Review of Grass Roots Creamery (Granby, CT)

Grass Roots Creamery is one of the must-stop places if you're in north-central CT. They used to be open only April-November, but are experimenting with staying open all winter this year. Please go support them!

They serve ice cream, all of it made in house, much of it wildly creative. In the summer there's about three dozen flavors ready to be scooped; they seem to have cut back to about two dozen right now, but it's still a great range of options. Example: my mother-in-law once got a three-scoop with Geranium, Lavender, and Rose Chocolate Chip as the flavors. They've had flavors as disparate as Pear Blue Cheese, Maple Bacon, and Olive Oil Rosemary. They're constantly trying out new flavors and sadly, this sometimes means that they shelve old ones (I once had a scoop of jalapeno-chip ice cream there. It was amazing. I've never seen it again.)

There's a fascinating back-story of activism and courage behind the store and the name.

The owners are currently expanding, with an eatery opening next door. (Edited to add: open as of 11/28/18)

My only criticism of Grass Roots Creamery is that it's bad for people with specific food allergies, as they cannot guarantee a lack of cross-contamination. They are completely up front about this, but don't have an easy way to address the problem, as they use the same equipment to produce all their different flavors.

Review of Mei Tzu (East Windsor, CT)

Mei Tzu is a small Chinese restaurant in East Windsor, CT. It also has an excellent sushi bar and a few Thai offerings, such as curry. It's located in a strip mall between a tattoo parlor and a gun shop, but ignore the surroundings. The restaurant inside is pretty, cozy, and serves the best Asian food in the area.

Although you can get such typical fare as General Tso Chicken (and it's very good), you really want to try the house specials. The Mongolian Beef is crispy, spicy, and a real treat. The Basil Beef and the Garlic Shrimp are delectable and my whole family adores the Boneless Duck. My personal favorite is the Thai Casserole, a delicate but complex blend of spices, coconut milk, vegetables, chicken, and shrimp. If you're eating alone, this is a balanced dinner in a single pot.

From the regular menu, I confidently recommend the Spicy Jengdu Dumplings and the Hot and Sour Soup (yes, I know the latter is vegetarian - trust me, you won't even miss the meat.) I love the Garlic and Ginger Sauteed Bean Sprouts with Chicken and I've yet to feed it to somebody who doesn't end up liking it. The chef is very good with noodles: try the Drunken Noodles, the Chow Fun, and the Pad Thai.

The sushi is also great, with some really creative special rolls like the White Forest Roll, the Fujiyama Mama, and the eponymous Mei Tzu roll in addition to the usual fare.

The lunch menu has a wide range of options. The basic lunch is a great deal at $7 for a plate of pork-fried rice, brown, or white rice and your choice of entree. You can add on an egg roll (don't bother) or soup (all three options are very good) for just a dollar. I recommend the Beef with Broccoli, the Vegetable Delight with Tofu, the Kung Pao Chicken, or any of the Thai Curry options.

The menu is clearly marked with both gluten-free and vegetarian options, and the servers will help you select dishes that fit your dietary needs.

My only complaint about this restaurant is that they use wide, shallow serving bowls that take up an unreasonable amount of real estate on the table. But this is a small matter. The servers are friendly and efficient; the food is delicious and reasonably priced. What are you waiting for?

Review of Tiger Belly Noodle Bar (Granby, CT)

Tiger Belly Noodle Bar is located in a quiet little strip mall in Granby, CT. Parking is relatively plentiful. The restaurant itself is a bit hard to find: follow your GPS to 9 Mill Pond Road and it's the middle store in the second plaza on the right. If you just park and walk around, it will be easier to find.

The restaurant itself is long and narrow. There are two big tables up front that each seat up to 8 people, and are often being shared by smaller groups. There are two smaller tables that seat up to 4 people each in back, by the bathroom. In the middle, there's an L-shaped seating area surrounding the kitchen and sushi counter. The view is partially obstructed by all the ingredients they keep piled up on the counters, but you can get a good sense of what's going on. It's completely casual, and service is a bit erratic, but there's a lovely sense of warmth and good humor emanating from the chefs and the harried servers.

Tiger Belly is part of the same restaurant group as Mei Tzu, so the sushi menus are almost identical. The sushi is reasonably priced and very good, with some complex options (the Mei Tzu roll is out of this world) and the usual basics.

The appetizer menu includes standard options like edamame and fried beef gyoza, but you have to give the bao buns a try. They're messy, but so delicious that you won't even care. Seriously, I've had worse bao buns at 3 star restaurants in NYC. They're a must-buy. (Two buns per order at $9, so feel free so share with a friend.)

The main menu includes two types of fried chicken, a rice bowl, and three types of soup. The fried chicken is shatteringly crispy and delicious. My kids wrinkled their noses at eating chicken on the bone, but they quickly got behind it and devoured the whole plate. We haven't tried the rice bowl yet, but the table next to us got it and seemed quite pleased; it looked like a generous portion.

The vegetarian ramen is good, the pho with brisket and dumplings is better, and "The Darkness", their signature pork ramen, is unbelievably good. I recommend trying them all, either sharing around the table or on three separate visits.

Review of Han Restaurant (West Hartford, CT)

Han is a hot-pot specialty restaurant located on a side street in West Hartford, CT. There's plenty of parking. Reservations recommended for popular times, but we walked in on a Thursday at 1pm and there were plenty of booths still available.

