Archive for the ‘Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat’ Category
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Our weather forecast for this week improves for the 2nd half of the week, into the coming Columbus Holiday Weekend. Due to the extended wet weather we’ve been experiencing, we’ve gotten over 9 inches of rain last couple of months at the airport, I will not be scheduling any flights until the end of the week to allow our flying area to dry some before we head out to fly.
So, with another wet weekend for the first weekend of October, wifey and I headed north on Sunday to check-out the fall foliage. We took 87 north to exit 29, North Hudson where Frontier Town use to be, and headed west on Boreas Rd, County Hwy 2B, through the Blue Ridge toward Newcomb.
 A view on 84 on the drive toward Newcomb. The foliage is somewhat muted this fall.  At the end of Tahawus Rd, looking toward Adams and Allen Mountain with Mt. Marcy in the clouds.  A deserted beach on Harris Lake.  The view just south of Indian Lake, of Adirondack Lake at a pull-off on Rt. 28.  We stopped for a late lunch in North Creek at Trappers Tavern.  A bowl of stew for me and a smoked chicken salad samich w/fries for wifey, and a good micro brew. All were very tasty.  A lady working on a mural in North Creek. North Creek is a small, unhurried Adirondack Mountain Village, with some interesting things to check-out. Follow the highlighted links for info on the places we visited on this drive – Tahawus, Long Lake, Indian Lake, and Trappers Tavern.
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat, Hot Air Balloon Flying Weather, Recommended side trips while visiting area | No Comments »
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Last week, wifey and I took a trip up in the mountains to check out Lake Placid, the fall foliage and how the area did after the floods from Irene. We took the drive up the Northway to exit 30, then up Route 73 through Keene Valley to Lake Placid. You could see in spots where 73 was cut by the Ausable, and other brooks and streams by their flood waters. Downtown Keene musta been a river itself with 2 brooks and the Ausable meeting at the 9N and Rt 73 junction in the center of town.
 At the junction of 73 and 9N where the Ausable, Jones and Cascade brooks all come togehter. The building to the right was flooded and off it's foundation.  In Lake Placid, heading to the Brown Dog Wine Bar for lunch  A pulled chicken w/blueberry bbq sauce and slaw for me and a smoked turkey panini for Tani, topped by a local Porter on my side and a nice Malbec for wifey.  The view out on Mirror Lake from the restaurant patio where we were enjoying lunch.  The interior of the restaurant. You might also want to check-out The Mirror Lake Inn's, The Cottage on the lake for lunch.  Another noted Lake Placid establishement, worth the visit.  Since the gondola was closed for rides at Whiteface, we decided to continue up the road to Wilmington to do the drive up the Whiteface Mountain Memorial Highway.  One of the views on the way up the mountain from an overlook.  Up the mountain road.  Another overlook view a little higher up.  Hair-pin turn coming up.  The view down towards Lake Placid.  Our destination, the top of the mountain.  You can either hike or ride an elevator the last 200 feet to the top.  Some off-trail foliage turning it's fall hue.  The view back down the trail.  The weather station and overlook at the peak of Whiteface.  At the top!  On the way out, had to stop and take this pic, advertising a place I came with my fam when I was young, more than 55 years ago.
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat, Recommended side trips while visiting area | No Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2011
What can you do when there is lousy flying weather forecast for the weekend? Well, wifey and I took the opportunity to visit some fav places and visit friends. We are big believers in supporting your local businesses, especially with less than certain times, when your patronage is much appreciated. Our weekend started early Saturday morning at the Farmer’s Market in Glens Falls. We like the variety of offerings at the Market, and got some fresh veggies from a variety of vendors, excellent meat from the Lick Springs Beefalo Farm, fresh eggs and a fav of mine, Dilly Sweet Pickles from Puckers Gourmet.
 The Farmer's Market on South and Exchange Streets in Glens Falls  A look at some of the vendors Late morning, we decided to head out into Washington County for lunch and stop-at some of our favorite farm country retailers along the way. For lunch, we headed-out for Salem and Steininger’s, which is our all-time favorite place for lunch. Steininger’s is a place that offers great soups, samiches, and desserts. Plus, if you are a fan of chocolate, this is the place.
 Time for lunch  The Cafe was pretty full, even at our 2 PM reservation hour.  The view out the window of Main Street at a sleepy Salem, NY.  After our tasty soup starters, lunch is chicken salid on a croissant for Tani, and chicken curry for me.  We topped lunch off with one of their tasty desserts - fresh peaches, strawberriy jam/coulis, on vanilla ice cream and a buttermilk biscuit. On the way back to Queensbury, we stopped at the Battenkill Valley Creamery for some of their ice cream to take home, and their farm fresh corn for the corn relish we planned to put-up in canning jars for use through the year. And since we were going past The Gardenworks at MacClan Farms on County Route 30 after visiting the Creamery, we made a stop for wifey to check-out the plant sale going on for her gardens. I picked-up some farm fresh berries and peaches to take home with us.
