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A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

“A lifestyle blog with a focus on my food adventures”

February 26, 2010 Thompson’s Flour Shop Bakery (Vermont)

When we came upon this place, we thought, ‘what a cute little place’. It has about 8 tables and a seating area with a couch and a lounger. It’s like a mom and pop version of Starbucks, Vermont style. There were people just sitting eating lunch, some relaxing over a hot cup of coffee and a pastry reading the paper. I’m so glad that we came here.

They have a case with good looking baked goods, breakfast danish, cookies, brownies and cupcakes. They also have a great lunch menu that I couldn’t find anywhere online. I’ll list the choices below. I had seen a few places online review it: Yelp and Trip Advisor. Someone said that it was a New York style deli. While the sandwiches are large, it’s not a New York Style deli. There isn’t a mass heaping of meat in the sandwiches, but they do give you great thick slices of bread. We ordered the roast beef sandwich ($6.75) with choice of cranberry sauce, mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce and tomato.

The bread was so fresh and delicious. The sandwich itself was good too:) We also got a panini, the Venice ($7.75) This was a mozzarella, provolone, tomato and basil pesto served on our own focachia roll. I love a good tomato and mozzarella sandwich, the pesto had such a wonderful taste to it it. I could only eat half of this wonderful melty, gooey sandwich.

Each sandwich came with a pickle and a home made cookie. We had a chocolate chip and an oatmeal raisin. The feel in here was casual and laid back, the woman behind the counter greeted a few of the customers by name, so it definitely has its followers.

The menu:

Sandwiches $6.75

BLT-Bacon, lettuce and tomato served with mayonnaise

Baked Ham-Served with cheese, mustard, lettuce, and tomato

Liverwurst- Served with our own horseradish mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato

Roasted Turkey Breast-Served with your choice of cranberry sauce, mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, and tomato

Roast Beef-Served with our own horseradish mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato

Tuna Salad-Served with lettuce and tomato

Curried Chicken Salad-Our own blend of curry, chicken, green grapes and almonds served with lettuce, tomato, and sprouts

Grilled Chicken Breast-Served with honey mustard, tomato, lettuce and sprouts

Corned Beef-Served with lettuce and tomato

Garden-Served with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, sprouts, onions, carrots, and basil pesto

Hummas-our homemade hummus served with lettuce, tomato, carrots, onions, cucumbers and sprouts

Paninis $7.75

Barnyard-Ham, apples, honey mustard and cheddar cheese

Pilgrim-Roasted turkey, bacon, cranberry sauce and cheddar cheese

Turkey Stuffer-Roasted turkey, homemade stuffing, cranberry mayo and cheddar cheese

Chicken Little-Grilled chicken breast, ranch dressing, bacon, red onion and cheddar cheese

Mooo-ve over-Roast beef, red onion, provolone cheese, tomato with garlic mayo

Reuben-Lean corned beef, sauerkraut, russian dressing, and swiss cheese served on home made rye

Venice-Mozzarella, provolone, tomato, and basil pesto served on our own focachia roll

Split sandwich charge of $1.50,$1.25 for bacon, $0.75 for cheese

Salads $7.75

Chef salad-roasted turkey, baked ham, swiss, cheddar, and hard boiled egg served on a bed of lettuce, tomato, carrots, cucumbers and sprouts

Chicken salad-Our house curry chicken salad served on a bed of lettuce, tomato, carrots, cucumbers and sprouts

Tuna Salad0Tuny and celery salad served on a bed of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrots and sprouts

House salad ($5.75) a bed of lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, carrots and sprouts

Homemade soups:

10 oz cup $3.75

16 oz bowl $4.75

cup and half a sandwich $6.75

bowl and half a sandwich $7.75


Thompson’s Flour Shop Bakery

407 Mountain Road Stowe VT 05672

802-253-0800

Thompson's Flour Shop on Urbanspoon

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February 26, 2010 Pie in the Sky (Vermont)

One word. Yum. This place has some great pizza.

Pie in the sky is great for everyone, couples, families, and large groups. A casual pizza place with ample seating. There’s a sun room area, a main dining area, and a bar in the front that you can sit at and watch them make the pizzas in their wood oven.

The decor is cute. They have  hanging globe sconces with rings around them to make them look like planets, and the menus are laminated with glitter inside them.

The pizza is a thin crust served straight from the oven to your table. We got a large cheese/pepperoni, a small cheese, and pasta bolognese. More than enough food for 4 people. The pizza is cheesy and crispy with a great tasting crust. The bolognese, while not true bolognese, is great. It’s more of a everything in the pot meat sauce-beef, sausage, some basil-yum.

