Thursday, January 23, 2014

A long post about two days of eating in and around Burlington, Vermont


I've lived here in the Albany area for more than a year now, so I was getting more and more eager to get up to Vermont.  Fortunately, K and I got the opportunity this fall and spent a couple days near Burlington.  It was, of course, the perfect time of year, the fall foliage in full color, the temperatures just right.

I've always subscribed to the belief that Vermont is some kind of uniquely beautiful and special place, and my only fear was having that notion shaken.  Now, it's not like I got the experience of living there, but in our few days around the state (we also headed down to Brattleboro for a literary festival), I found a place that possessed all the physical beauty I could have hoped for, a place where good food and good beer was the norm, and where the arts and creativity seem to be both thriving and embraced, both in the small and large towns of the state.

While I could go on and on about all of that, here I'll focus on the food and beer, especially around the Burlington area.  It was pretty crowded with all the tourists out to look at leaves and some UVM alumni event, but that didn't do much to diminish the experience.  I only wish we had more time to explore: to try out more restaurants, to drink more beer, to hike a little, to take a ferry across Lake Champlain.  But hey, we're close enough--another visit wouldn't be too hard.

Here are some food highlights from this first visit--with a recap of my beer adventures to come soon.

Monday, January 13, 2014

More from Northeast Dumplings House


My latest Eat This article for All Over Albany covers the Spiced Potato with Hot Pepper and Special Pancakes at Northeast Dumplings House. That was a surprising, delicious dish--different than anything I'd previously encountered, and something I'm looking forward to having again.

But it wasn't just those potatoes K and I enjoyed when we visited Northeast Dumplings House. Everything we had was good, and that's not something that can be said for most places we visit, let alone restaurants that just opened two months ago. And this is the kind of little restaurant that seems like a real coup for Albany; to find a restaurant dealing in the cuisine of such an unrepresented area as northeastern China, I figured I'd have to make a trip to Chinatown or Flushing--not Central Avenue.

So with that in mind--and because Northeast Dumplings House is an unknown to most at this time--I figured I'd give an even deeper look into the food served at the restaurant.