Offbeat Eats

Like most years, we spent almost a week in June attending the Ohana: Luau at the Lake charity even in Lake George, NY. Getting to Lake George always involves crossing Vermont East-West, which doesn’t have any truly optimal routes. This time, we decided to take a more southerly route, taking us through Wallingford, VT around time for a late breakfast. Which was good, since Wallingford has a new-ish (since 2023) breakfast option I had been wanting to check out: Bacon & Batter.

Over an extended Labor Day holiday, Carol and I did another Fitpacking backpacking trip to Mount Rainier National Park, and that was a good opportunity to catch up with friends and revisit some favorite locations (well, we tried to do this back in 2022, but Covid-related complications threw a big wrench right into our plans). Before we headed out on the trail, we were meeting up with my college roomate Steve and his wife Emily at their house in Seattle’s Wallingford district. There are a number of good smaller restaurants and breweries in the area, and one I was interested in revisiting for a simple meal after our travels was a favorite from a 2016 (my, how time flies), TNT Taqueria.

One of the things I enjoy about visiting more metropolitan areas than my own is seeing the food fads that show up in particular cities. Like the sudden resurgence in fruit juice in 2013, or 2015’s bone broth craze, or the still-with-us circa 2005 cupcake craze (we’re past Peak Cupcake, but there are still a lot more cupcake places about). In Seattle, one of the 2016 trends was poke: the Hawaiian dish made from cubed, raw, marinated fish served over a bed of rice with a selection of toppings like garlic, the infamous “krab stick”, edamame, ginger, and various seaweed products. It’s actually a dish I rather enjoy (or, more usually, the closely related Japanese-inspired donburi, which is more common out my way). But it was definitely one of the current food trends in Seattle, since during our march we saw no fewer than a dozen places advertising their poke. And there were few better examples of the craze than the 45th Stop N Shop Deli.