They have specialty pizza, but you can create your own. They also have great calzones (with or without ricotta cheese) and a good beer and wine menu (they have their own beer!) Of course you should save room for a Ben and Jerry’s sundae for dessert.

All in all, a very cool place. Casual and comfortable, you can go out with your buddies for a beer and a slice, after a soccer game with the whole team, or just a casual night out with the fam before heading over to the movies next door. I can’t say enough good things about this place. Great food and the people there are really nice.

Pie in the Sky

http://pieintheskyvt.com/

492 Mountain Road, Stowe, VT 05672
Phone: 802-253-5100

Hours

Every Day
11:30 AM – 10:00 PM

***We offer a Pizza lunch buffet Monday through Friday from 11:30 – 2:00 (except Holiday weeks).  $7.25 per person – all you can eat Specialty Pizzas, Soup, Caesar Salad, and soft drink.***

Pie In the Sky on Urbanspoon

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February 26, 2010 Depot Street Malt Shop (Vermont)

 
I have been coming here for years. Depot street is a cute little 50’s style diner in town. They have booth and table seating and a ice cream bar in the back by the soda fountain. Soda fountains are a  thing of the past and people love the nostalgia of it. They have a variety of specialty beverages:raspberry lime rickey’s, frappes, and egg cream sodas that bring you back to your childhood.
 
The frappes can be made with any kind of ice cream you like. They have a ‘skinny’ version made with frozen yogurt and skim milk for those of you who are watching what you eat. You can get the shakes with a shot of maple syrup for an extra fee. The shakes are thick and creamy-delicious! Don’t drink them too fast or you run the risk of a brain freeze!!
 
We ordered an egg salad sandwich and a grilled cheese with bacon. All sandwiches come with chips but for an extra fee you can get them with either french fries or onion rings. I suggest the onion rings, juicy onions on the inside light and crispy batter on the outside. The food comes in plastic trays with wax paper-no nonsense. They have salads, soups and burgers as well, nothing fancy but good food. The two of us ate for $18.
 
 
 
This is a great place to have a quick low key lunch, great for families and children. For dessert they have ice cream sundaes, a perfect ending to a good meal.
 
 
Depot Street Malt Shop
57 Depot St. Stowe, VT 05672

(802) 253-4269

Some reviews from Yelp, Trip Advisor, Yahoo Travel, Urban Spoon,  and a flickr photo

Depot Street Malt Shop on Urbanspoon

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February 24, 2010 Harvest Market (Vermont)

This might be my new favorite place in Vermont. They are a great little shop that has gourmet cheese, fresh baked goods, and great specialty items. It is like Russo’s or Verrill Farms. They are a bit on the pricey side but that’s what you get when you are talking specialty items. They have organic breads and produce that you can’t find at the closest Shaw’s.

We bought some cheese that we loved at Solstice, the Cobb Hill Ascutney Mountain Cheese and a new one, the Cobb Hill Four Corners Caerphilly. (www.cobbhill.org) The caerphilly is another great cheese-soft and buttery. We also picked up a slice of banana bread and a raspberry bar. The banana bread was great, it had a nice crust on the outside that was crunchy (just how I like it)  and it was moist on the inside. The raspberry bar was also delicious. A side note here is that lemon bars are my great nemesis. For some reason I just can’t make them-they never come out right. So I love a good bar of any kind. Ok, the bar was crumbly, buttery and moist. The raspberry topping looked  light at first sight, but it was so flavorful that it was just enough. I wish that there were more of the crumb topping on top, but that is my only criticism.

So if you love a good farmers market or love yourself some whole foods, you should definitely make a stop in here and check out what they have to offer.

Harvest Market

1031 Mountain Road
Stowe, VT 05672-4749
(802) 253-3800

Open daily from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.

February 24, 2010 The Shed (Vermont)

I have been going to the Shed for about 15 years. I love their hamburgers. 6oz of meat served on a toasted english muffin-delicious!!

I had been searching for their website online but only came across reviews for the place. They weren’t good for the most part. (Trip Advisor, Pubcrawler, Frommers, Yelp )

I always thought that this place was pretty good.The shed offers a variety of pub American fare, and as long as you go there knowing that you should stick to just that, you’ll be fine. You don’t walk into an Olive Garden and order a filet  mignon thinking it will be delicious. I’d stick to the burgers.

