This gallery contains 72 photos.
After our respite at the Dawa bar, we were set for adventure on the Kilimanjaro Safari. When people say things are worth the price of admission, it’s usually a bit of an exaggeration, not so here. The Kilimanjaro Safari is … Continue reading
This gallery contains 67 photos.
During our previous visits to Animal Kingdom it’s been either too hot, too cold or too rainy to fully enjoy. This time it was juuust right, Goldilocks. The first thing you’ll notice about this park is the lay out. It … Continue reading
This gallery contains 46 photos.
After our zig over to Adventureland we zagged back to New Fantasyland, more specifically to Gaston’s Tavern. This is another Beauty and the Beast themed area. I’m super glad I the caught movie before our visit because the details of this … Continue reading
This gallery contains 51 photos.
Today we are headed to the Magic Kingdom. So exciting! Though it’s not my number one favorite park (I’m looking at you, Epcot), there’s still nothing like approaching the train station and seeing that big ole’ Mickey head in flowers … Continue reading
This gallery contains 54 photos.
After our pranzo in Italy we needed a bit of time and digestion before hitting Food & Wine. Luckily, there are a still few more things to do in Epcot besides eating, really. We headed back to Future World to … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
Here we are again, returning from another trip to Walt Disney World. If you’ve been paying attention, you may recall that I predicted that we would not be visiting the World again until the kiddos were graduated and out of … Continue reading
In just a few days we will be heading back to Walt Disney World to experience our second Food & Wine Festival. This is less a vacation and more of a pilgrimage. Dozens of adorable kiosks from around the world dispensing epicurean delicacies as well as tasty libations.
This cute as a button, thatched roof cottage houses my Guinness and Fisherman’s Pie!
I’m afraid, however, that I’ve set myself up poorly for this event. In the past several weeks we have had the pleasure of enjoying some absolutely marvelous meals right here in our back yard. The bar has been set quite high. Our Beer Dinner at Nosh Tavern was just stunning and more recently we celebrated our daughter’s birthday at Tastings Wine Bar and Bistro. Truth be told, Tastings is a venue that we were interested playing, but she really wanted to go after she saw the menu. We did get the gig, but it has no bearing on my review. Honest.
Tastings is located at Patriot Place in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Football fan or not, this is a great take. Adjacent to the stadium is a 1.3 million square foot shopping/dining bonanza.
Gillette Stadium
Most of the restaurants here are absolutely humongus and seat hundreds of people. This makes perfect sense due to the 65,000 seat stadium next door. Tastings stands out among these people-eating behemoths. It’s a small, intimate wine bar offering American Haute-Farm cuisine. They focus on the use of fresh, seasonal ingredients that are sourced from local farmers, ranchers, and fishermen who follow sustainable practices.
Tastings exterior. Very inviting
I have to confess that I wasn’t expecting our dinner to be as fantastic as it was. While I typically take photos of everything we order out (there’s got to be a twelve-step for this), I didn’t take any interior shots or make note of things like what wine we chose. Had I known how much we would enjoy everything, I would have noted details. As a result, I’m winging it a bit.
Our server helped us choose a lovely cabernet. Our daughter was celebrating her eighteenth birthday (Hooray! we got two through to adulthood!). The bartender prepared a non-alcohlic cocktail that was just perfect for the birthday girl.
Blueberry Sage cocktail
Our meal started with an amuse bouche. This was a cold beet soup with goat cheese and a pumpernickel crouton. Despite my aversion to beets and it’s unfortunate Pepto Bismol color, it was quite good.
It was better than it looked.
We had been recommended to try the popcorn. This seems like pretty strange thing to order in a Bistro. Friends, this ain’t the stuff that litters the floor of your local honky tonk. This popcorn is buttered with DUCK FAT!!!
Looks can be deceiving.
Our server helped us to decide on this next dish. It was by far the best thing we sampled, and that’s saying a whole lot. What we have here is an egg, poached in a spicy tomato broth with duck and chicken confit. Exquisite. The flavor of the broth was phenomenal and the egg was cooked perfectly.
Slurp!
We followed this concoction up with some calamari, but again this dish had a different twist.
“Now, that’s a squid of a different color!”
This is described on the menu as: Point Judith Calamari with Tarragon-Pistachio Pesto, Sauce Gribiche and Greens. The green hue was a bit jarring, but oh the flavor! The tarragon was subtle and not overpowering. This dish educated me because I had never even heard of Sauce Gribiche. All I can say is “where have you been all my life?” This is like mayonnaise-zilla. It’s a creamy emulsion with chopped hard cooked egg, pickled cucumber, capers, parsley chervil and tarragon. Plate-licking delicious! According to Wikipedia, this sauce also goes well with calves head. I’ll have to take their word for it.
