What better way to follow up a visit to the pirate museum than to find ourselves a rocking grilled cheese joint?
It was a gorgeous summer day but there was an alarming lack of tourists around. I suppose a sign of the times. Even so I parked in a super easy parallel parking spot in front of the JFK museum having no idea the next half a mile had oodles of parking spots. Oh well, can’t complain too much about getting a little exercise, especially when the stoner-friendly sandwiches we were after were probably about a billion calories each. On this day I did not care.
When we finally arrived we found a vendor and an outdoor cafe space. A woman was already at the window waiting for her order when we ambled up to look at the menu. She turned around to tell us, “Everything is great here! You’re going to love it!” High praise, we both laughed and thanked her for the unsolicited review.
I wanted fries with my sandwhich so we decided to split a poutine and each get a different weird sandwhich. Pretty sure my companion got the Country Boy and myself the Veggie Daddy. The cashier on this day was having a day, for sure. He was straight from a wedding in Florida and clearly very tired. He couldn’t remember the order and asked my companion to repeat Veggie Daddy until it was uncomfortable but luckily we were both laughing at this because it was hot, we were being a pain in the ass taking forever to decide, and we could empathize with a little brain fog. Our reward for being a sport about this was being able to sample their home made hibiscus ice tea and lavendar lemonade. Both were really good but the tea was amazing so the pitch worked!
We sat at one of the tables and waited, our server clearly as entertained by us as we were of him, yelling, “I’m going to take care of you!” And he did. Even drew smiley faces in our dipping sauce. It was fucking adorable.
And the sandwiches… oh my god. Totally worth the fact they probably went straight to the arteries! The dipping sauce was another fun touch. They were SO MESSY and sooo good. I got it all over my shirt and sighed. Can’t bring me anywhere.
I was so full by this point. Even so my server came back out to offer a refill on my ice tea as we were cleaning up. I was tempted but then I’d have to carry an open cup to the car. Instead I thanked my server and smiled. He said, “You guys are great!” Before returning.
There’s been an absolute avalanche of chaos and confusion going on in my corner of the world so it took me a whole week to get back to writing part two of my Vermont adventures but here we are!
We had already had an awesome day of a completely overwhelming amount of antiquing. We were lacking in sleep, my companion had come down with something, and on top of that a number of negative complications from personal life were butting in our free wheeling. Also we were both getting hangry- that lovely point when you’re so hungry you’re either yelling or crying for no reason. And this was the point in our travels that everything also started to go wrong.
You see Vermont is very mountainous and rural and cell phone coverage and internet connection here can be… unreliable at best. So there we were, hungry, in the middle of the goddamn mountains in an unfamiliar town having no idea where to find some good grub.
I sucked in a good breath, tested my own patience, and said, “Well… we could just follow the signs to Rutland which I know is a city and would have both coverage and a place to eat…” We agreed this was best and set off back the roads from whence we came, over some bear-sized potholes, until we arrived in Ludlow. You might recognize Ludlow is not Rutland but it’s Ludlow where our internet started working again and it seemed decently populated, enough so to have a place to eat. So instead of continuing another half an hour or so we decided to pull over in a gas station and see what there was for good grub rather than risk losing connection again.
I nearly lost an axel pulling into this gas station over a pothole that may as well been a crater. CLUNK CLUNK!
Cars in this town were 100% unforgiving of anyone who didn’t know where they were going or going slower than 10-15 miles over the speed limit so I also had another car close to rear ending me as I drove over the aforementioned crater. My companion is in charge of picking places to eat so he found a place and we headed off. It wasn’t far away but it was unbeknownst to us in a ski lodge that was filled to capacity and despite being in the middle of the woods was swarmed with people. Restaurant parking was full and I wasn’t about to figure out how much ski lodge parking cost so annoyed we turned around and made our way back to town but before getting there I had some jack ass laying on his horn telling me I needed to turn and turn NOW. Only one problem with that, another giant jack ass pick up had pulled up beside me and was halfway into the intersection completely blocking my view. So I was patiently waiting rather than playing Russian roulette with oncoming traffic in a goddamn Prius. Mind you the Prius gets honked at A LOT, almost always from pick up trucks who think they’re God’s gift to the roads. I’m used to it but on this day that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I just started screaming back at the fucker and his privileged ski bunny ass.
