Offbeat Eats

As mentioned in the previous review of Kraken Coffee & Kitchen Co., St Marys, Georgia is a small town, and there are a handful of businesses that cater to the ferry terminal and marina that are located right in central St Marys. One of these, Riverside Café, sits immediately across the street from the ferry terminal, and does a brisk business, being open in time for the first returning ferries from Cumberland Island, and staying open into the early dinner service, so it’s a great place for those looking for a meal either before or after a trip to the Island.

As our regular readers know, we like to go on occasional backpacking trips to interesting destinations. This January, we headed down to the small town of St Marys, Georgia, in order to catch the ferry to Cumberland Island National Seashore for several days of hiking and relaxation (and, very unexpectedly for Georgia… a few inches of snow!). The ferry only runs periodically, so the act of loading the ferry is pretty involved: you show up early in the morning, they have you load your larger items (bikes, backpacks, etc.) onto the ferry, and then you’ve got about 45 minutes to wait around the small town of St Marys while waiting for the mandatory Park Service briefing before the ferry departs. The local volunteers that help load the boat and direct traffic very helpfully have suggestions for some of the places near the ferry to check out while you wait, indeed, one volunteer very enthusiastically recommended a fairly new coffee shop just down Osborne street from the ferry dock: Kraken Coffee & Kitchen Co.

Back in January, right before we left for our winter vacation, we met up with friends of ours from the FOM for an outing to a place that’s long been on my radar, Dragon 88 in Boylston, MA. As you can read in my older review of House of Wu in Road Island, I’ve got a soft spot for old-school, New England-style Chinese food, which has had a good century of divergence from the food eaten in China, and even had a fair bit of divergence from West Coast Chinese places as well. Dragon 88 in Boylston is one of the better-regarded “old school” Chinese places, known for good, classic “New England Chinese” food, a reasonably good modern “authentic” menu, and, perhaps most importantly, particularly good (and strong) house Mai Tais. So we decided to meet up and give the place a try.

(Closed) A recent trip to Montpelier to visit Barr Hill to have some cocktails with friends ended up with our taking the back way through Barre, VT to get home, and hoping to pick up some dinner while in town. When we first moved here, Barre was a bit of a food desert, but over the years it’s sprouted more than a few decent eateries like Cornerstone Pub and Kitchen. But this time, I figured it was finally a chance to check out a rarity in the region: a ramen joint, Si Aku Ramen.

As I mentioned a few months ago in my review of the Community Supper at the Union Episcopal Church in Claremont, NH, I’ve been trying to make it to more of the various community meals that spring up around the area. Harvest suppers. Fire department fund raisers. Non-profit fundraisers. That sort of thing. And that brings me to an event I had seen advertised a handful of times, a monthly community breakfast run by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Forest Lodge #69 Breakfast. Held the third Sunday of each month from 8:00 to 11:00 am, the breakfast is served buffet-style, with scrambled eggs, eggs and omelettes to order, blueberry and plain pancakes, biscuits and sausage gravy, corned beef hash, homemade brown beans, homefries, bacon, sausage, fresh-carved ham, and various beverages. Oh, and they use real maple syrup.

Our last dinner in Lisbon was at a place scoped out by my sister-in-law: A Conzinha Sr. Lisboa. Located a block east of Avenida da Liberdade, A Conzinha Sr. Lisboa (The name means, approximately, “The Kitchen of Mr Lisbon”, the nickname of the executive chef), this was a great choice for a final meal in Portugal, since the menu focuses entirely on traditional Portuguese recipes made with modern, local ingredients.

After a morning of checking out churches and panoramic views (and an aborted attempt at Castelo São Jorge due to unusually heavy crowds), we decided it would be good to seek out a light lunch, and this was a perfect opportunity to drop down into the Baixa and check out one of it’s venerable institutions, Restaurante Nova Pombalina.

Our third full day in Lisbon involved a trek up to visit Igreja da Graça, one of Libson’s oldest churches and convents, which sits atop one of the city’s tallest hills (and, coincidentally, has an extremely nice rooftop terrace for viewing the city). Before heading up there, we stopped for breakfast, settling on a small place we had encountered a few times before: Hello Kristof.

Our third day in Lisbon was mostly spent visiting the Gulbenkian Museum, which has both classical and modern art wings, and one of the better collections of Rembrandt, Monet, Rubens, Manet, Renoir, and Degas. Between doing the classical wing and the modern art wing, we decided to break for lunch, and head to the nearby El Corte Ingles (a chain of Spanish department stores) to check out their food court on the top floor. It’s an impressive food court, with a selection of Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, and Brazilian restaurants around a central seating court. After reviewing several of the menus, we settled on the Brazilian place, Jacaré.

While much of our dining in Portugal focused on Portuguese cuisine, there was one particular ethnic cuisine I was looking to experience, and knew we could find several examples of in Lisbon: Goan Cuisine. Goa, an Indian State in the Konkan region, was Portuguese ruled from 1510 to 1961, and the cuisine of Goa diverged a bit from the surrounding Konkan region over this period, mostly by adapting Portuguese customs (particularly, the use of pork and beef), customs (using vinegar), and ingredients (pineapple, cashews, guavas, tomatoes, and potatoes were all introduced by the Portuguese to Goa). The resulting Goan cuisine remains distinct, and there are quite a few restaurants around Lisbon either labeling themselves Goan, or labeling themselves “Indian” but with heavy Goan influence. One of the better-rated ones, on the edge of the Moorish quarter, is Tentações de Goa (“Temptations of Goa”), and we decided to check them out for our second dinner in Lisbon.