politico's Profile
Iguanas Ranas Taqueria (Middletown, CT): tasty bargain!
I love this place -- favorite thing is that the menu is just a suggestion -- you can negotiate with the cook for whatever you'd like -- Hipo will cook up Equadorian food if you like.
Strongly recommend the fish tacos.
ANY good Chinese in CT?
Forbidden City in Middletown is very good, but a tad pricy. Not sure what you've seen or tasted, but it's good Chinese Fusion that you probably haven't seen elsewhere in the state.
Any Middletown, CT suggestions?
Havelli on South Main serves very good, cheap Indian food. Typhoon on Main serves excellent, cheap Thai.
I dislike First & Last's overpriced underperforming pizza with one exception: their spectacular tomato pie.
Any Middletown, CT suggestions?
Harbor Park is definitely open, but you're paying for the view. The place itself is sleazy (it's owner is a made man) and the food isn't really any good.
Cheese Shops in Connecticut
Oh, I've been to the Wild Rasberry, and Son of the Moon in Middletown is FAR superior... with a significantly better selection, and a much more pleasant store.
I'm going to try to get down to the places recc'd in New London and North Haven when I get a chance...
First & Last Tavern, Middletown, CT
I've never been a fan of First & Last. The food has never been terrible, but it's overpriced and solidly mediocre.
Cheese Shops in Connecticut
What do people have to say about where to buy cheese in CT?
Avoiding Whole Foods and Stop & Shop, and aside from Say Cheese in Simsbury, which I've heard about but haven't been to, by far the best cheese I've seen in CT is at Son of the Moon, on South Main St in Middletown.
They stock 100+ different kinds of cheese and other raw-milk dairy products, some of it local (i.e. New England) and a lot imported. The cheese-lady there sold me a rather-fantastic Norwegian cheese last week really unlike anything I've ever seen or tasted... called "Gjetost" and made out of caramelized (!) whey. It's extremely bizarre to eat a cheese that tastes like toffee... let me assure you.
Any other suggestions?
Looking for the locals favs..the really good stuff
ACK!
I can't in good conscience send anyone to the Maine Avenue Fish Market.
The fish isn't just bad, it's often unsafe to eat. NONE of the fish there is local (even though they put it on "boats" to make it look local), and I think you're running a not-insignificant health risk eating there. If you want DC fish monger recs, I can give them, but Maine Ave is NOT the place to go.
Chicken Kiev???
Thanks! We went (it was like a deep time warp into 1950s American ersatz-European dining culture) and completely satisfied the Chicken Kiev crave. Thanks for the rec!
Lower CT River recs?
Thanks! I went to Routier and absolutely loved it. I'll be back!
Lower CT River recs?
I'd like to go out to a nice meal this weekend in the lower Connecticut area (Chester, Essex, Old Saybrook, Lyme, etc.)
What's the latest consensus on what's good?
I've had Restaurant du Village recommended and then panned, and later reviews seem mixed for the Copper Beech Inn. Where do people go these days for pleasant, upscale food? All things being equal, I would lean towards French-ish or seafood-y food, but I'm certainly not married to either.
Thanks!
L'Astier and Le Villaret in the Paris 11th
Last week, I went to L'Astier and Le Villaret in the 11th, both near Oberkampf.
L'Astier was a huge disappointment. We arrived 10 minutes early, which earned us curses from the maitre d'hotel (an ominous note, if ever there were one). As apparent punishment for our sin, we were seated in the upstairs Anglophone ghetto, next to a group of drunken English football hooligans.
I don't want to judge the restaurant too harshly for the behavior of the other patrons (unimaginably bad -- just for starters, my date was hit in the face by an errant Camembert when a food fight broke out over the cheese plate), but the service was universally awful, and the food was almost without exception lousy (fish was overcooked, my rabbit terrine was dry and bland, only a roast pork dish was tasty although not memorable).
