Offbeat Eats

Sometimes, you just gotta have some barbecue. But sometimes, that’s easier said than done. Unfortunately, living in Northern New England means that we’re so far outside the good barbecue belt that most of the attempts to do “barbecue” up here are woefully misguided, with some sort of ketchupy sauce slathered onto some grilled meat and called “good enough”. Sure, there are a few exceptions (go consult the fine guide over at PigTrip, but, in general, the state of affairs is dismal enough I’m surprised that the phrase “New England Barbecue” hasn’t already caused some sort of Civil-War-like incident…

Third time’s the charm? Recently, Carol and I read in the paper that West Lebanon’s Four Aces Diner had reopened. The Four Aces has had a bit of a rough history. A genuine Worcester Diner (#837), it originally was located downtown, but after a fire was relocated to its current location at 23 Bridge St (and is now enclosed by a surrounding building). Since I moved to the area, in 2001, it’s been through a couple owners. After closing up shop in 2008, it reopened as a “more upscale eatery” in 2009, but I wasn’t impressed (for my meal, “upscale” apparently mean “benedict with cold deli ham, broken sauce, and runny eggs”) and didn’t go back. After a bit more than a year that owner packed it in as well, and the Four Aces went on the market…

(Closed) After I left Natick, I had another meeting at MIT. This time it was a morning meeting, and this time the Gods of Boston traffic were smiling on me, so I got there with surprisingly little in the way of traffic delays. As a result, I had a chance to grab breakfast, and walking around near the MIT/Kendall Square station, I happened across The Friendly Toast. The Friendly Toast is a breakfast diner, with locations in Portsmouth, NH (their original location) and Cambridge, MA (Kendall Square, just north of MIT and Draper Labs). I’ve happened across the Portsmouth location several times while visiting there, and it has remained on my chronic “I should try that place out” hit list…

This week, several different client meeting in Massachusetts resulting in my having a free evening in Natick. Natick is an interesting little town, there’s an old-style downtown that has a few decent restaurants, and then there is the Rt 9 strip. There’s no shortage of places to eat on the strip, but it’s mostly major chains. Oga’s Japanese Cuisine is the sort of place you drive by a lot of times and don’t think of checking out, since it looks little different than, say, a low-grade Chinese place or an office supply sort, at the end of a somewhat dismal strip mall with one of those annoyingly small one-way parking lots. But several online sources gave the place good reviews, and I’ve been in a mood for Japanese food, so I decided to check it out…

There are a lot of New England traditions I really enjoy this time of year. Snowshoeing. Winter Carnivals. Maple Sugaring. And community suppers. Almost every weekend in late winter, harvest, and game season, there are a wide variety of community breakfasts and dinners, sponsored by a wide variety of local organization, churches, fire departments, and clubs, all of which provide a good way to meet a good cross-section of local society, as well as have a good hearty meal. While there are many such local dinners, however, quality really can run the gamut from “cheap spaghetti dinner” up to “homemade top-notch feast”. And the Hartland Congregational Church (known locally as “The Brick Church” to distinguish it from the white painted church down the road) hosts a top-notch example of the later: the Hartland “Famous” Roast Beef Supper.

Sometimes, you just want a burger. If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, burgers are one of my passions, and something I spend a lot of time seeking out. And there are a lot of burger places getting press these days. This time, a trip to Washington, DC, was a good opportunity to knock another burger joint off of the list. So I sent out an invite to some of my DC area friends. Spike Mendelsohn’s (we all remember him, the hat-wearing “culinary boner” guy from Top Chef season 4) Good Stuff Eatery was about 15 minutes’ walk from my hotel, right down the street from Tune Inn (which I’d also write up, but it’s been about five years since I’ve been there).

One of the things that amazes me about Washington, DC, is that several of the tourist trap food spots seem to have remained almost unchanged since my earliest visits to DC as a child back around the Bicentennial. There are still the food carts next to the American History museum and the Air and Space museum hawking some really dubious looking egg rolls. The exit of the Federal Triangle Metro station still seems to have one of the worst, and most expensive, hot dog stands in the district. Tony Cheng’s in Chinatown is still churning out dubious “Mongolian” food. And the block across the street from Ford’s Theater is chock full of touristy t-shirt shops, souvenir stands, and odd restaurants. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was only April 15, 1865 when the first entrepreneur set up a souvenir stand. But, for as long as I can remember, there’s always been a Waffle Shop across the street from Ford’s Theater.

Every once in a while something happens that causes me to revisit a place, be it finding out that I missed (such as finding out that I had missed the best dish at the now-closed The Pines Cafe in Palmdale, CA, or finding out that a place has a new menu. This is actually my third writeup of Gusanoz (my second introduced you to their burger business, Revolutionary Burger), but a few weeks ago they made another menu change that I thought was worthy of checking out: they added breakfast.

I recently had a family-related trip to Corning, NY (where I was born), and found myself craving dinner in downtown Corning (Market Street, a.k.a. The Gaffer’s District). While this part of town has quite a few restaurants (including one I’ve already reviewed), most of the places are pubs, Italian places, or pizza joints, none of which were really appealing to me. I was craving something a little more upscale, and a quick web search led me to Three Birds. Nestled in at the eastern end of Market Street, Three Birds is in a doubled-up storefront having a rather ornate bar on one side, and dinner tables on the other. Being a solo diner this time, and somewhat light on my appetite, I decided to sit at the bar, which also allowed me to peruse both their normal dinner menu, as well as the lighter bar menu.

A few weeks ago I was driving to upstate New York, which involves the rather difficult process of negotiating Vermont, which lacks major East-West highways (while I love the scenery of Vermont, if they ever wanted to create an interstate heading across the state from either Bennington or Rutland, I wouldn’t complain). This time I went on Highway 7, passing through Chester, and used it as an excuse to visit MacLaomainn’s Scottish Pub, which I had noticed on several recent trips, but never had reason to stop in. Being 1pm and my not having lunch, stopping in for a late lunch seemed to be the order of the day.