We sat in the restaurant area by the fireplace. There weren’t that many people there, but if you go on the weekend or on a holiday you should call and make a reservation. You can also eat in the bar area. In addition they have a nice greenhouse area where you can sit-which nicer in the better weather of course. They have been around forever, the decor inside is a little dated, but you’re not going in expecting fine dining. Some of the specialties on the menu include their “ski of beer” which is 6, 4oz samples of beer, home made root beer, and of course the burgers (6oz shed burger and 9oz barn burger).

I started with the french onion soup. I had read in some of the other reviews that people were disappointed with it. It came in a large bowl with bread and melted Vermont cheddar cheese on top. Some people were complaining that it came with crackers, but my thing is, if there is bread inside the soup, why on earth would you want crackers too? The soup only comes in one size (the other soups come in 2 sizes) and is pretty pricey ($8.95). The soup was good, the cheese was tasty and the soup had a great flavor to it, not too salty. The downside was this-when I looked down when it came and there was an eyelash on the cheese. Ick.

Moving along, we ordered 2 burgers, one with cheese and one without and the asian chicken salad. The salad was sort of blah, nothing to write home about. It was a spinach salad with grilled chicken and tomatoes. The burgers were good. As I said before, I love them. They were juicy and delicious. Now, for the other negative. I went to take a sip of my water and there was a dead fruit fly in it. I mentioned it nicely and quietly to the waitress and she brought me another one. Here’s where the problem lies. I’ve worked in a restaurant-the right thing to do is comp the meal of that person and apologize. You want people to come back and you want people to have a good experience at your restaurant. Neither of the two happened. I didn’t want to make a big fuss, there weren’t that many people there so she wasn’t getting a lot of tips, and the meal wasn’t that expensive, however, it will make me think twice about going back there (it really pains me to say that). It just sours your feelings about a restaurant when you love it so much and have a bad experience with it. Any place can have an off night-but it’s the way you deal with it that separates the good from the bad.

The Shed Restaurant and Brewery

1859 Mountain Rd
Stowe, VT 05672

(802) 253-4364

Shed Restaurant & Brewery on Urbanspoon

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February 24, 2010 Vermont Brownie Company

Everyone knows that I’m a Food Network junkie. I had been watching a Throwdown with Bobby Flay marathon and saw the Vermont Brownie Company on it. The premise of the show is that Bobby Flay challenges people who are the best at what they do. So one week it could be brownies, another Belgium Waffles and another week it could be paella.

Vermont Brownie Company‘s signature brownie is a dark chocolate chevre brownie. The company doesn’t have storefront, which seems to be a popular trend these days with bakeries, but they give you a list of places that you can buy them. We went to Wally’s Place Bagel and Deli to get them. Luckily Wally’s had 3 choices available:the mint, the chevre and the maple toffee. We also happened to stop at the Shelburne Farms Welcome Center and they only had the mint kind. Good thing we didn’t go there first. We took one chevre and one maple toffee. They have other flavors too: Regular signature brownie, espresso dulce de leche, peanut butter, and white chocolate raspberry. You can order them online-and bonus they have sampler packs!!

The Chevre: So the brownie is so moist and delicious. I’m not a dark chocolate person, but it was good. Usually cream cheese brownies and sweet, but this brownie you can really taste the chevre cheese. If you don’t like chevre, you should pass and just go for the regular brownie. The brownie is a layer of brownie, a layer of the chevre, and a final layer of brownie with some chocolate chunks on top. The brownie is so rich you might want to have a glass of milk on hand!

The Maple Toffee: If this isn’t enough to satisfy your sweet tooth, there must be something wrong with you. The brownie is so moist and chocolatey-it would be delicious just as is. The maple toffee on top is fantastic, it’s salty and blends so well with the sweetness of the brownie. I may be in love.

Vermont Brownie Company

www.vermontbrowniecompany.com

Email: info@vermontbrowniecompany.com
Address: P.O. Box 434
South Hero, VT 05486

Phone: 802.450.BAKE

February 23, 2010 Cliff House (Vermont)

There was a lot of confusion about the Cliff House restaurant. You take the gondola up to the summit (3,625 feet) from the base of the mountain. There are signs when you drive up the mountain-pull into the parking lot on the left hand side. There is a gondola from the Stowe Mountain Lodge, but that is not the one you want to go to (and you don’t park in the hotel). You go into the red barn, and buy tickets for $25 per person-round trip. So you’ve spent $50 for two and you haven’t even had a bite to eat yet. The gondola ride is about 5 minutes to the top. The gondola is pretty cool-they even have windows, although that doesn’t do you much good in the winter. The other restaurant at the top of Mt. Mansfield is called the Octagon Cafe, but you have to ride up a different gondola to get there. The Octagon is 3,615 feet up. It seems to have a more casual menu.

