Offbeat Eats

While our previous dinner at Tavernonna was quite filling, the next morning we did want to still grab a breakfast to tide us over on the drive halfway across the state to Columbia. Looking at the various area options, we decided to check out Chez Elle, located in a surprisingly quite part of the Westside neighborhood that’s somewhat hemmed in by I-670, I-35, and a bluff, for a light breakfast of coffee and crepes.

(Moved) As I mentioned several times, one of our annual traditions is to get together with friends, find a random city with decent walking routes and good food, and hike about 20 miles across the city, eating and drinking as we go. We call it a “Death March”. This year was our first “international” one, in Montreal, picked because it’s familiarity to us (we go to Montreal at least once a year), ease of travel, and the rather impressive array of restaurants, bars, and cocktail clubs available across the city. We also (not completely by accident) managed to book our trip to coincide with Mondial de la Biere, the Montreal beer festival. But like any of our Death Marches, about half of the eating and drinking happened on the days before and after the march. And thus, after settling into our hotel (the very eclectic, but affordable, Hotel Kutuma, complete with zebra-print sheets), we set out in search of a great breakfast, settling on the nearby plateau location of Universel Déjeuners et Grillades (one of two in the city, the other on Rue Peel down by McGill).

Our second full day on Réunion had us setting out to check out on of the cooler geographic features of the island: the Cirques. Réunion was essentially formed by two volcanoes: the now-extinct Piton des Neiges, and the still active Piton de la Fournaise. For the former, the old volcanic caldera has collapsed and eroded over the last 100,000 years to form three sub-formations: the Cirque, each a very steep mountain valley. All of them are inhabiting, but only two of them, the Cirque de Salazie and the Cirque de Cilaos, are road-accessible (the Cirque de Mafate is accessible only on foot or by air). So we decided to check out the Cirque de Salazie, since it’s a pretty short drive from Saint-Denis. The town of Hell-Bourg is located in the middle of the Cirque de Salazie, and the very rugged terrain makes this a splendidly beautiful French/Creole village located in the mountains. It’s a fairly quiet town, mostly with older Creole architecture, and primarily serves as a stepping-off point for the many hikers visiting the region (indeed, we basically returned to Hell-Bourg twice during our trip, once as hikers, and once driving through to see the forests of Belouve). But after checking out the area, we started to become hungry for lunch, and we immediately found the cute little Crêperie Le Gall.

Since I end up going to the DC area at least twice every year (usually for work), I’ve been able to see a lot of minor changes as they happen on the food scene. One of the bigger changes is that the area is finally starting to embrace the food truck. A few years ago, there were surprisingly few modern food trucks, with the mobile food scene in DC still dominated by hot dog vendors and the people selling random snack food on the Mall. Indeed, it was just 2011 when one had to go to odd neighborhoods to find a place like El Chilango (who have since spun off a brick and mortar joint in the District, as is often the case with the better food trucks). In any case, there are now food trucks aplenty: 12th Street and 14th Street on the Mall are repleat with them, and the central business areas in downtown and Arlington now sport plenty of food truck options, as do most of the major tourist areas. Indeed, Connecticut Ave on the west end of the National Zoo has quite a selection, and, as we discovered this trip, some of them, like Crêpes Parfait, are actually quite good.

After a fairly long morning exploring the Carnaval de Quebec, it was time for us to go find some lunch. We headed off into Vieux Quebec to check out the old walled city, and hopefully find a place to eat. However, we found ourselves doing this at the same time as a good fraction of the other Carnaval-goers, so we ended up passing several places that were rather teeming with customers, places that just didn’t appeal to us (I’d rather not go out of my way for Italian food in Quebec, for example), or both. But after a quick jaunt into L’Information Touristique, I managed to score a restaurant directory, and we were on our way to Casse-Crepe Breton for Crepes…

Last month we went to the Cabot Hosiery Mills (a.k.a. “Darn Tough Socks”) annual factory sale in Northfield, VT, and afterward decided to go into Montpelier for a little bit of light shopping and eating. We eventually ended up at Skinny Pancake for some crêpes. Skinny Pancake didn’t start here, they actually started back around 2003 as a little cart selling crêpes on Burlington, VT’s Church Street pedestrian mall (not too far down from one of my other favorite Church Street food vendors, Hong’s Chinese Dumplings, which I reviewed last year. I had enjoyed their crêpes from the cart a few times, and then in 2007 they went big time, opening up a storefront on College St down by the waterfront.

My work travels recently had me spending the better part of a week in downtown St Louis. For those of you that aren’t already shaking your heads, there doesn’t really seem to be much in downtown, especially food-wise. Sure, some of the neighborhoods like Soulard actually have some nice restaurants, but downtown itself is mostly Hooters, TGI Fridays, and Max and Erma’s. Not exactly food paradise. But an appeal to the fine folks over at Chowhound.com led me to two places worth checking out that were near my hotel. One of them was Rooster, a small cafe that features a wide variety of sandwiches, breakfasts, and crepes. It’s a rather nice little cafe, which is rather surprising, since a large fraction of the street-level real estate in that part of town is vacant. I’m glad this place is an exception…