The group settled on Puerto Vallarta, a Mexican restaurant located on the north edge of town, on Lacrosse Rd just north of I-90.

As mentioned in our previous review of Vertex Sky Bar, both before and after our Centennial Trail backpacking trip, we stayed in downtown Rapid City at the historic Hotel Alex Johnson. Looking at the various options for breakfast, a simple look out the hotel window showed us that there was a very popular breakfast spot right across the street: Tally’s Silver Spoon. Even at 8am they had a healthy backlog of diners waiting out front for breakfast, so we decided to check it out.

After a week of recovery back in New Hampshire, we found ourselves quickly heading out again to Rapid City, SD, to rendezvous with friends from Fitpacking for a hike along South Dakota’s Centennial trail. We were hiking the northern third of the trail, from Nemo SD to Bear Butte. Before we rendezvoused with our hiker colleagues, we spent a night at the historic Hotel Alex Johnson downtown. Built by its namesake Alex Johnson, a railroad baron with the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, it’s an interesting old grand hotel, and supposedly haunted by multiple ghosts. While we didn’t encounter any such hauntings on either of our visits (we stayed there after our trip as well), staying at the hotel has another nice perk: access to the Vertex Sky Bar, their rooftop bar.

As I discussed in my 2018 review of House of Wu, there was a nice mid-20th century tradition toward Tiki culture, combining Americanized Chinese food and other Asian cuisine and Tiki-style cocktails in an over-the-top Polynesian theme. The result is a mix of cultural integration, cultural preservation, adaptation, preservation… as well as more than a little improvisation and occasionally appropriation, but there’s an entire two generations of Americans that grew up with this sort of joint. But while there’s been a recent resurgence in both cocktail culture and Polynesian cuisine, the last few decades haven’t been kind to a lot of these older venerable restaurants, and many in New England (Chicopee’s Hu Ke Lau, Worcester’s Ken Chin, Woonsocket’s Ho Kong, Lynnfield’s Bali Hai) have shuttered in recent years, and a few of the others like Wind Tiki in Webster, MA falling to other fates like structural fires. So it’s important to enjoy some of the places that still remain, like Mon Kou in Attleboro, MA.

(Moved) Prior to the pandemic, one of my more regular spots to visit in Vermont was South Royalton. It has several great places we like, including First Branch Coffee/Upper Pass Beer and Worthy Burger, but between reduced operating hours and fewer social gatherings, we hadn’t made it over that was as often. Early in the pandemic, we had noted the opening of Carlita’s Cocina, a primarily Mexican-themed food truck, operating in the large parking lot opposite Vermont Law School. When I had to reschedule one of my periodic Red Cross blood donations to the Sharon Academy, that gave me a good excuse to go on a short hike up to Kent’s Ledge, and then meet up with my friends Rick and Sarah to finally try out Carlita’s.