 The Gardenworks is housed in an old converted dairy barn.  Inside they have farm fresh goods, gift items and an art gallery that features local artists. On Sunday after we finished making our corn relish, we headed off to Vermont to meet-up with friend and fellow balloonist, Rick Pollock from Shelburne. We met-up at Middlebury, home of Middlebury College, for lunch at the Two Brothers Tavern. We took the car ferry across Lake Champlain at Fort Ti.
 The queue of cars waiting for the ferry.  The car ferry docking for the trip across Lake Champlain to Shoreham VT.  The view north, up the Lake.  Wifey had to stop and check this out on the way in to Middlebury.  For wifey, it's a plant thing. In reality, it's some type of free-form sculpture using sticks and branches  Meeting-up with Rick at the Two Brothers Tavern  Good Times, enjoying some local craft brews and good food.  The dam on the Middlebury River at the Main Street bridge, center of town.  Stopped for some ice cream before heading back home.  We took the car ferry across Lake Champlain at Crown Point heading back to New York, with a view of the new bridge under construction. On a small world type of thing, the company that is building the bridge, Flatiron Construction from Firestorm CO, their lead engineer for the project is a friend of our son Grant who currently lives in Edwards CO. Well, that’s it for this posting. Time to get on to other things!! Oh, I almost forgot, the weather for the week…well, it ain’t good for ballooning until probably Thursday, possibly thru Saturday morning. Today we get a front this afternoon with scattered showers, then clearing overnight with a little high pressure for the morning, then more wide-spread rain late Tuesday into Wednesday. Weather Service is currently forecasting a large area of high pressure for the end of the week for Thursday, possibly into part of the weekend. The weekend’s weather currently is muddled due to forecasting models not agreeing on what it will be… so stay tuned for updates.
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat, Hot Air Balloon Flying Weather, Recommended side trips while visiting area, Visitor Tips | No Comments »
Saturday, June 11th, 2011
On Friday, wifey and I headed over to Weston VT to hook up with good friends Rick Pollock and Paul Stumpf. Paul had built an experimental balloon for Rick. Rick came down from Shelburne to pick-up his new balloon, and the two were heading off to the Experimental Balloon Meet over in Amherst MA for the weekend. Since it was a nice day and my afternoon flight didn’t meet until 6 PM, we decided to drive over just to see it and them, and have lunch before they left for the meet, and I had to do my afternoon flight.
 Stumpf Balloons over on the Andover-Weston Rd  From a prior trip over to Paul's shop to help cut-out the panels for Rick's balloon. That's Rick on the left and Paul on the right.  Cuttin' the panels  The bottom end finished product, of Rick's 2-seater "Hang Balloon"  Then off to have lunch, the parking lot for the VT Country Store in Weston  The Bryant House is part of the Country Store complex, a good place to eat.  Decisions, decisions!!  It's lunch  The main drag of Weston  On the way back to NY, Bromley Mountain Ski area in the summertime.  The view to the southeast across from Bromley. That’s it for this post!!
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat, Recommended side trips while visiting area, Stuff, Travel Stuff | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
Today, met wifey and sister-in-law Marie for lunch at Samantha’s Cafe at Union Square. Samantha’s is a funky kinda place that’s in an old, turn-of-the-last-century industrial building, that’s been redone and turned into a mix-use, commercial space building. There are around 5 or 6 different businesses housed within the building.
 The inside entrance to Samantha's  I think it has a cool, old style industrial look to the space. Notice the high celing and the above wood plank floors. I don't know the history of the building, but coulda been a sewing operation, there were lots of those around back then. 
 Then I went up to the 3rd Floor to visit with Chris Archibee at Mannix Marketing for some updates to my web site.
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat, Stuff | No Comments »
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Since it was a beautiful afternoon, and as expected, many of the weekend visitors have or are leaving, so we decided to drive up to Lake George and have a late lunch on the deck at the Algonquin, just south of Bolton Landing on Rt 9N. The Algonquin has a large outdoor deck area for alfresco dining and beautiful lake views. You go to the Algonquin for the view on the water, not the food, which is ok, similar to other eateries of this type in the area, including some that I’ve written about earlier, like the Docksider on Glen Lake, and The Cave at Cooper’s Cave Brewery in Glens Falls.
