Offbeat Eats

If there’s been one noticeable change in the culinary scene around Northern New England, it’s the recent appearance of more than a few decent taco joints sprinkled around the area, like Lalo’s Taqueria in Lebanon, Carlita’s Cocina in Royalton (currently moving into a permanent storefront), Trailbreak in White River Junction, and the occasional food truck serving up some good tacos. One place that’s been on my radar for a bit is Taco Cat Cantina in Randolph, and a slight detour on our return from Lake George allowed us to finally check them out.

While I rather enjoy many of the towns of central Vermont (Randolph, Bethel, and Northfield, for example), we don’t usually get to do much culinary exploration of them simply since we’re on our way someplace, like hiking or hitting up an event in Montpelier or Burlington. But we did make a special point to go back to Randolph and try one of the area’s better Thai places: Saap. Located on the eastern side of Randolph as you are entering a fairly industrial area, Saap is nestled into the first floor of a converted large house, it’s a friendly location with a nice patio. It isn’t the sort of place you’ll likely just happen upon, but since they opened a few years ago and have focused heavily on Northern Thai cuisine, I’d gotten more than a bit of a word of mouth advertising.

(Closed) One of the rules I generally observe when selecting places to review here at Offbeat Eats is that I tend to avoid doing writeups on special holiday dinners and events, since those events aren’t necessarily representative of the restaurant in general. While I do make the occasional exception, such as my occasional visits to the Cabane à Sucre, all too often special events (particularly “dining out” holidays like Valentine’s Day or Easter) end up being a below-average experience: the restaurant usually has a higher number of tables, a busied staff, and a menu of unusual specials. But the occasional place will shine under these circumstances, like our trip to Black Krim Tavern in Randolph, Vermont, for an Easter brunch (yes, those looking at a calendar will realize that despite my best efforts, I’m again 4 months behind in reviews…)

(Closed) A recent trip to Bent Hill Brewery in Braintree, VT, left us looking for some late breakfast opportunities in Randolph. Probably due to the town itself being a fair bit off of I-89, we haven’t done a lot of exploring there, but several places in have started to show up on my radar, like One Main Tap and Grill and The Black Krim Tavern. But neither of those is really a lunch place, so we instead were drawn to a fairly central spot in Randolph, the Randolph Depot. Located in a nicely renovated railroad depot building (hence the name), Randolph Depot is serving up breakfast and lunch with a variety of soups, sandwiches, pancakes, and eggs. It looked like a particularly nice place to have a meal, so I ordered up some pancakes and corned-beef hash…