Martha's Exchange

Location:

185 Main Street, Nashua, NH

Cost: approx $9-15 per lunch entree (after 5pm, approx $15-19)

www.marthas-exchange.com



I've been to Nashua a slew of times but never dined at Martha's Exchange on Main Street.  Martha's Exchange has no relation or connection to Martha's Vineyard or Martha Stewart.  It actually began as a sweet shop which simply grew and grew.  More of it's history can be read here.

We made it there for lunch one day and found it quite busy.  We only had about 45 minutes for a quick bite so we had to order quickly, although I would have liked to have perused the menu better and also enjoyed a beer with my meal considering it's brewed on the premises. 



Our dishes took a fair bit of time to arrive; turned out the delay was due to a large party of 30 on the other side of our booth.



However, when our dishes did arrive, we were very pleased.

My Mum ordered the Jambalaya ($12).



The Jambalaya was better than I've tasted in New Orleans!  It's ingredients being: blackened chicken, andouille sausage, shrimp and fresh veggies sauteed in a spicy marinara sauce.  It had a good kick to it (you know how I like it hot!) and was very fresh.

I'd ordered the Almond Maple Salmon ($15)



Fresh Atlantic salmon topped with sliced almonds and baked in a maple butter sauce.  Baked IN a maple butter sauce INDEED!  My salmon was having a long hot soak in a jucuzzi of butter!!!  I'd have preferred it not having quite so much R&R.   It was, however, quite tasty but the rice it came with was nothing special. 

At one point during our meal the elderly lady in the booth behind us spilled her drink creating quite a commotion (someone may have been enjoying the beer afterall!).  It seemed it was her birthday and she was treating her daughter and a couple of other friends to lunch.  They all left before she did and the lady told us as she was leaving that she was alright and we nodded and sympathised with her.  The next moment my Mum spilled her drink all over the seat as well!  Very strange.  Perhaps Martha's is haunted by a playful ghost?  The website doesn't say but you never know......

I'd love to go back to Martha's and try out the beers and more of the dishes...the menu was quite extensive.  I'm also sorry now that I didn't try any of the sweets from the still existing sweet "shoppe" in the corner of the restaurant!  Argh! I hate metered parking!!

San Francisco: Zachary's Pizza

Location:

5801 College Ave., Oakland, CA

www.zacharys.com



Zachary's pizza is the BEST!!!



Or, so I've heard from everyone who lives or has ever lived in SF, but alas, it was closed due to the Easter holiday.

Boo urns....I will have to wait until next time I'm in SF to try the famous deep-dish pizza!

Afternoon Tea

Location:

Langdon Hall, 1 Langdon Drive, Cambridge, ON

Cost: $27.00 per person, plus applicable taxes

The correct definition for Afternoon Tea is:

"a light meal typically eaten between 3pm and 5pm, originating in the UK and consisting of loose tea served in a teapot and accompanied with mini sandwiches, pastries and cakes served in a tiered stand."

That's precisely what we wanted when 'Afternoon Tea with the Ladies" was planned.

After a bit of research was done for tea places in Toronto, I finally discovered that Cambridge's Langdon Hall offered a desirable spread of goodies in a gorgeous setting, and it then became our destination for not only an afternoon of tea but a full day's outing.



After carefully synchronizing our two vehicles to travel together (in light rainfall), eight of us (lovely maidens) arrived early for our 2pm appointed sitting. Langdon Hall offers Afternoon Tea at 2 and 4 o'clock.



Although I had requested for all of us to be seated together, we still found ourselves directed to two tables of four at opposing ends of the room. However, the staff were gracious enough to rearrange the tables and chairs so that we were finally sitting down together.



I imagined sitting at a giant round or rectangular table (for eight) at elbow-level but we were in fact seated in a veranda at tables closer to knee-level instead. Nevertheless, the table settings, decor and natural sun-light (finally) pouring into the room were all distinctly charming and all of us were quite pleased.

The menu at Langdon Halls consists of the "Traditional Afternoon Tea" for $27 (plus tax) and the "Langdon Hall Royal Tea" which begins with a glass of champagne followed by the traditional tea for $49.00 (plus tax). We opted to take the traditional route and the vast selection of teas (English Breakfast, Rose, Pear) kept us engrossed in the menu for quite some time. I picked my all-time favourite, Earl Grey and all the teas (loose-leaf) arrived first; in pretty flowered tea pots (served by a, contrastingly, burly male waiter). The tea, with the honey and sugar cubes provided, couldn't have tasted any better!