Meghan chose the “Award Winning Mac and Cheese”. This contained a variety of local cheeses, finished with truffle oil smoked bread crumbs. I swiped a bite and it was quite good, but I preferred the Mac and Cheese at Nosh Tavern, although I wouldn’t refuse a bowl/tub of this either, that’s for sure.
Mac and Cheese
Jeff and I decided to show some temperance and just split a burger. This was dressed with caramelized romaine, porchetta di testa, smoked tomato aioli, Grafton Village cheddar and served with hand cut fries and house made local pickles. It was marvelous. I have only two critcisms. One, it was a bit over-done. We requested rare to medium-rare and it came out decidedly medium. Second, I was psyched about the house made pickles (I’m a bit of a pickle addict) but they were actually pickled BEETS, and you know how I feel about beets. Sad trombones. Despite my nit-picking, the flavor of the beef combined all the accompaniments (beside the beets) made for an outstanding burger.
Beet juice on my burger. Grrrr!
Remember when I mentioned that I’d take a pass on the calves head? Well, come to find out that the “porchetta di testa” is actually rolled pig’s head. I didn’t know this at the time, it just tasted like the best pancetta I ever had. I will not post a link. If you are faint of heart at all, DO NOT search google images. You’re welcome.
Speaking of offal, on to the next course! I’ve always wanted to try sweetbreads. For the uninitiated among us, these breads are not from the bakery.
Chicken Fried Sweetbreads
If you’re going to try something of this nature, I feel it’s best to have it deep fried, but there was really nothing to be afraid of. These were just lovely. The batter was light and crisp and delicately coated in a honey-cayenne glaze. The sweetbreads were so tender. They were accompanied by pickled kale and a tomatillo jam. I wasn’t crazy about these additions. Nothing wrong with them, I just preferred the sweetbreads on their own.
We didn’t even look at the dessert menu due to the fact that I made the girl a pretty rockin’ birthday cake…from scratch. Judging by the rest of our meal, there’s no reason to believe wouldn’t be outrageously good. Next time.
The girl had two pieces, we ate the rest.
Gratuitous cute photo of my baby girl. Happy Eighteenth!
You certainly have to be up for something different if you’re headed to Tastings. For food nerds like us, it was a delightful surprise that expanded our knowledge and palates. We’re sure to be celebrating something here in the future. How about National Offal Day?
For most of my life I’ve lived about twenty to thirty minutes from the Atlantic coast line. However, it’s only been for the last few years that I have had a real appreciation for this fact. I mean, just look at a map of the U.S. There’s a whole lot of rectangular states in the middle. I imagine that there are folks who live their whole lives having never seen the ocean. Meanwhile, I could have just mosied on over to the beach anytime I felt like it! What was I thinking? Recently, because of our night job we’ve had much more occasion to spend time down by the sea, specifically Plymouth Massachusetts. I’ve really grown to love this town. It’s got it all:
Gorgeous seaside vistas,
Purty
History galore,
The Mayflower ll
Plymouth Rock
Yup, it’s just a rock.
We travelled halfway across the world for this???
Charming architecture,
Historical society = white paint.
And a downtown area that has miraculously escaped the corporate chain restaurant / mini-mall scourge.
So cute!
Meet me for a cappuccino!
In addition to ocean views and history, you will find a plethora of restaurants and pubs in the area, all clamoring to win over tourists and locals alike. This is a winning situation. Most recently we had the opportunity to enjoy a special event at one of our favorite new eateries, Nosh Tavern. If you are local, you’re welcome, this will be your new favorite place as well. If you are not, well, sorry…but you can enjoy the pictures, right?
This evening Nosh was hosting a beer dinner sponsored by the Mayflower Brewing Company. Each course of the dinner would be paired with one of their superb brews and what’s more, the chefs responsible for each of the offerings were in competition with each other. All the better for us.
Mayflower Brewmasters
Yes, this table of youngsters are the crafters responsible for creating new varieties of Mayflower beer. Feel old.
Menu / Scorecard
On to the first pairings. This course started off the evening on a delectable note.
The Beer: Summer Rye, paired with a savory crepe of marscarpone-cheddar, caramelized apples, pancetta, and bacon fat powder dust.
And the Second pairing.
The Beer: Autumn Wheat, paired with cold smoked lobster tail, pea shoot avocado salad, Autumn Wheat vinaigrette, and pickled ginger.
These two pairings highlighted my ignorance of what works together. I would have assumed the the lighter Pale Ale would have best paired with the salad, while the Autumn Wheat would work better with the more savory notes of the crepe. Not so, the balance was perfect for each dish.