The Cliff House doesn’t take reservations, but we got there and realized that you wouldn’t really have needed one. We were able to sit at a table by the window where you could watch all the skiiers head down the mountain, pretty cool! It was cloudy when we went up there, but I can imagine just how cool it would be if we went during the fall season. Most of the other people that were in the restaurant were skiing all day, there were only a few other people who were up there just for the view.

We thought it was a little weird that you had to pay extra for the bread ($3) but we figured we didn’t need it anyhow. We ordered the cheese plate to start ($14). They were 3 hard cheeses, one cheddar, one from the local Shelburne Farms and one that was an Alpine style cheese-a little softer and on the airy side. All three were wonderful. They came with a wonderful cranberry chutney that was more like just chunks of cranberries than a chutney. It was still good, wonderfully sweet and tangy but not overly so-the cranberries were still able to shine in the chutney. It also came with this great lavash made in long thing triangular peices-sort of like a flat bread stick.

Then we moved on to the Vermont Highland Cattle Company Burger with Winding Brook Farm bacon, Grafton smoked cheddar, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions ($16) and the special soup of the day: Lobster Bisque ($12). The bisque was amazing. I usually don’t like just soup for lunch, I usually want something a little more substantive-but this was fantastic. But then again, boy do I love lobster bisque. It was smooth, light, silky and creamy…and had some small pieces of lobster in it. The overall taste was delicious. The burger was great, it was so juicy it leaked when you took a bite out of it. The bread was perfectly toasted and was like a focaccia roll. There were so many layers of flavors, the fresh meat, the onions, the smokey cheese, the bacon…one of the best burgers I’ve had. The fries were made fresh from yukon gold potatoes-you can really taste the difference between fresh and frozen!

And just as a note: the waiter was telling us that some of the beverages that they have at the Cliff House can only be found there-like their mulled red wine.

So lunch all in all cost about $125. Was it worth it? Maybe. We went once, I don’t think we have to go back again, but it was good to go and say we went. The food was good, but $50 for soup, cheese and a burger seems a little steep. The service was good but not great-a little slow, but maybe that’s just the Vermont way…

The Cliff House

Mount Mansfield, Stowe, VT

(The Stowe Mountain Resort is 5781 Mountain Road, in case you need to put it in your navigation)

800-253-4754

http://www.stowe.com/activities/dining/

Full menu available 11am-2:30pm Monday-Thursday

Cliff House on Urbanspoon

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February 23, 2010 Butler’s Restaurant and Tavern (Vermont)

Essex is about 10 minutes from Burlington. The Essex hotel is part of the culinary institute, students make all the food that is served in the restaurant. The hotel is charming. Butler’s tavern is the casual lunch area, the formal area I assume is only for dinner.

I had heard mixed reviews about this place. My boss had been and loved it, the reviews on the web said that the food was ok but the service wasn’t that good. We decided to try it anyway. It wasn’t crowded at all, so we were able to score a booth in the back. The service was kind of slow, but maybe that’s just because I’m a Bostonian, we like things done pretty darn quickly. My other observation about this is, the waiters are students, they are there to learn how to cook, not to be waiters. We had nothing else to do  so we had a nice leisurely lunch.

We started with the vegetable dumplings ($5.95). They had a light delicious wrapper with great tasting veggies inside and were sprinkled with black sesame seeds. The first thing that came to my mind was California. They just had this nice light, fresh taste to them.

We then chose the chili con carne ($9.95) and the Highland burger with cheddar cheese ($11.95). I was thinking about getting the turkey club sandwich (Misty Knoll Turkey sandwich) but when the table next to us had their delivered I’m glad I didn’t. The sandwich was HUGE!! The chili was good and thick, real stick to your ribs food. It was spicey and meaty. The chili came with two large pieces of delicious corn bread on top. Yum! There was so much food and it was so filling that we brought half of it home for lunch the next day. The burger was wonderful. Grilled to perfection, meaty and juicy. The fries were also good, hand cut and perfectly salted. For dessert we went with the cinnamon sugar beignets ($5.95). For those of you that have been reading, I commented in a previous post about the fried dough concoctions from Il Casale. The ones at Butler’s were much better! They were warm and sugary, just like a perfect jelly doughnut should be-minus the jelly. They came three to the plate, each on top of a different sauce: vanilla bean, caramel and dark chocolate. They were light and sinfully delicious!

The Essex website doesn’t give you much information on the restaurant, see the link below. We made reservations through opentable and was able to see the different menu options.