Then came the tiers!

First tier: Four each of cucumer/radish curry swirl sandwiches, apple chutney pastries, shrimp puffs and salmon squares/tarts. The curry sandwiches were especially tasty.



Second tier: was a assortment of Madeleines and scones galore! With the Devonshire/clotted cream and jam, these were divine.



Third tier: the lemon cakes, chocolate macaroons, shortbread cookies and blueberry tarts, were all very decadent.



It was all very very tasty and beautifully presented!



After our delicious tea party, we headed off onto the Langdon Hall grounds to take in the sights. The outdoor pool, croquet field and massive vegetable garden were beautifully tended.





Afternoon Tea at Langdon Hall is especially great for girlie get-togethers. Whatever the celebration, the surroundings make the trip to Cambridge worthwhile.

Québec City: D'Orsay Pub

Location:

65 rue de Buade, Québec City

Cost: $60 for two

www.restaurantpubdorsay.com

Bonjour tout le monde!

I must admit, my French is atrocious, but by the end of our Quebec City trip I was readily throwing out "bonjours" and "mercis", not to mention fully formed-sentences, at my husband, at least.

But enough of the French lessons, let's go back to the beginning.

By the time I landed in Quebec City it was past 9pm and then past 10:30 by the time we got to our hotel and were ready to go out to eat. We then realized that almost all the kitchens around the Chateau Frontenac were closed.

Finally, we were directed down a side street and then just around the corner we saw it. The D'Orsay Pub. Which was one of the restaurants on my list to try!



We were quickly seated at a beautiful folding window in the very charming, rustic interior, with its checker-board-floors and cobble-stone fireplace. Their terrace is a terrific people-watching spot as well as a great place to catch some sun. Unfortunately the weather was too chilly for us to enjoy the outdoors that night.





Seeing Leffe beer on the menu got me excited as it's not easy to find in Toronto, so we got a Leffe Blonde, $8.50 and a Belle Gueule Rousse (from Quebec), at $7.50 (which was mighty tasty!)



My husband had already had dinner, so this, in LOTR form, was second dinner for him. We knew poutine was a definite and I was feeling fishy, but almost all the seafood was in a cream sauce and while the wall-eyed pike sounded good, the salmon fillet with balsamic vinegar and orange sounded better. At $18.50 though, I assumed the salmon would be stuffed with oranges or orange chutney or something....again, too unusual to be true and sadly the dish was again what we conjure up at home. I was ravenous, so it didn't matter, but I wouldn't order that again.



The poutine on the other hand.....



MMMm......my mouth waters now just thinking about it!



I am no poutine expert, in fact, I'm lactose-intolerant and can't really stand cheese and this was only my second time eating poutine, but I must say, those cheese curds were something else. So spongy, so succulent, so very filling! Lookit how big that cheese curd is!!

Mmm.....is it correct to say it was tout le gout???

I could have eaten that all night!

The next day, D'Orsay's kitchen must have been an assembly line of poutine 'cause the terrace was packed with hungry patrons scarfing down the cheesy goodness, but alas we had other sites to see and a variety of other places to eat!!!

D'Orsay is a definite don't-miss!

PYO: Cherry Picking

Locations:

E.D. Smith Cherry Farm
980 Highway #8, Winona, Ontario

Puddicombe Estate Farms & Winery
1468 #8 Hwy, Winona, Ontario

All summer long I'd been meaning to go strawberry picking...which by late summer had turned into peach-picking. Finally, when the opportunity for anything-picking came up, our GPS was eagerly set up to locate the E.D. Smith farm. Unfortunately, E.D. remained a mysterious location on our GPS, but our old-fashioned road-trip technique of stop-and-ask-for-directions worked out perfectly and brought us to E.D's gate which...was CLOSED?!?! You had to be kidding me.

Good thing our GPS located another farm close by. Puddicombe!



For cherry, apple and pear picking.