Course three was my favorite!
The Beer: Pale Ale paired with rabbit terrine, Pale Ale-Espresso glaze and Pale Ale sabayon.
The depth of flavor here was outstanding. This is one of those dishes where each component was so delicious, but when you combined them, it became one most perfect bite. The star on the plate, believe it or not was the pickled carrots. These were pickled using the Pale Ale. I could have just eaten them and been wowed, but they took on a whole different flavor profile when paired with the rabbit. Carrots, who woulda thought?
The last savory course:
The Beer IPA paired with house corned beef, braised red cabbage, russian dressing.
This dish was my least favorite, which is not to say it wasn’t delicious, it just had some components that didn’t work for me. The corned beef was tasty and the braised cabbage, oh my, I could have eaten a cereal bowl full of that stuff! What I didn’t care for was that the portions were served on edible rye “spoons”. While they looked cute, they were not house made, which stood out, considering everything that goes on a plate here is house made as a rule. Besides that, they were dry and not very good. I would have much preferred the beef served atop a nice triangle of homemade caraway rye. I also didn’t dig the consistency of the sauce that was on the plate. That being said, everyone around us loved it and thought the spoons were a hoot, so what do I know?
A quick visit to the powder room before desert. This painting greets you in the hallway. Analyze away.
Dessert!
The Beer: Porter paired with a biscuit roulade, espresso syrup, coffee, buttercream and chocolate ganache.
My all time favorite beer is a Porter. I’m one of those people who loves beer that you can’t see through. Porter is great because it has the flavors of a Guinness without being as filling (read: you can drink more). The dessert was phenomenal as you can well imagine. Aside from Jeff getting cocoa powder all over his shirt from the edge of the plate, it was an absolute success.
While there are dozens of restaurants in the downtown Plymouth area that are well worth spending some time and money at, Nosh has proven to be a gem. In addition to the Beer dinner, we’ve stopped in for a quick cocktail and an appetizer and enjoyed chatting with the staff as well as had full out meals there celebrating special occasions. Every time has been a memorable experience. Cheers to them! We’ll continue to do our part help them succeed. Yum.
Today we were setting out to see the Newport Mansions, as one is compelled to do. I will spare you the blow by blow of how we walked a mile to visit a bakery that is supposed to have the best pastries in town only to find it closed. It was Monday after all. We found an acceptable second choice and fueled up.
One can spend days touring the mansions in Newport, but in my mind, if you’ve seen one opulently gilded ballroom, you’ve seen them all. We decided to just visit the grandaddy of all the mansions, The Breakers.
The tickets were a about twenty dollars each. A little hefty, but if you want to tour an additional mansion it’s just five dollars more. For ten dollars more you can visit all the mansions. Good on ya if you’re up for it. Another add-on available was a Servants Tour where you can experience the gilded age through the eyes of the staff, but I’ve watched all three seasons of Downton Abby so I’m pretty much up to speed on that.
There was no photography allowed inside the mansions. The delicate fabrics and tapestries are vulnerable to flash, I guess. They take this rule very seriously. When a guy tried and take an iPhone photo in the Grand Hall there was a lady with a walkie talkie on him in two seconds flat. I did however find another blogger who had some pretty sweet interior photos. I’m not sure if he/she got permission so I won’t rat them out.
Photo Gallery!
This is a self guided tour where you are outfitted with head phones and walkman type device that you can advance at your own pace. I have to say, this was really well done. There were not only facts and details about the construction and the history of the house, there was also commentary from people who actually visited or served the Vanderbilt family. Another nice feature was that if you wanted to expand the tour, you could key in a number at certain locations and learn even more about aspects of the house or it’s occupants. We did this just a couple of times, but if you wanted, you could turn a ninety minute tour into a three hour event. Not for us though, we had lunch to get to!
View from the second floor Balcony
I could easily set up my Weber grill down there.
After the tour was through we were free to roam around the grounds.
Side view of the cottage. Did I mention this was a summer home?
The Back Yard
Horrifying fountain
This guy guards the portal to hell.
Time for lunch!
You might remember how disappointed I was with my choice of venue for our anniversary dinner. I’m almost over it. Lunch however, was a totally different story. In researching for our hotel I looked into some of the most recommended (read: most expensive) options as well, just for comparison sake. The Chanler at Cliffwalk was one of the finest. With rooms ranging from $700 to $1200 per night this was not where we would be laying our heads. However, we would take full advantage of their amenities.
The Chanler. Unassuming compared the the Breakers!
The front lawn and driveway.
