Offbeat Eats

(Closed) As those that know me locally can verify, I’ve often complained that there’s just not a lot of BBQ action out there around the Upper Valley. Sure, there’s “Barbecue reformulated for New England Tastes” at Big Fatty’s, but that shouldn’t count (and doesn’t, the only thing salvageable on their menu is the pulled pork). Similarly, I’ve had a gazillion recommendations for Curtis’ BBQ in Putney, but I’ll agree with PigTrip.net that it’s disappointing. And I’ll let my review of Sweet Fire BBQ in Claremont speak for itself. I’m getting used to the fact that people up here don’t really know what BBQ is, but heard about it once and decided to make up something similar. And my recent trip to Texas didn’t help, either, since it just reintroduced me to what I’ve been missing. But, I’ve always held out hope that someone around here could figure out the basics of running a smoker, so when I hear of new BBQ places, I usually still feel compelled to give them a try… So, about a year ago, up in Fairlee, VT, the owners of the Whippi Dip ice cream stand decided that on the first Saturday of the month in the good weather months of the year they’d do the BBQ thing by setting up a tent in the parking lot and making some decent BBQ…

Third time’s the charm? Recently, Carol and I read in the paper that West Lebanon’s Four Aces Diner had reopened. The Four Aces has had a bit of a rough history. A genuine Worcester Diner (#837), it originally was located downtown, but after a fire was relocated to its current location at 23 Bridge St (and is now enclosed by a surrounding building). Since I moved to the area, in 2001, it’s been through a couple owners. After closing up shop in 2008, it reopened as a “more upscale eatery” in 2009, but I wasn’t impressed (for my meal, “upscale” apparently mean “benedict with cold deli ham, broken sauce, and runny eggs”) and didn’t go back. After a bit more than a year that owner packed it in as well, and the Four Aces went on the market…

There are a lot of New England traditions I really enjoy this time of year. Snowshoeing. Winter Carnivals. Maple Sugaring. And community suppers. Almost every weekend in late winter, harvest, and game season, there are a wide variety of community breakfasts and dinners, sponsored by a wide variety of local organization, churches, fire departments, and clubs, all of which provide a good way to meet a good cross-section of local society, as well as have a good hearty meal. While there are many such local dinners, however, quality really can run the gamut from “cheap spaghetti dinner” up to “homemade top-notch feast”. And the Hartland Congregational Church (known locally as “The Brick Church” to distinguish it from the white painted church down the road) hosts a top-notch example of the later: the Hartland “Famous” Roast Beef Supper.

Every once in a while something happens that causes me to revisit a place, be it finding out that I missed (such as finding out that I had missed the best dish at the now-closed The Pines Cafe in Palmdale, CA, or finding out that a place has a new menu. This is actually my third writeup of Gusanoz (my second introduced you to their burger business, Revolutionary Burger), but a few weeks ago they made another menu change that I thought was worthy of checking out: they added breakfast.

(Closed) As anyone reading my article on Eggs Benedict from earlier this year could tell, it’s one of my favorite breakfast dishes from the savory side of things. The combination of a good toasted muffin, some sort of proper meat product, a nicely poached egg, and a well-executed tangy hollandaise makes for quite the nice breakfast. It’s also very, very hard to find such a beast in the Upper Valley. Lou’s can poach a mean egg (their “poached eggs and hash” breakfast is one of my local favorites) biut only has a Benedict as an occasional special. Four Aces had one, but it was a rather poor specimen (limp sauce, and cold ham), and in any case Four Aces is no longer with us. I’ve had an outstanding one at Wasp’s in Woodstock, but that’s outside my normal range, and not open on Saturdays. Benedicts also grace a few other menus of area places (as the occasional special, mostly), but I’m generally left underwhelmed. In an area not particularly well-populated with a lot of breakfast joints, I’m generally forced to lived without.

While I’ve previously blogged about Umpleby’s Bakery and Cafe in Hanover, they’ve recently made a menu change that made it worth revisiting my review. In short, they’ve partly entered the world of burgers. Several minor happenings combined to make this happen. First, Umpleby’s has had a good relationship with Back Beyond Farm in Chelsea, VT for several years (if I recall correctly, that’s who supplies the sausage for their excellent sausage rolls). Charles Umpleby also read an article in New York Magazine about Pat La Frieda’s wholesale meat business that sells well-regarded hamburger meat to many pubs and restaurants in the city (you can read more about Pat La Frieda’s in a tour done by Nick Solares over at AHT) and wanted to try something similar. Finally, he’s already running a successful bakery and cafe that includes sandwiches, so it wasn’t a stretch to add a burger: the Umpleburger (great name, by the way).

(Closed) Revolutionary Burger is a bit of an interesting experimental concept, in that they don’t have a storefront, and aren’t their own restaurant, they are basically a sub-restaurant of the local Lebanon restaurant, Gusanoz. Apparently, one of their employees recently went on a trip to Southern California, and really enjoyed a trip to iconic In-N-Out Burger, and decided to try making a similar burger here. So they invented the Rev Burger, which is their rendition of the basic In-N-Out-style California burger: 100% real beef, never frozen, char-broiled over open flame, a toasted bun, lettuce, tomato, onion and, of course, the “special sauce”. You can order it with american cheese as well, making a “Che Burger” (Anyone else chuckling at the irony of having the Che Burger made with American cheese?). You can even order them In-N-Out style, for example, ordering a “2×2” which is two patties and two slices of cheese. They also offer fresh-made fries, shakes, and beverages (basically, a similar small menu to the In-N-Out they are copying).

Today’s post is about guilty pleasures, and the eating of food that you either know or suspect is (a) unhealthy, and (b) of slightly dubious quality, but for some reason you feel compelled to enjoy it. One of the best examples I can think of is Coronis Market, in Newport, NH. I’m not even sure I’d call Coronis a convenience store, it’s one of those “beer, beverage, and munchies” store in Newport. However, they advertise on all their signage that they have “Famous Grinders”, which at one point several years ago compelled me to actually try one.

You know something’s going on when you get several recommendations for not just a place, but a particular menu item, all in a short period. It usually means something’s going pretty well indeed. In this case, in the last week, two different people both recommended Tuckerbox in White River Junction. And, more specifically, they recommended the BLT, since it was the “Best BLT Ever!” The Tuckerbox, for those that don’t know of it, inhabits one of those restaurant spaces that I consider mildly cursed, since, in my 7 years of living here, it’s the third restaurant that has inhabited the space (the first two were Karibu Tule, an oustanding African place; and Como Va, an Italian place). It has been reinvented yet again, this time as a coffee and sandwich shop. The coffee drinks are already well respected around the area (indeed, it’s one of those places that will still serve you drinks in actual cups and glassware), and I’ve heard several good rumors about the salads and sandwiches. So, Carol and I decided that today we’d go to Tuckerbox and try the BLTs.

Around a year ago, Claremont, NH picked up a BBQ place on Mulberry Street. I would never have even known this place was there, except for taking a wrong turn a few months ago, so it had been on my chronic “I should check that out list.” Last weekend, as we were coming back from our trip to Bennington, we passed through Claremont again, so I figured we’d give the place a try. Inside, the place is mostly a bar (with a good selection of draft beers, and a very good selection of bottles), with a few booths as well. The menu sports your basic variety of BBQ meats (ribs, chicken, pork, and brisket) and your typically appropriate sides (cole slaw, beans, cornbread, etc)…