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.

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.

My Grandmother's Ravioli: Not Your Average Food Show

I've been meaning to write about food-related TV programs since I started this blog, but here we are, more than a year after I started the thing, and still nothing on that front.

Until now.  I'm happy to say that I was inspired to finally write about a TV show because I found one--new to me, though now in its second season--that I've truly fallen for: My Grandmother's Ravioli, hosted by Mo Rocca, currently airing both new episodes and reruns on Wednesday nights on the Cooking Channel.

I knew Rocca from his Daily Show days and his appearances on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, which seems a bit of an unusual path to food TV.  Nevertheless, he slides seamlessly into this role.

My Grandmother's Ravioli is a show that's full of both humor and heart.  The premise is that Rocca "learns to cook and discover[s] treasured family recipes and stories from grandparents in their kitchens across the country."  This certainly is a different concept than what we see across the Food Network and Cooking Channel's typical programming (they're both Scripps-owned and share shows and talent), which is an initial plus.  It doesn't feature some loud-mouth host pigging out in restaurants, there isn't some creepy and seemingly fake "stake-out" going on, and nobody is competing with anyone else.

It's just Rocca and a rotating cast of elderly folks who, from what I've seen so far, are sharp, sweet, and laugh-out-loud funny.

Heavyweight Fast Food Burger Battle: In-N-Out vs. Shake Shack

I know it's just fast food, but I'll admit, I can be something of a snob when it comes to fast food burgers.

I've ranted about disappointing and overpriced local burgers on the blog before, I've dropped bits of praise for North Carolina chain Cook-Out, and I'm not shy to admit that as a California native the In-N-Out burger chain has always been tops for me.

The issue with In-N-Out is that its locations are confined to California, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and Utah.  And while I've been living in the eastern half of the country over the past decade, I haven't found myself able to make too many trips back home to the west very often.  This summer, though, K and I flew out to visit her family just outside Las Vegas and I made a quick trip north to see a few members of my family.  Of course getting my hands on some In-N-Out wasn't my top priority, but let's just say that I was pretty determined to make that happen at some point.

I did get to In-N-Out on that trip, and it was still as good as I remembered it--better in some ways, in fact.  But I also recently made a weekend jaunt down to New York City and got my first taste of Danny Meyer's praised and popular Shake Shack burger.  And I have to say, those were some good burgers, too.  In the end, my heart still rests with In-N-Out, though not fully because of the food itself.

Chowderfest!

When the organizers of Chowderfest in Troy decided to hold the event in mid-October, I'm guessing part of the idea was that these cups of chowder would serve as a way to warm the attendees standing outside in the crisp fall air. Instead, here we were with yet another day with temperatures around the 70 degree mark.  I'm pretty sure no one's complaining about that, and it sure made for a nice day to wait in long lines in Riverfront Park.

This was my first Chowderfest, and it really was something to see how many people came out for this event--I saw figures estimating attendance at 20,000.  For those who haven't attended (you might be in the minority now), several area restaurants--this year 17--set up tents and cooked their own special version(s) of chowder for the event.  Four ounce cups chowder could be purchased with tickets (one ticket per cup of chowder), which were bought for $1 each prior to heading to the tents.

While it's a pretty fun concept--shown by both the crowd and the fact that this is the seventh year of the event--I also noticed some problems with the execution of Chowderfest that made attending it fairly frustrating.  Below I'll lay out some of those issues, and recap a handful of the chowders I tried this year.

A Sampling of Sierra Nevada's Many Offerings

As a Northern California native, I always feel like I should be more of a Sierra Nevada guy.  The brewery, located in Chico, was one of the major brewers behind the craft beer surge of the past couple decades.  I remember in college hearing excitedly from a couple friends how Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was on tap at some nearby bars and restaurants, yet I just kind of ignored that information.  Beer sucked, at least in my narrow-minded point of view.

Eventually I learned otherwise, but it wasn't when I was in California, where Sierra Nevada is fairly ubiquitous.  Living primarily in the east and midwest since really discovering my love for good beer, I haven't often seen Sierra Nevada on tap in bars--if it is, it's usually the Pale Ale, which I fear I've kind of underrated or overlooked over the years--and when buying six packs or singles, I tend to go for more local beers or ones I deem, for whatever reason, more exciting than the Sierra Nevada available.

But this summer, that changed, in part thanks to my trip out to the west coast in June.  K's family had visited the Sierra Nevada brewery just prior to our visit to their home outside Las Vegas, and had generously saved a few bottles for me to try while out there in the desert.  Those, along with one I picked up at a Total Wine back home in Northern California, and one I grabbed shortly after I returned to Albany, made for a fine and wide-ranging sampling of some of Sierra Nevada's more unique beers.