Offbeat Eats

(Closed) On our recent trip to Pho Dang in Winooski, we immediately noticed that not only did North Main Street have a phở joint, it also seemed to have it’s own little Southeast Asian neighbor, with several Asian-related businesses nearby. One of them, Dharshan Namaste Asian Deli, is directly across the street from Pho Dang, and proudly sports “Bánh Mì” sandwiches in their window. I love a good bánh mì, so, a few weeks later when we were back in the Winooski area, we decided that we’d duck in and try Dharshan Namaste and see how they did.

One of the things I’ve particularly liked about the Burlington, VT metropolitan area is that for for a metro area with only slightly more than 200,000 people (although that is around 1/3 of the state), it has rather a lot of great restaurants, particularly ethnic restaurants. Indeed, Burlington has pretty much the highest concentration of Vietnamese people for quite a distance, and the area’s Vietnamese restaurant population has grown from the modest two places it had back in 2001 (when we moved here) to a robust half-dozen phở shops. One of these that I had been hearing a lot of good buzz about is Phở Dang in Winooski, so when we found ourselves in Winooski for a recent concert, we decided that pho was exactly what we needed to dispel some winter blues.

Well, after a foray to South Burlington for beer and food trucks, we still found ourselves hungry for a little dinner, so we ended up heading up to Winooski. There’s a lot to like about Winooski: despite being a fairly small town (around 1.5 square miles), it has a surprisingly good restaurant scene. In particularly, Sneakers has been reliable for us for years, and quite a few Asian places have sprung up, including Pho Dong and Dharsan Namaste (neither of which I’ve reviewed yet, but keep tuning in…). But this time, we opted to try another place that’s reliably been getting some good word of mouth: Misery Loves Co.

Two weekends ago, Carol and I attended the Vermont Brewers Festival as we usually do. However, instead of our usual trip to Coffee Corner in Montpelier (note to self: haven’t reviewed Coffee Corner yet!), we decided to shake it up a bit and find someplace new to try. Doing several online searches, Sneakers Bistro in Winooski seemed to be consistently recommended, so we gave it a try. The place is very nondescript, with the primary signage being a pair of Converse All Stars hung outside the restaurant (shown here). It’s a fairly cozy little storefront, but they have a reasonably large amount of outdoor seating as well. Which was good, since when we arrived, there was a healthy crowd of hungry people waiting for tables. Luckily, two-seaters were turning over quickly, so Carol and I got seated almost immediately at a nice sidewalk table…