Can you guess which car is ours? You’re right!
Sneak peek of the view.
The Chanler hosts the “jacket required” restaurant Spiced Pear. This is dinner only so no dice for lunch even if Jeff was sporting a jacket. By the way, no entree on this menu was over forty-one dollars. Still working on my resentment. Anyway, this fine establishment also offers dining in the Vernada or on the Terrace for breakfast lunch and dinner, with a very affordable menu. However, the food isn’t the star here, it’s the jaw dropping view!
Tadah!
How delightful!
The patio terrace
The menu featured a variety of salads, fresh seafood and sandwiches. We started with the lobster bisque.
Creamy lobster deliciousness.
Jeff got the fish tacos with mango slaw. I didn’t steal a bite. Very unusual for me.
Fish tacos
I got a tasty burger with onion marmalade, topped with onion rings. Very oniony. I’m a lady so I chose salad instead of fries.
A dainty lunch
After lunch we took our adult beverages out to the lounge chairs for some reclining.
You know you couldn’t resist either.
Aahhh….
Looking back at the terrace.
We look a last walk through of the Chanler before we headed out.
The Veranda
The manly bar. I could spend some time here.
Cozy conversation area.
I’m sure there’s a back story to these paintings.
No visit to a fancy hotel is complete without a snoop at the facilities. These were some of the finest I’ve seen.
The powder room
The loveliest of sinks and real cloth towels.
A place to regain your composure.
Still in the bathroom.
Let’s get one last look at that view!
So here’s the thing. In our limited travels, I’ve discovered that there are some exquisite hotels out there that, other than actually sleeping in the beds, you can really enjoy almost every aspect of their amenities. This time, for the price of a casual lunch, we observed the most spectacular seaside view in Newport, reclined on the manicured lawns in their Adirondack lounge chairs while sipping fine libations and basically traipsed around enjoying all the comforts afforded any guest. We were customers after all.
Our two day jaunt to Newport was just lovely. Despite my laments about certain meals (just my type A controller showing) we couldn’t have had a better time. We saw and did enough to be satisfied, but there’s certainly many reasons to visit again …maybe after we get to Tokyo.
I definitely wanted to do some kind of harbor cruise while we were in Newport. There were several boating possibilities we could go for. There were some double-decker water taxi type of boats. Fine, but seemed too touristy, like a sight-seeing bus in New York City (no offense to tourists or busses or NYC). They had a couple of boozy cruises focusing mostly on rum, not my favorite spirit. Then I caught wind (sorry) of a sail boat outing. Sold!
We went with Classic Cruises of Newport which offers two different vessels, the Rum Runner (the afore mentioned booze cruise) and the classic schooner the Madeleine. We of course choose the schooner. At thirty dollars per person, the cost was pretty reasonable for a ninety minute cruise.
Ain’t she a beaut?
Heading up the wobbly dock
This boat was no joke. It’s a real sailing vessel with lots of opportunities to get clobbered by a mast or to slide off the deck into the icy peril of the Atlantic ocean.
Don’t sit here!
Passengers sit on the life vest boxes.
Towering mast, pre-sail
After we got a very brief schpeel about where not to stand or walk (practically everywhere) we set sail.
You have to have some guns to raise these sails.
Full Sail!
This is one of those situations where you take it for granted that the people in charge know what they’re doing. There was a three person crew who were quite competent by all means, but once you set sail and the boat starts tipping waaaay over and your digging your nails into the box you’re perched upon, you start ask yourself some questions like: “Should I have called the better business bureau to see if, you know, everyone manages to come back from one of these cruises?” and “How can these three “kids” running this vessel have years and years of nauticle experience?” Seriously, the wind breaker I was wearing was older than these skippers!
The pictures I took can’t portray the degree of the angle at which we were tilted. Below is a shot of another schooner in action.
Weeeee!!!!!
Hold on!
Perhaps this tilted photo of the Angie Dickenson lookalike across from us helps illustrate the situation!
My paranoia was unfounded. The crew was both professional and friendly. There was one gentleman that stayed at the helm while the two others milled around with the guests sharing informative bits of history and trivia. It was a nice mix of chatting and just letting us enjoy the cruise.
Jaqueline Bouvier Kenny summered here, I’m told
We were also supplied with complimentary drinks (water and juice, no scotch) and blankets. Inevitably half the guests are going to be dressed too lightly for the open waters. Good on them for keeping us comfy. As we neared the end of the trip, the skies turn a bit angry and the crew had ponchos at the ready in case of a deluge. We throughly enjoyed this experience. They offer a sunset cruise as well, but it wasn’t quite warm enough in my book. Worth coming back for, though!