We found a taco place down the road and turned out it but it was bizarrely a pick-up only restaurant. A pizza parlor was next door but there was no parking and by now we were both intensely agitated and yelling.
“That’s not a parking space!”
“I KNOW! I’M TRYING TO TURN AROUND!”
The pizza place was Goodman’s American Pie. We weren’t looking for pizza but we needed something so I parked nearby and we walked back not realizing this place was also an arcade filled with unsupervised children, some of them joyfully screaming. We may have been holding back visible twitches at this point as we ordered and looked to see if there was anywhere to sit.
The only table they had left open was a tiny bar stool table next to the pool table where three children were playing something, though I can’t say it was entirely pool, more a chaotic mix of pool, bowling, fishing, and water polo, you know all the big ones. Though our table was above their little heads they still managed to repeatedly whack it with the ass end of the pool sticks.
My companion took this moment to go to the bathroom, probably in part to supress any growing homicidal thoughts regarding the situation.
Meanwhile another overly privileged asshole could be heard making an order on the phone as the poor kid taking the call asked his boss, “Uhhh… can we make 45 pizzas in an hour?” One employee, 45 pizzas, and this SOB wanted the whole order in an hour.
I wad SHOCKED to see my own pizza served to our table only moments later. That is the quickest service I have EVER gotten in any restaurant. It seemed to defy physics. The brick oven pizza was basically lava but I was halfway done horking down my first slice before my companion returned.
We ate in silence and with the ferver of rabbid raccoons before stopping at the end and stating, “I needed that.” YEAH, we both did. And that’s how we managed to stop yelling at each other for no reason and retired for the day. And for all it’s worth although neither one of us ever want to return to Ludlow that was still a damn good pizza.
It’s been a while since I’ve gone out to eat and why not do so before a ghost hunt at the Lizzie Borden Inn? Such was the case when we wound up at McGovern’s.
The parking lot was pretty empty but I guess we were there near closing so that was probably why. Inside it was warm and cozy and had all the usual decore – and a random swordfish taxidermied on the wall which I think gave it character.
The menu was quite large and had a lot of sea food. Most was very recognizable but I was at a loss of what “Sea Legs” were, perhaps the tender loins of a shipwrecked pirate? Why does my brain always jump to cannibalism? I asked my companion and he said he had no idea what sea legs or the appetizer named potato pillows were. I wondered if they were anything like the soapy pillows I once ordered because I can’t speak or read Spanish and phonetics are all I got. I decided to ask about the sea legs, he decided to just order the potato pillows and see.
Apparently sea legs were not from a pirate but rather a crab. Pity, no long pork for me. However, I do like crab… so that’s what I ordered. My companion had the chicken parm with stuffed shells and we both shared the potatoe pillows which were baked potato skins with bacon, green onion, an impressive amount of cheese, and a side of sour cream for dipping. I learned a few years ago I have Irish ancestry which might explain why I’m never ever going to complain about potatoes. They are the food of the gods and this was no exception.
Of course our entrees were nothing to sneeze at either. I got mine with mashed potatoes with gravy and some very sweet butternut squash that seemed heavy on the brown sugar. Again, not complaining, sometimes diabetic comas are just the natural consequence of living. My crab was nestled on a plate of buttery cracker crumbs with a side of dipping butter. My ancestry also has a lot of poor farmers in it so my probably unhealthy affection for butter can also be easily explained. FOOD COMA!
My companion was also enjoying his dish with some crazy over stuffed shells and a generous heap of tomato sauce. We were both too stuffed for dessert. All and all it was a damn good meal with a very friendly staff.
This could quite possibly be the best place I have ever eaten. Dear God, did we find a winner with this one!
