Offbeat Eats

A few years ago, we had a pair of favorite restauarants in Manchester, Republic Café and Campo Enoteca, that were a favorite light dinners when we were in the area, with Campo serving up French-inspired food, and the latter serving Italian food. But the pair didn’t survive the pandemic intact, at first, they combined operations as “Republic of Campo” (and you can still see the “Republic” on Campo’s sign today), but that didn’t last, and in 2022 Republic Café closed permanently (the name lives on in the only lightly-related Republic Brewing a mile away) and Campo Enoteca was sold to new owners. However, the new owners of Campo Enoteca have been successful at keeping the place operating, so I figured it was worth dropping in and doing one of our Offbeat Eats “Health Check” re-visits.

Back in December of 2023, Carol and I had a rather nice visit to Northampton, MA, including a fairly spontaneous visit to Homestead. (Review here), particularly enjoying the Focaccia and the house-made pasta. Our late October trip down to Connecticut to visit Hogpen Hill Farms Sculpture Garden had us returning home via Interstate 91, which ideally set us up for a stop in Northampton for some light shopping and dinner. Since it had been a while since our last visit we decided that a stop at Homestead. for an Offbeat Eats “Health Check” revisit was a great idea. (editorial note: “Homestead.” styles itself complete with the period at the end of its name, but it makes for some odd-looking sentences, so for the rest of this review I’ll simply call them “Homestead”).

Back in early 2024, a business trip to various aerospace clients in the LA area had me spending several nights in and around El Segundo, where I ended up at Jame in search of lunch, and returning later for a cocktail. I had an outstanding experience each time, as you can read in my 2024 review. So when a planned trip to the Channel Islands had our group all rendezvousing in Hermosa Beach, we decided to arrive a day early and explore the area a bit more. I also decided this would be a good opportunity to do both an Offbeat Eats “Health Check” re-visit to Jame, as well as introduce Carol to the great food and drink options this little restaurant offers up.

One of those items is a proper Italian-American sub sandwich. London has almost uncountably-many good Italian places, including delis, but the “Italian Sub” (aka “Hero”, “Hoagie”, “Grinder”, “Maine Italian”, or “Wedge”, depending on exact location in the Northeast) is a distinct product of the Italian-American tradition. Back in the day when we were growing up, this would mean a trip to Guido’s Deli for subs, but the Mesa outpost of that venerable Chicagoans-moved-to-Scottsdale institution closed years ago, and we didn’t have time to go that far for lunch. Seeing that we were bouncing around Chandler doing various errands, I decided this was a great opportunity to head over to west Gilbert and check out Little Joe’s Italian Market (formerly “East Coast Joe’s Food Truck”).

After a recent hiking trip to Mount Holyoke in Hadley, MA, we were looking for a nice spot for dinner on the way home. Luckily, Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley has quite a few great options for dinner. While normally we’d hit up either one of our favorite spots in Northampton, or potentially visit our old favorite The People’s Pint in Greenfield, this time we decided we’d mix it up a bit, and check out a place that had been one our perennial hit list, Magpie Woodfired Pizzeria in Greenfield.

Back when I started Offbeat Eats, I had a lot of business travel to both Edwards AFB and the LA area. During these visits, I got into a nice groove where, instead of fighting LA traffic on arrival, I’d instead take the short drive to nearby El Segundo or Manhattan Beach, have a nice relaxing meal, and then proceeding to my destination as the evening traffic started to abate. These visits have gotten a lot less frequent, but I still try to follow that basic procedure when I’ve got the time. This time, I chose El Segundo, with a visit to Jame in the downtown area.

Like many trips, upon arriving mid-day back in New Hampshire from our trip to Detroit, we used it as an opportunity to stop in Manchester on the way home for a light dinner. Depending on time of day and mood, there are a lot of good options on Manchester’s Elm Street or nearby, including some great authentic Mexican at El Rincon, funky fusion fare at Mint, or, one of my favorites, light bistro fare at Republic. However, I realized it had been a while since I had been to another bistro on Elm, Campo Enoteca.

Last late summer and fall were a whirlwind of travel, but one thing we really got a chance to enjoy was a side trip to Missouri for the 2017 eclipse. We flew into Kansas City, spent a few days exploring, and then headed out to Columbia to meet up with friends to watch the actual eclipse. But Kansas City itself is actually a pretty fun destination these days: the downtown has gotten a bit of a makeover, there’s a relatively new World War I museum, and the town has a surprisingly nice beer and cocktail scene going on. And we got to stay in the Hotel Philips, originally built in 1931 as a classic Art Deco hotel, and now run as part of Hilton’s Curio collection. After arriving mid-day, and spending a bit of time checking out some of the local bar scene (including Border Brewing Co and one of Kansas City’s multiple speakeasies, Manifesto) we ended up deciding that Italian food would be good for dinner, trying out Tavernonna in the lobby of the hotel.

(Closed) In addition to the places we visit on each “Death March”, we traditionally try to have a nice dinner outing the evening beforehand. Like finding a place to have breakfast the day of the March, it’s always a bit of a challenge, since it usually involves finding a spot that can handle a reservation for a large group (usually all of the hikers, plus a few spouses, so it’s usually around 20 people), that’s not terribly crowded, and can handle the ephemeral nature of large groups always needing to adjust their exact arrival time and number in their party. However, a check of the usual online resources had indicated that one place in Seattle was particularly good for this: Orfeo.

After three days of exploring Edinburgh, we boarded our train and headed down to London to spend a few days with family. One of the things I enjoy about London is that, being one of the world’s largest cities, there is never a shortage of new places to try. So I figured this would be another good opportunity to get together with Krista from Passport Delicious and try out a place that had been on her radar: Padella in Borough Market.