Butler’s Restaurant and Tavern

70 Essex way Essex Junction, VT 05452
(802) 764-1413

Hours of Operation:

Breakfast
Monday through Friday: 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; Saturday: 7:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; Sunday: 7:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

Lunch Monday through Saturday: 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Light Fare Monday through Saturday: 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Dinner Nightly: 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Brunch Buffet Sunday: 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Butler's Restaurant on Urbanspoon

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February 23, 2010 Mirabelle’s (Vermont)

A cute little shop in downtown Burlington, right off the main strip. It’s cute. There are some tables, you can order breakfast or lunch. They have sandwiches, soups and paninis. We ordered some pastries from the counter, there were so many choices. They have whole pies and cakes in the case as well as cupcakes, cookies and bars.

The lemon poppy reduced fat muffin had this glaze on it, I couldn’t quite put my finger on the taste of it. It was on the smaller side, but moist.

The key lime tartlette was good. I never understand why whenever you get a key lime anything, they garnish it with a regular lime. The crust was shortbread like, buttery and delicious. The filling was smooth and tart and the whipped cream on top was light and fluffy.

That other dessert that’s pictured, I don’t remember what it’s called but it was pretty good. There were a lot of strong flavors running through it. It was a tart shell (good and buttery), the bottom had a layer of thick caramel sprinkled with hazelnuts (which added crunch but not flavor) with that chocolate ball in the center (it was a whipped vanilla tasting inside, covered in a dark hard chocolate shell). Not a dessert that I would crave, but I never say no to dessert!

Burlington is an interesting area, it’s changed quite a bit over the years. The bus stop brings in some interesting characters and you are sure to find a street artist singing or playing music on the corner.

Mirabelles Cafe

198 Main St., Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 658-3074

http://www.mirabellescafe.com

Hours: 7am-5pm M-F; 8am-5pm Sat.; 8am-2:30pm Sun

Mirabelles on Urbanspoon

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February 22, 2010 Wally’s Place-Bagel and Deli

Ok, I’ll admit that I am a food snob. But how can that really be if some of my favorite places are next to or in gas stations? (My other favorite places to get calzones is Country Pizza in Lincoln-which happens to share the same space as a Mobil gas station. Try the Chicken Parm calzone!!) I saw Vermont Brownie Company on Throwndown with Bobby Flay on the Food Network. I went to their website and found that they don’t have a store, but you could buy them at various locations. My picks were the Shelburne Welcome center or this place. Since I have already been to Shelburne Farms, I decided to for for the double win and get a bagel AND a brownie. So South hero is probably 15 minutes past Burlington, and you might not even know where it is unless you take the ferry to New York from there. We had to drive around to find the place, until I noticed it, behind the gas station. I didn’t have good feelings about it. I generally stay away from rest food like places. But we park the car and go in. A tiny shop, with two stools that sit in the window-overlooking the gas station. There is a glass case with bagels and desserts. There is another couple eating on the stools so I’m thinking in my head, ‘ok I’m getting a gas station bagel and I’m going to have to eat it in my car-great.’ The two guys working behind the counter were really nice. Like I said before, must be something in the Vermont water. We order. I get a plain bagel with veggie cream cheese and my companion gets an everything with butter. The bagels are on the smaller side, definitely smaller than Finagle. The other couple finishes and leaves, so we grab the two seats in the window. The bagels are WONDERFUL. They are crusty on the outside and fresh and doughy on the inside. Now let’s talk cream cheese. I’m not really a cream cheese kind of gal. That being said, the one cream cheese near and dear to my heart is Cape Cod Bagel‘s veggie cream cheese. This cream cheese might just be better. It has huge chunks of veggies in it and is light as air. Yum!

So that’s the bagel. I ordered two brownies to take with us, one Chevre-which is the one that I wanted to try because it was the one featured on the show, and one maple toffee. I’ve yet to try them but will be sure to post a review when I do. If you can bear to make the drive, the bagels are worth the trip!

Wally’s offers breakfast all day. They have a wide selection of cream cheeses and breakfast sandwiches. The coolest part about this place is that they have a machine that makes the bagels-we got to see it in action. Who needs a bagel saw?!! ha.

Wally’s Place Bagel and Deli

http://web.me.com/kristene413/Site/Wallys_Place.html

1 Ferry Rd
South Hero, VT 05486

802-372-4666

Hours of Operation: M,W,Th, F: 6am-2pm, Saturday: 7am-2pm, Sunday:    8am-2pm

Wally's Place Bagel & Deli on Urbanspoon