My companion had chosen this place because he wanted soup and he liked what they had on their online menu. When we got there, we realized there was live music (which was good!) as well as an assortment of games and Shakespearean books set aside each table in case we needed something to do while waiting. It was a typical Boston-styled pub, dark and loud, and I knew a place serving pub food was going to be my downfall. So. Much. Comfort Food. And a tin ceiling! Which was also really lovely. I watched out the windows at people walking by the Christmas tree across the street.
Of course, we were on vacation, so we ordered a ridiculous amount of food and tried it all starting with a molten cheese fondue pot that was served with pieces of baguette, kielbasa, broccoli and fingerling potatoes. Oh my God, those were all AMAZING. My favorite was actually the potatoes! This was an appetizer and we’d already eaten ourselves silly. We then had our soups, my companion had the French Onion and I went with the Hungarian Mushroom. He said his was pretty standard fair, wasn’t that impressed with it, but my mushroom? OH! It was so rich and earthy! It just felt like it was feeding my soul. I ate every drop despite already being full from the appetizer.
My main course was Chicken Pot Pie and my companion got Guiness Stew. Both absolutely checked off every box conceivable for comfort food and was exploding with flavor. We even exchanged a bite and his was as good as mine if not better! Very robust and beefy. Everything was a hit here and the service was quick and friendly and the live music playing just completed the whole ambiance. WE ARE SO COMING BACK HERE.
Since I spent my actual birthday with family I decided to spend a second day just living it up with BF and BFF. Such is the way I organize my double life in two states. ANYWAY, to start off the celebrations we went to an old haunt – the Blue Plate Diner, which I’m not sure I’ve mentioned on this blog before because we’ve been there so many times. That being said the staff is always friendly, the food is delicious, and this Nutella French Toast was the perfect sugary sweet way to start a whole day of not giving a fuck about anything!
It’s that time of year again – my birthday, and I decided this year it might be fun to find two bakeries and pit their cakes against each other in a sugary sweet death match. But alas, I did not realize bakeries these days are hidden establishments only getting customers via word of mouth with entrances that may or may not require a secret handshake to get in. Long gone are the days of boozy speakeasies, these days it’s all about the sweets. Only those in the know can go into a diabetic coma like a king!
On this particular day I’d chosen two bakeries somewhat nearby. The first was in Peterborough and had high reviews. I love Peterborough and am familiar with the area but the bakery was nowhere to be seen. Was my GPS toying with me or was it hidden? I didn’t know but I decided to leave it be and try to find another bakery that Google suggested before I left but it mysteriously wasn’t coming up in searches anymore. I was already starting to feel like the pastry gods were out there just fucking with me. I had to drive halfway home and ask Google again before it finally stopped gaslighting me and gave me the address.
It’d be another long drive through the woods, so weird and winding that at one point I passed a near life-size wooden T Rex skeleton leaping from the tree line on someone’s property.
This bakery wasn’t in the woods though, it was on Main Street, so I figured it’d be super easy to find, right? Nope, drove right by it several times as I looked. When I did find it on a street corner it had what looked like a 3-car parking lot but it was beyond an old beaten down curb. Do people park there?? I turned up the side street it was on and found a car parked on the sidewalk, a small parking lot directly across the street saying it was only for municipal parking. When I drove down main street I couldn’t tell if there was streetside parking or not as there were no lines painted and no cars in sight, although there was one handicapped parking space marked out which seemed to imply beyond it was also parking but I honestly couldn’t tell. I drove probably an eighth of a mile up the road and found a truck parked in front if the police station. Figuring this was the sign I was looking for I parked behind him and walked to the damn bakery.
It was a really small place and I was clearly the only customer in there. The woman working there seemed very happy to see me. I asked her about her cakes and she had chocolate, vanilla, lemon, and carrot. I went for the largest (which was still a petite round cake.) It was vanilla flavored. Looking around this place also had cookies, cannolis, scones, muffins, and really a decent assortment of pastries for such a small place.
I was told this place sells out every day and I’d gotten there at just the right time – between noon and one – which was a dead zone between the morning crowd and the after church crowd. Good to know!