Han is slowly branching out to include more foods that aren't hot-pot. The hot-pot is so yummy that I haven't tried anything except their fried dumplings, which are quite good.

The specialty, of course, is hot-pot. They have a choice of a dozen types of broth, many of them either sour or spicy. For beginners, I recommend either the Mushroom or the Chinese Herbal broth.

The lunch special is quite a bargain: broth, noodles or rice, a choice of basic protein (lamb, chicken, shrimp, fish, or beef) and a platter of vegetables and mushrooms, all for $11.99 per person. If you're a heavy eater, you might want to order one more serving of meat.

The dinner menu is bit pricier, but portions are larger. The vegetable platter at dinner is huge and can be shared over 2 or 3 people. There are several pages of options for things to put into your hot pot: mushrooms, meatballs, noodles, meat, a whole page of vegetables!

One of the best features of Han is their sauce bar, which features about two dozen different options, plus a couple of pre-made sauces. It's hard to go wrong unless you hate cilantro and accidentally put it in your dish. I really like both pre-made sauces and will jazz them up with diced preserved vegetables or cilantro and scallions.

Review of Shu Chinese Restaurant (West Hartford, CT)

Shu is a small, friendly restaurant in the same shopping plaza as A-Dong Market and Pho Boston, at 160 Shield Street. Reservations recommended, particularly if you go with a party larger than 4 people. The dishes are reasonably priced but the portions are a bit smaller than at other places, so order some appetizers or another entree to share with the table. This is a Szechuan restaurant so they take their spice seriously: a one-pepper rating here would be a two-pepper rating almost anywhere else, and even the no-pepper ratings have a bit of zip to them.

We went there with family and had a marvelous dinner.

For appetizers, we ordered the fried pork dumplings (very juicy and tasty), the Cheng-du potatoes (just French Fries with Szechuan pepper powder dusted over them but so, so good), and scallion pancakes (literally the best I have ever eaten.)

For the main course, we had tea smoked duck (very good), crispy beef with coconut sauce (too sweet for me, but the kids loved it), sauteed string beans (tasty and perfectly cooked), young pea greens with garlic (divine, as always), lobster with scallion and ginger (tasty, but very hard to eat with just chopsticks!), and steamed pork belly with preserved pickled vegetables (melt-in-your-mouth good).

I left to pick up some groceries from A-Dong Market before they closed, but the rest of the family stayed to eat dessert. I believe they ordered one of everything (it's not a long menu) and thoroughly enjoyed them.

26th day of Summer Vacation: in which we laze around and eat really good food

We decided to rest our feet for a day and enjoy the lovely view from our rental units. We got a carry-out lunch from a little sandwich shop called Cicinin Panini al Metro. I have no idea what was in them, but man were they good. (Edited to add: one was soprasetta and the other was roast beef with Asiago.)

We went for our "fancy dinner" of the trip to Ristorante il Vicoletto. You should definitely eat there, and you should also definitely make reservations. We were lucky that they could squeeze us in at opening time, but we were given a firm departure time of 7:45 so the 8:00 seating could get the table.

Appetizers: spinach souffle in cream sauce (so good) and seafood appetizer, consisting of chopped smoked salmon, a grilled scallop in pea sauce, hot shredded cot, an anchovy wrapped with pickled red peppers, grilled octopus over a squash sauce. Also so good.

First course: Four of us had gnocchi in cream sauce with a huge piece of crispy fried pork; the others had squash ravioli with saffron sauce. Both so good. So rich.

Second course: MIL had a seafood tagliatelle in saffron sauce, from the 1st course menu. The rest of us had lamb chops or rib-eye steak, but I had salmon in curry sauce with mussels and fried oysters. The salmon sat on a raft of steamed spinach. It was divine. Everything was really good.

The house special dessert was apricot and Grand Marnier cake, and that was very good, too.

25th day of Summer Vacation: in which we take a train into Switzerland

We took a train to Domodossola, and then another train over the mountains to Locorna. Lovely views from the train, although it was hard to get good pictures.

Lunch there at Sensi: Ristorante Fred Feltpausch, which had a nice view of the water and some very aggressive sparrows.

I had the chicken marsala with saffron risotto (the former too salty, and with too much sage; the latter very good.)
DH and I split a caprese salad that was competent, but not amazing.
Younger Son and DH each had pasta carbonara, which was very rich.
MIL had lake trout with saffron risotto. She said it was very good.
FIL had a pasta dish with basil, tomatoes, and maybe capers? or anchovies?
Elder Son had some kind of schnitzel with fries.

Then we took a slow ferry back along Lago Maggiore, to Stresa. MIL thought the ferry left at 2:10, but it actually left at 4:15. We walked around town and found a nice shopping district. I finally managed to find good face lotion and we bought freshly squeezed orange juice and Swiss pastries. But we spent a lot of time sitting around on the dock.

There was no passport control either way, although we'd been warned to take our passports with us.

The ride back was lovely and took about 2 hours 45 minutes. Most of us sat inside, under A/C, playing cards. I popped outside every half hour to take pictures.

Then DH and I went out to eat by ourselves. We found a lovely little place (edited to add: Luina Albergo Ristorante) that advertised fluency in English. Limited menu, but the food was really good. We shared a salad of rocket, Cafone cheese, and pears with balsamic dressing. Then he had schnitzel with fries and I had fish-filled ravioli with a sauce of tomatoes and more fish on top. It was divine.