Tag Archives: fusion

Carlita’s Cantina (South Royalton, VT)

Back in mid ’22, Carol and I had a pleasant visit with friends in South Royalton, VT, stopping off at Carlita’s Cocina, which was a semi-permanent food truck in one of the large parking lots by Vermont Law School. Carlita’s was serving up a combination of burritos, tacos, and rice bowls that I’d primarily call “Asian-influenced Mexican fusion”. They were tasty, and we thought they’d be a good addition to the overall dining scene in SoRo. The food truck also burned down in an apparent accidental fire in May 2022, just weeks after my review posted. But this wasn’t the end for Carlita’s. They had already been considering a transition to a brick and mortar location, and 6 months later, they actually opened their new version of Carlita’s, the now-named Carlita’s Cantina, on nearby Chelsea Street across from the South Royalton Green. As I’m writing this review, they just passed their first anniversary in the new location.

Continue Reading ...

Broken Spoon (Franklin, NH)

As I mentioned in my review of Funkalicious a few months back, I’ve got a lot of admiration for folks that, despite the extremely difficult and unusual business climate of the Covid-19 pandemic, have managed to rally and open new restaurants. A few months back, I started seeing some Facebook ads for a new Asian Fusion place in Franklin, NH. Franklin’s a bit of my normal path; while I’m often heading over to either Franconia Notch or the Conway area, I usually end up heading through Bristol and New Hampton instead of Franklin as a I cut over to I-93. But in late February, we decided to get out of the house a hit and explore, with two related goals: exploring the Winnepesaukee River Trail” and finally checking out Broken Spoon on Main Street in Franklin.

Continue Reading ...

The Honey Paw (Portland, ME)

Despite Maine being only one state away, it’s just far enough of a drive that we don’t often seem to get over that way to explore. However, recent efforts in our household at car shopping had us doing several visits to dealerships in Portland, and after some test driving and a visit to nearby Mast Landing Brewery in Westbrook, we had some time to go find a light dinner in Portland before heading back to NH. We originally set out to visit Eventide Oyster Company, but upon finding the waiting list to be rather long (they were estimating an hour), we instead inquired next door at the sister restaurant, The Honey Paw, and found a much shorter wait of 20 minutes. Settling in across the street at Tomaso’s Canteen (who deserves a writeup of their own at some point), for a beer while we waited. A mere 10 minutes later, we got a page that our table was ready.

Continue Reading ...

Samurai Soul Food (Fairlee, VT)

A little over a year ago, the small town of Fairlee, Vermont had a noticeable shift in the dining scene. The little restaurant right next to the town’s Whippi Dip creamee stand, which has been one of those restaurant locations that’s chronically failing (having at least 4 different restaurants in my years living here) had again re-opened, this time with rave reviews from most of the people I know living over Vermont. Furthermore, this time, the newcomer was definitely run by some good talent, the owners both came from the kitchen at Worthy Burger. So for a good chunk of the last year, Samurai Soul Food has been on my hit list, and a bit over a week ago I was finally able to work in a visit on my way home from Hill Farmstead.

Continue Reading ...

De La Vega (Deland, FL)

You know, I get a lot of odd requests in life. One of the odder ones in recent history was, “Hey, can you send me a bunch of photos I can use for a training funeral?”. Since yes, among the various colorful people I know are not only legislators, lawyers, professors, Lords, and actual rocket scientists, but funeral home directors as well. My answer was, of course, sure. I assembled an eclectic selection of photos of myself (you know, like the one with the horse mask, or the bathtub one, or the creepy cowboy one) and thus, the legend of Paul Crawford was born, a man who bears a shocking resemblance to myself, but, alas, departed this world late last year. Sniff. It’s like I know the guy. In any case, part of the deal was that I would get pie (dutifully delivered via Fedex), and, if I found myself in Florida, dinner. Thus, on a somewhat recent trip to Daytona for testing at Embry-Riddle, I found myself with an opportunity to meet up with my friend Leslie, have a nice dinner at De La Vega with her and her husband, and raise a glass in memory of poor Paul Crawford.

Continue Reading ...

Blue Ginger (Wellesley, MA)

(Closed) To celebrate Carol’s birthday last month, we took another trip down to Boston to enjoy some more culinary adventures. We started off with a repeat brunch visit to Sofra, where this time I did get the shakshuka, which was excellent). After a pleasant day of sightseeing, coffee drinking (I rather recommend the fairly new dwelltime in Cambridge), and shopping, we ended up in Wellesley, MA at Ming Tsai’s Blue Ginger. I’ll be honest, I’m generally not into the whole celebrity chef scene, since usually by the time a chef becomes a “celebrity”, almost by definition they are spending more time outside their kitchen than in it, and few chefs seem to be able to do that without quality suffering. But we’ve always liked nicely done East-West fusion food, and for a variety of reasons, Ming Tsai’s Blue Ginger has been on our “We should try it out” list, despite the fact that it has rather mixed reviews(on most every review site, and the Boston Globe). Well, we finally had the opportunity, so we figured it would be a good place to celebrate.

Continue Reading ...