We arrived safely on terra-firma and decided to head back to the room and freshen up before dinner. I mentioned in our first installment that I was hoping for a little special treatment from the Hotel for our anniversary. Lo and behold there was a knock at the door and these arrived:
Anniversary Cupcakes!!!
But, here’s the terribly sad part. They came with a lovely card, which I promptly opened and glanced over. What I saw was “Thank you for choosing Hotel Viking… blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…. close card. What it actually said was there was a complimentary bottle of wine waiting for us at their award winning restaurant down stairs. I didn’t even notice until I was looking at my pictures Nooooooo!!!!!! This seemed all the more tragic after we had a not-so stellar, extremely expensive meal back on the wharf. More on that later.
We weren’t quite hungry enough for dinner so we pushed back our reservation and wandered around the shops around town. We heard some live music which was unexpected on a Sunday afternoon, so we popped in to check it out.
These guys were…pretty good!
The place was pretty empty. Just being across the street from the waterfront is a detriment in an ocean town. The bars on the wharf were hoppin’. Plus this place was a little run down.
The bar. A bit grody.
Maker’s Mark. We split one.
The couple of folks that were there we’re diggin’ it though. I love watching people dance. Good dancers amaze and bad dancers amuse! You can decide from these action shots which these were. I’m not telling.
We headed back down to the wharf to catch the sunset and nose around a bit.
Adirondack chairs
This bike was parked at the back door of one of the restaurants. I had to stop and see what book would be so important as to need to tie it onto the back of a motorcycle.
It’s a classic french cook book called La Repetoire de la Cuisine! I found this scenario quite charming for some reason.
I then proceeded to take a jillion pictures of the gorgeous sunset and us in front of it. I’ll only subject you to a few of the sunset and just one selfie. They did come out good.
vvv
Ok, that’s enough of that.
Our reservations at the Clarke Cook House were for about 8:30. I’d found this place recommended on a must-do website. Let me say right off the bat that there was really nothing terribly wrong with it, it just wasn’t as special as I would have liked for our Anniversary dinner. I had considered dining at One Bellevue right at the hotel, which has stellar reviews (and free wine. Ugh!) but I wanted to eat by the ocean and enjoy the waterfront area as much as possible.
Clarke Cook House
The restaurant was divided into different areas. The dining room we were seated in is called the Candy Store. I assumed because of the brightly colored directors chairs (super uncomfortable by the way) but as I looked back at their website, I noticed the chairs used to be of a lovely wicker variety that looked much nicer.
Candy Store Dining room
Because I, ahem, mentioned that it was our anniversary they seated us at a table right by the water.
Lovely View
It was a little chilly that night, so the plastic windows were rolled down. My pictures of the sunset got more and more horrible as the sun went down. By the way, I just learned how to make photo galleries, if you haven’t noticed.
We started with a celebratory Manhattan and were served some pretty tasty bread.
Maker’s Mark Manhattan
Ciabatta Rools and Butter
The menu has a very dated feel and was VERY expensive. I don’t mind laying out cash for fine dining, but this was pretty simple stuff. It felt like a tourist trap. We decided to start with some oysters and share a steak.
Oysters
The presentation of the oysters was so 1980’s, they practically had shoulder pads. Again, nothing wrong with them, just nothing special. The steak was well prepared and tasty. Strangely it came with both roasted and puréed potatoes. We thought they might be parsnips and asked the server but she didn’t even know. We didn’t inquire further. All in all fine, but this entree was nearly FIFTY dollars. That’s U.S. currency not Zimbabwean dollars. I go Disney World every year, so I’m used to getting taken, but I’ve never paid this much for one entree even in the swishiest place on property.
One ‘spenive steak.
I think I would have felt slightly differently about our dinner if it weren’t such a special occasion, but even still it was way too pricey for the atmosphere and quality. Plus, I just felt I let us down by not doing more due diligence. After I saw the gorgeously appointed dining room and exquisite menu (which had no entree over $39.00) at One Bellevue, I was all the more disappointed. Guess we’ll just have to go back soon and get our free wine.
We ended the evening at the bar in the hotel. They had a formidable scotch selection. We chose a Talisker 10 year old.
The Bar at the hotel Viking (picture absconded from the website)
Talisker 10 year old
We had a lovely conversation with the bartender and happened to mention that it was our anniversary. Then she broke out a bottle of Talisker 25 year old scotch. Oh boy! We each got a mouthful of this absolutely heavenly spirit. Honestly this eyedropper full of scotch was probably worth more than the house wine we would have received. Once again, a good scotch rescues the evening!
Up Next: Checking out how the original one percenters lived.