The cake was $22 and oddly heavy for it’s size. As it’s now autumn it was decorated with red, yellow, and brown flowers. As for the flavor it was dense and moist, anything I could have wanted for a little vanilla cake. I would like to return some day to try some of the other options, otherwise this was a sweet little place for a tasty treat if you live in the area.
We had had such an eventful day poking at random things that food was in order and what better place to stop for lunch than an eccentric burger joint in a wedding cake house? The decor was just as delightfully whimsical when we walked in. In fact the first thing we saw were these ostrich fashionistas on the wall. We waited for quite a while wondering if there was a bell or something we’d failed to figure out when a waitress popped out of the back room and led us to a room at the side.
Everywhere there was weird art hanging on the wall getting weirder with every frame. We sat near the pickled mermaid, for instance. Now, I am not usually someone who eats burgers so this was going to be a bit of a test for me but so far I was at least enjoying the atmosphere. I ended up getting the sweet potato and quinoa burger, which again, was a first. My companions bought some sort of exotic sounding pork sandwich and a normal burger, with a side of sweet potato fries, though both showed interest in some sort of spicy burger that apparently sounded like an “ass blaster,” not my words but I’m appreciative of the humor. Usually there’s at least one person at the table that’s less than enthusiastic about their meal but this time around the food was amazing for everyone. I even passed a bite of mine around and had two carnivores admit it was good! I stole a sweet potato fry too and it was crispy and delicious. This place had a small menu but they knew what they were doing and they did it well! We were all so full after this.
On a side note the bathroom was its own adventure. It was still a normal Victorian bathroom with a big soaking tub, a shower that was clearly added later, and a pristinely clean toilet just looking pretty sitting there. It seemed a luxurious bathroom if I may say so myself.
We all left very full and very happy and I would highly recommend this place to anyone in the area or any foodies who want to travel!
My usual travel companion is a foodie, history nerd, and unbothered carnivore so when he found out the birthplace of the hamburger was in New Haven we had to go.
We parked in the weird parking lot behind this eatery and paid $2 an hour to stay there as we wandered. It seemed a fair deal, even if it was awkward and I had to back into a space like everyone else. But anyway, onto the hamburgers…
The aesthetics of this place are very European looking, very bright and old fashioned. You can’t miss it. Inside it is TINY. The tiniest restaurant I have ever eaten in, with pew-like booths seemingly fit for a child. Still, a crowd was in here, sitting down in them.
The menu was even tinier. You could order a burger or a cheeseburger with optional tomatoes and onions. They were all to be served medium rare with a soda in a glass bottle and a choice of potato salad or chips. That was the entire menu.
I can only remember eating hamburger once in my life. It was what remained of one of my father’s cows – Holly. Her name was labelled on the package as it came out of the freezer. You can’t really blame me for being put off.
Still, I’m an adult now and in the spirit of trying new things I ambled up to the counter and asked for a cheeseburger with tomato and onions with a side of potato salad just in case. We then sat down and waited the fifteen minutes we were told it’d take. This place was awesome in the sense the cook was right next to the cashier and was making patties to set in a preposterously old cast iron steamer. In all my travels I’d never seen such a thing. They also had an antique toaster just rotating toast the whole time.
By the time the burgers came out I was a bit nervous. They were indeed medium rare, still bleeding, so no need for ketchup, served not on a bun but between two slices of white toast. I took the plunge and took a bite of this thick burger. I think it’s fortunate they were cooked so little – I think that might be why I hated hamburger in the past. By the time it turns grey it’s chewy and gross but this was steaming hot, pink, and just dripping. I was shocked how good it was! Which was awesome because the potato salad was intensely bland and would have made for a shit lunch had this whole burger thing not worked. Should we go again I’m getting salt and vinegar chips and enjoying the hell out of the whole thing!
So, is this eatery worth it? YES. It was even worth the drive. Ambiance, staff, history, and great food. This was a win!
The cemetery was a wonderful little place to explore but what tempted us to come to New Haven was a random restaurant review on FaceBook that just looked so intriguing we had to go check it out.