Didn't look like there was anything to be picked when we got there though. We were too late for cherries and too early for pears or apples. The boy behind the outdoor stall mentioned heavy rainfall having ruined the cherry crops, but the Puddicombe railway and petting zoo was open. None of us were five years old however, so we decided to taste some wine, instead. Blueberry, raspberry, cranberry and pear. Deeeellliiiiicious! Our journey wasn't completely wasted; we bought a couple of bottles of blueberry wine and called it a day.

As for pear-picking? Maybe next year.

Nawlins, baby!

Foodhogger is off to Louisiana for some authentic, local Creole dishes, not to mention huge-ass beignets, chicory coffee, Po'boy and Muffaletta sandwiches and boiled crawfish (thanks for the tips you guys)!

Yeeeeeeah!

Trinidad: Richard's Bake and Shark

There's nothing better than eating outdoors (I think) - bits of dirt and grime add just that lil' som-som to your meal. And there's definitely nothing better than eating on a sandy beach after a salty dip in the ocean.



Richard's Bake and Shark is the best kind of beach meal, too. And at TT$25 (or US$4) there's simply nothing better.



Richard. I tink.

On Trinidad's Maracas Beach there's really only one thing to eat. A Bake and Shark burger. The 'bake' means fry-bake and it looks like a deep fried bun slivered in half and the 'shark' is exactly that, battered and deep fried.





What makes Richard's stand out from the rest of the beach's 'bake and shark' is the type of toppings you are invited to drown your burger with.



Under Richard's bright red canopy lie several metal dishes containing a variety of toppings with your standard lettuce, tomatoes, onions, ketchup and mustard but then ingenious others like tamarind sauce, cilantro/coriander (Chadon Bene perhaps?) sauce, garlic sauce, spiced pineapples, cabbage, mango chutney, a thousand island type of sauce and.....the mother of all hot sauces.

(On a side note: What I learned is, if you want to try the hot sauce in Trini, you may as well eat it IN the bathroom...'cause that would save a lot of time, really).



Er...aaaanyway...if you're still reading this and weren't repulsed by my toilet banter.... basically you come away (after it's wrapped and placed into a cardboard box for you by the gentleman at the head of the condiment table) with your bake and shark looking like this:



And it is simply the. best. thing. ever.

It's worth the trip to Trinidad.

Trinidad!

Foodhogger will be in Trinidad for a week.

I Can't WAIT to try the famous Bake N Shark sandwich at Maracas beach!!!

 

 

Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, SF

Location:

Tea Garden Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
San Francisco, CA

Hours:

Garden: Daily 8:30-6:30
Gift shop/tea house: Daily 10:30-4:30

Cost:

Entry free: $4 pp
Tea: less than $10 for two.

Golden Gate park is HUGE. You can tell when you look at those terribly off-scale tourist maps and find that a significant part of it is "Golden Gate Park"....then you realize it's really that big and the map is totally to scale.

I knew I wanted to see the Japanese Tea Garden, imagining it would be like going to a real tea garden, in Japan. I'd like to think those aren't so very touristy.



However, it was beautiful....



with the cherry blossoms and...



lush foliage and vibrant colours but...



...it was crowded. The pathways exploded with noisy children running around freely and the tea house was crammed with people (luckily we got a corner seat overlooking the pond) .

The kimono-clad waitress who served us wore a digital watch on her wrist and walked with the gait of someone who had to catch a bus at 5, instead of the graceful tiny steps my imagination willed. Instead, she brushed me off and hurried away when I asked to take a photograph of her. Okay, so I am a tourist. Possibly the worst kind...grasping my hefty Nikon and clicking noisily at my surroundings while we waited for our tea.





The Oolong (one of the only three on the menu along with Green and Jasmine) was plain but a welcoming thirst-quencher. The 'snacks' were a combination of salty and sweet, some fishy tasting, others eggy and sweet.

Overall, the Tea Garden was not what I imagined it to be, but in retrospect, we were still able to catch a quiet moment in the sun where I put away my camera for a while.

Walking.

Location: Fisherman's Wharf



The sea-lions were an eye-ful (and an ear-ful) at Pier 39.



Apparently there's a "bush man" who hides behind these bushes and jumps out at tourists. He wasn't there when we walked by..but his beer was chillin'.



There's another Boudin Sourdough bakery! This time with a baker in the window and a bready croc on display....quite fitting when you think about how tough skinned sourdough is.



"Hot clam chowder" - now, that's what I should have had!



Or these bloated crab sandwiches. Wait, is that sourdough bread?