Even Astier's renowned cheese plate (written up in all the guides) was a dissapointment -- not only did the waiter refuse to clean it up after the drunken English effectively destroyed it (he acted insulted at the mere suggestion), but the cheeses themselves were bland and seemed like they'd been purchased at a supermarket. Given that the market on Richard-Lenoir, just a block away, has terrific cheeses at low cost, you have to wonder how hard it must be to make up a decent plateau des fromages. Needless to say, we will not be going back.
Le Villaret the next night was by comparison next to miraculous. Just a couple blocks away from L'Astier, Le Villaret gave us a truly remarkable six course tasting menu at 50 euros. We could have gotten away with a considerably cheaper meal had we eaten a la carte, and the wine selection is simultaneously superior to and much cheaper than the offerings at L'Astier.
There were many highlights of the meal, which included a velvety cauliflower soup (sounds uninteresting but oh soooo good, on a cold damp March night), a smoked-roasted Breton Seabass (Bar), and veal liver of such an exquisite buttery richness and texture that it seemed much more like foie gras than anything else. The service was good-humored but professional.
It was one of the best meals I've ever had in Paris, and I will DEFINITELY be going back. By all accounts the menu changes constantly, so I'll be looking forward to their other options. But run, do not walk to this place while it is still underrated by Michelin and Gault-Millau. When ratings rise (as they almost certainly will), expect prices to follow.
Glastonbury CT
Thanks Jay, it was Ambassador of India.
Just stumbled into it, but the food was very good, much better than most of what passes for Indian in these parts and I remember the tandoori especially being a standout.
Glastonbury CT
I stumbled on an Indian restaurant in Glastonbury (anybody know the name?) a few months ago, and had spectacular tandoori. It was in a little shopping center right on the main drag.
Noho Lhasa, Cafe Lebanon, Bela
Went to Lhasa Cafe about 18 months ago. Was kind of tasteless and uninteresting. I had much better Tibetan food in Middletown, CT of all places, at Little Tibet. I have no desire to go back to Lhasa, even if it is the only place in Northampton were one could, if one wished, procure Yak dumplings.
BTW: Another pull for Amanouz. It's simple, cheap, has a ton of menu items, is really very tasty, and has a certain charm.
Jovia
In the middle of a snowstorm, last Sunday, I had an absolutely terrific meal at Jovia on the UES. Excellent tuna, excellent veal cheek raviolli, and two terrific fish courses. The bottle of wine I ordered had gone bad, so they gave us a much better bottle for the same price. All in all, I was impressed and will go back. Of course it's difficult to judge a restarauant when it's practically empty on a quiet night, but I was very satisfied.
Chicken Kiev???
Thank you all so much! I'll check out the Hofbrauhaus, with my Chicken Kiev-craving girlfriend, next week.
A L'Angle du Faubourg
I went to l'angle de faubourg about four years ago and had a terrific meal for a very reasonable price. I can'r recomend it now because restaruarnts may change over four years, but it was a great find then.
Chicken Kiev???
Is there any place in Southern or Western New England that serves up a passable chicken kiev?
I would have thought that New Britain, CT (with its huge Ukranian population) would, but I called a couple of restaurants and was literally laughed at. One woman said she hadn't seen it served in 30 years. Come to mention it, I'm not sure I have either outside of Russia.
Somebody mentioned the Green Street Cafe in Northampton a while ago (which is normally very good) but it's apparently no longer on the menu there.
Any help... or is this a lost cause? FYI, I'm willing to go as far south as New Haven, as far north as Southern Vermont, west to the New York border or east to Worcester to find this.
THANKS!
Good eats off I-91 in MA or VT?
Define "locals." The Whately Diner is frequented by high school students from Northampton and Amherst in addition to a few UMass kids, in addition to the standard bevy of long haul trucker types. It's bad, but it's not the worst diner in the area by any stretch -- the Amherst diner I think wins that prize, with Miss Florence close behind.
Italy Trip Report: Florence
Sostanza has GREAT bisteca, but the real specialty there isn't just the bistecca, it's the petti di pollo -- the chicken breast cooked in butter. More calories per gram than you want to contemplate, but worth a transatlantic voyage. Oh also -- if you go to Sostanza and eat anything other than the bistecca or the chicken (and this is especially true for pasta) you will probably be disappointed.
