Offbeat Eats

(Closed) 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.

Back in August (while Carol and I were in Iceland), one of the greater Upper Valley area’s most anticipated restaurants, Worthy Burger, opened for business. The location itself has been the source of a bit of drama in recent years; originally it was supposed to be a bar run by Freighthouse Brewing, but then as the plans for the brewery got scaled back, plans adjusted, and several folks including local chef Jason Merrill, Dave Brodrick (known for the well-respected Blind Tiger in New York), and Kurt Lessard decided that the South Royalton region was ripe for a gourmet burger bar. So after several months of extensive renovations while locals kept peering in and spreading rumors about the impending opening (some accurate, some not), Worthy Burger finally opening in August.

In what appears to be turning into a tradition, after this year’s Saturday afternoon session of the Vermont Brewers Festival, we went to The Farm House Tap and Grill with our friends Rick, Sarah, Scott, Eve, and friends. We did this last year, and had a great time (I would have written it up then, but I had left the camera in the truck with our dog Buster). What is Farm House Tap and Grill? Owned by a group of local restauranteurs including two of the owners of Zero Gravity Brewpub and a few other Vermonters, Farm House is a “gastropub” featuring a combination of good wine and beer lists with food focusing local ingredients. While I’ve never really been a great fan of the term “gastropub” (really, what’s wrong with the old-fashioned word “restaurant”?), it’s actually not a bad description of Farm House. First of all, they’ve got a phenomenal beer list; on this visit, they had an outstanding selection of both local Vermont gems (Rock Art’s Jasmine IPA, Lawson’s Finest Liquids’ Chinooker’d, and Otter Creek’s 20th Anniversary, as a start), and regional favorites (Founders’ Devil Dancer, Dieu du Ciel’s Mea Culpa, and some brews from Brooklyn). Some of these (like the Lawson’s) are rather hard to find as well. So they’ve got the selection down pat. But they’ve also got a decent menu. While they only have a limited tasting menu before 6pm, Farm House was quite happy to let us quietly drink beer and nosh on lighter appetizer fare until 6pm rolled around (we arrived at 5pm)…

(Closed) We started day 2 of this year’s Burlington visit with a trip to Penny Cluse Cafe for breakfast. Looking over my notes, I was shocked that I haven’t written up Penny Cluse yet; I’ve been coming here pretty routinely since sometime in 2006, and have flickr photos of a half dozen breakfasts we’ve had here. So it’s not because of a lack of experience, or a lack of photos. I don’t know, sometimes these places just find a way to fall through the cracks. But this time I’ll address it. Penny Cluse (named after the owner’s late beloved dog Penny, if you were wondering about the name) is on the relatively short list of places that seem to be go-to spots for the Burlington crowd. The regular places seem to be Sneakers (which I have reviewed), Magnolia Bistro (which I have yet to try), and Penny Cluse. Located at the corner of Cherry St and Winooski Ave, it’s just around the corner from Church Street, so getting in here for breakfast on a Saturday can be a bit of a wait. An hour, in our case, until I managed to sweet-talk the hostess into letting us squeeze in at the counter (we did, after all, have another beer festival to get to!).

(Closed) After the first evening of the Vermont Brewers Festival, it was time for us to seek out a a light dinner. Being a Friday night, that’s usually a little hard in Burlington, but as we exited the festival, I was reminded that one place on my hit list was literally right there. Adjacent to the exit of the festival was San Sai, a relatively new Japanese place in Burlington. Located at 112 Lake Street (in what I still think of as the “New Condo building down by the lake”, even though it’s been there for a few years), San Sai is located in what used to be the location of Taste, right off of the waterfront. It’s actually a great location for a restaurant, except for the fact that people don’t expect a restaurant to be there. If I hadn’t known to look for San Sai, I probably could walk by it a dozen times without noticing it. And it’s not just me, since we walked into San Sai at 9pm, right after the Friday Vermont Brewers Festival, and got promptly seated. Let me tell you, if we had tried to go to Flatbread or Farm House, for example, we’d be waiting until rather late to get a seat. But San Sai had a reasonably good number of tables open…

(Closed) It’s been several years since I reviewed Wasp’s Diner, and since it had been quite a while since I’d even been there, I decided on a recent trip over into Vermont that it might be a good idea to check in on them and see if things are still going strong. My previous review focused on their breakfast (in particular, the rather good eggs Benedict I ended up having, with a top-notch Hollandaise sauce on it), so this time we ended up getting lunch. I opted for the grilled cheese and ham, and Carol opted for the shepherd’s pie…

(Closed) After our weekend of wandering around Austin eating BBQ and sampling several of Austin’s many food trucks, you’d think that we’d start to be a bit worn out on food trucks. Well, we weren’t. About a week after we got back from Austin, we decided that the weekend weather was nice, and we wandered over to White River Junction, Vermont to check out Streats, our area’s latest food truck. That’s right, the Upper Valley actually has several food trucks (some of which I’ve even review here, like Wicked Awesome BBQ, but I’ll admit I’m way overdue for reviewing Vermont Crepe and Waffle and Mama Tina’s Tamales), of which Streats is the newest arrival. Billing themselves as a “mobile canteen”, Streats is currently located in a mostly vacant lot at the corner of Prospect and Bridge Streets, just west of the bridge to West Lebanon, New Hampshire (for those familiar with the area, it’s across the street from the Listen Center)…

A few months ago, Carol received an appreciation gift at work that was a gift certificate for dinner for four at the Barefoot Gourmet in East Thetford, VT. The Barefoot Gourmet is a private chef and caterer focusing on a wide variety of cuisines including his native South African cuisine. We thought it sounded quit intriguing, and went to his house in East Thetford VT with one of my coworkers and her partner for a dinner…

(Closed) The lousy winter continues here, so we again ended up heading north on Sunday, this time to the Trapp Family Lodge. Which again meant get breakfast on the way. We were a little later getting started, so instead of a repeat visit to Coffee Corner, we decided to check out a place that’s been on my hit list for a while: Limerick Irish Eatery. We figured we’d give them a try. Limerick Irish Eatery opened up in Quechee, Vermont, in the space vacated by the closing of Maple Grove Bakery about a year ago. They’ve set the place up so that it both serves as a coffee bar for the takeout crowd, and having table service for those seeking a full meal. Menu-wise, the primary theme is “Irish Comfort Food”, with a menu focusing on Irish breakfast fare, sausages, meatloafs, and the like. And hey, they even have Guinness on tap…

(Closed) It’s been a fairly lousy winter here, at least with respect to winter sports. We’ve really been wanting to get out and do some more cross-country skiing, but the distinct lack of snow has limited our outings. We decided this last weekend that we just had to give in and go to where the snow was, which was Smuggler’s Notch (our x-country passes are good there, too). Which meant a nice little drive through Waterbury. And a chance to stop at Coffee Corner for breakfast. My review of Coffee Corner is sadly overdue. A few months ago, I was recommending Coffee Corner to a coworker, and was going to email her the requisite link to my Offbeat Eats review…. only to find out that I hadn’t actually reviewed it. It’s not like I haven’t been there (I’ve probably been two dozen times since I started this blog), and I’ve got plenty of pictures… but this weekend’s trip was a good chance to get some fresh photos and do a full review….