 The Algonquin on Rt 9N just south of Bolton Landing  Eric and Tani heading into the restaurant  Alfresco dining under the outdoor canopy  The view off the deck  More deck dining options
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat | No Comments »
Saturday, May 28th, 2011
Went over to Lake Luzerne today to have lunch at Molie’s Mason Jar, actually it’s in Hadley which is right next to Luzerne. Wifey and I have been trying to find this place because of the owners wife – Ling Ling, who before moving over to Hadley/Luzerne, owned and operated the best, and I do mean the best bakery ever over near me in Queensbury, Bakers Dream. We were anxious to try it out in hopes that Ling Ling was doing some baking. Chatted a bit with her on the way out, and she unfortunately said she pretty much has relegated herself to hosting duties and whatever needs to be done in the background, not baking:-( This girl was magic in the bakery. By moving she probably saved my cholesterol. Anyhow, the food that we had for lunch was good for what you might expect from Hadley. Since she’s not baking, we decided we’d rather either head north to the Main Street Ice Cream Parlor in Chestertown or our fav lunch/brunch place, Steininger’s over in Salem. The food is just as good or better and the drive is much more interesting. I’ve bloged on both of these places earlier.
 Molly's Mason Jar. There is a golf course, Bend in the River across from it.  The inside is done-up in a Mission Arts & Crafts stlye, probably an old hotel from 20's
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat | No Comments »
Friday, May 27th, 2011
On Wednesday, wifey and I went down to Saratoga Springs to check-out the new digs for what’s been our fav Saratoga place for good eats, Maestro’s. Maestro’s used to be a small, intimate bistro that had a European flare and great food – I did an earlier blog w/pics from the old Maestro’s last year. Now, it has moved just a couple of buildings down Broadway into a much larger space, that at one time was the Rip Van Dam Hotel. While we loved the intimacy of the bistro style, I understand the wishes of the owners to move into a much bigger space. Now, Maestro’s at The Van Dam has morphed into another upscale Saratoga Springs type of eatery. The old hotel sports a rather large, long balcony typical to the day when the Rip Van Dam Hotel was in it’s heyday. It makes for a grand, but noisy location to dine alfresco. We decided to eat off the Prix Fixe menue.
 Enjoying snacks and drinks  The Goat Cheese & Herb Ravioli was very tasty. Tani's salad was, well...salad.  Tani's Wild Salmon was fantastic, while my Hickory smoked espresso glazed BBQ 1/2 chicken was so salty I couldn't finish it. I did enjoy the baked beans that came with it?  For the Dessert Course, we selected one of each that was offered on the Prix Fixe menue. Lemon Cheese Pie and White Chocolate Cherry Bread Pudding. The Bread Pudding was the better of the two. While we were a bit disappointed with the new look, I’m sure they will do fine as Saratoga is definitely an upscale kind of place. We’ll be back, but probably won’t make it our default Saratoga place to dine. Saratoga offers a number of options for good eats.
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat | No Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
Today being Cinco de Mayo, wifey and I went to Raul’s Mexican Grill in downtown Glens Falls tonight. The weather around here is still kinda crappy, with lots of high water and flooding (the Hudson River is still at flood stage–check-out the video I took of the water coming over the Glens Falls dam last Saturday on my facebook page April 30th post). But, Cinco de Mayo was a good excuse to go get some good grub at our fav Mexican restaurant. We’ve never had a bad meal at this little eatery.
 Downtown Glens Falls  Raul's Mexican Grill on the roundabout  Fish tacos, tamales, and Negra Modelo  Key lime pie to top it all off
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat | No Comments »
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Last night was dinner at Raul’s Mexican Grill on the round-a-bout in downtown Glens Falls and an Adirondack Phantom’s hockey game at the Civic Center. Raul’s is a small restaurant that serves a Mexican/fusion, rather than Tex/Mex style of dinning, which wifey and I prefer. As I said, place is small, so at times it’s hard to get a table on a walk-up with no res. So far, I haven’t had a bad meal and have tried something dif each time we have visited. We were joined by son Eric, and his friends Jay and Kara. After dinner, we all headed over to the Civic Center to catch the last game of the season between Adirondack and the Albany Devils, Adk won 4-1. The hockey is very uptempo like today’s NHL, this is the AHL, one step below the bigs. Adk is the Philadelphia Flyers top farm team and Albany is naturally the Devils farm team. Funny, my sis and her hubby, the captain, are rabid Devils fans. To them, the hated rivals are, naturally the NY Rangers, and….the Flyers (my sis almost got into a flight w/a Flyers fan in the ladies room one time when we were at a game at the Devils old arena at the MeadowLands). By coincidence, the Phantom’s moved here from Phila when their arena was torn down to make room for parking for the Flyers new arena, and the Devils around same time moved their farm team from MA, back to Albany, just 50 miles apart makes for a heated rivalry and the game shows it.
 Eric and Tani chatting at Raul's  In it's previous life, Raul's was a barber shop on a corner in the center of downtown, now the round-a-bout.  The game  A Phantom's power play  They score a power play goal...
Posted in Good Eats & Fav Places to Eat, Visitor Tips | No Comments »
|
 |
 |
|