The Transylvania Restaurant and Bar is a Vlad the Impaler themed restaurant in a former grist mill. It has all the charm of an old historic building and all the joy of misplaced vampires! My whimsy meter was already on overload looking at the bathrooms, labelled bat rooms. This was my companion’s idea to come here. Initially I thought it might be kind of… too gimmicky… but I gave it a chance because their menu online screamed European peasant food and you know what I fucking love? That’s right, European peasant food. And I don’t mean to be at all offensive in saying that. I’ve on occasion tried the froufrou rich people food but nothing beats the dishes of the common man. Those dishes have to exist in a space of actually being good and I mean really fucking good.
We showed up a few minutes after they opened and were only one of two (or three?) parties there in the restaurant part, the other one was a large family with lots of exuberant kids. I think it may have been the owner of the restaurant who tended to us and asked how we ended up here. We told her a FaceBook ad and she excitedly exclaimed, in her adorable accent, that the other people here were also showing up because of the same FaceBook post and she asked if she could take our photo. Suuuuure….? We laughed. Funny enough I get asked by strangers for my picture weirdly often on these travels and I don’t mind smiling for the camera.
Anyway, once we settled in we were over the moon with the menu. It wasn’t an extensive menu but it was intense in its options. I could have chowed down on just appetizers and been just fine! But there was more, so much more. Prior to coming here we found a video of someone pulling apart one of their baked cheese wedges, to which my arteries screamed, “NOOO! DON’T DO IT!” Which is why I had no choice but to try it. It was fairly standard to what baked cheese usually is but they served it with slices of granny smith apple that TOOK IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL. I was going to take a photo but we devoured it in a few seconds long before I remembered to do so. We both felt like pigs after that but DAMN was that good!
I was enamored by their selection of soups and salads, including wild mushroom soup and tripe soup, but I had decided before I even came here that I wanted to try the goulash. I didn’t have a firm grasp of what goulash was but it’s such a fun word and sounds so very peasanty. Only problem was it was beef goulash which I’m really not supposed to be eating due to a mild allergy. I went for it anyway, probably much to my companion’s chagrin, as it’s usually his job to chase me around with bottles of water in a usually futile attempt to keep me alive. I went for it anyway and when they served it… it looked like a bowl of wet dog food with a blop of sour cream on the top. I’m not going to lie. But you know what’s great about peasant food? The uglier it is the tastier it usually is. This was no exception! HOLY CRAP was it good! So tender and moist and full of flavor!! With little chunks of potatoes floating in there. You can never go wrong with potatoes. My companion thought something was wrong but I was just making sure to chew really really really well (as to avoid getting it stuck in my throat which is what my mild allergy to beef does.) I was soooo full after the cheese and half a bowl of this goulash. Complete and utter food coma.
Meanwhile my companion had ordered the Hungarian Paprikash which turned out to be an equally flavorful chicken dish. I know because we swapped a few bites. I would have been happy ordering that too! And he ate the whole thing… which was a lot of food! That’s how you know it’s good. When a foodie with nothing to gain says so.
Honestly, I think we would have both really enjoyed trying their desserts, one of which included a flaming pile of impaled doughnuts which was so fitting, but we were both bursting at the seams. We promised to come back… and maybe someday we will. I usually don’t say this of restaurants, but it was worth the two-hour drive to get there. Highly recommend!
Right behind the Bass Pro Shop there was another tiny parking lot attached to a cute little half mile trail. We decided to go see what it was and I must say – for being in Boston, a Metropolitain city, I was impressed! Yes, it was short, but it did amble over a little pond guarded by a 40-pound murder duck, er, swan, and then wound us around a sweet little cranberry bog. They’d only planted it a few weeks ago so these were early days. I’d never been to a cranberry bog in spring so this was fun for me.
I took photos with my camera but summarily lost them so these are all cell phone photos. It’s been that kind of a week for me. But anyway… the trail was short, sweet, and had a bunch of informative plaques around it talking about cranberries, their history and harvest. I actually learned quite a bit reading them!
So yeah, if you happen to have kids as your spouse is wandering the shop looking for something shooty or stabby this is definitely a good way to keep everyone entertained! More shops should have random educational trails behind them.
