The above photo was taken by the LBC’s own Chris Preovolos, who brought a Canon 7D to an iPhone fight.
SHAKE SHACK: 1849 POST ROAD EAST, WESTPORT
Loath to go a week since the opening without a post, and even more loath to let a post about how New York’s popular Shake Shack is about to open its doors be the most recent on this blog, I’m here to talk about fries, shakes, and burgers.
Last Tuesday, Shake Shack Westport, the chain’s most recent, and solitary in Connecticut, location opened its doors to over 100 guests in advance of the grand opening on Wednesday. Plenty has been written about Shake Shack – both the franchise and this location – by foodies and bloggers more burger-crazy than I (read: Not vegetarians), but that’s not going to stop me from talking about how good it is, especially against some stiff Fairfield County competition.
A lot of burger joints will pick up some frozen patty for a veggie burger, if they carry one at all, but Shake Shack has a truly unique offering in the ‘Shroom Burger. Let me be clear: I find it borderline offensive that some restaurants consider a bland grilled portobello mushroom to be an adequate substitute for a real burger. Apparently so does Shake Shack. They make sure to inject flavor and fun into the equation by stuffing it with cheese and deep frying it. Yes, please.
As for the fries, they are fantastic. I’m not just saying that because my wife has a minor obsession with crinkle-cut fries, either. I generally prefer the more natural-seeming Five Guys-style fries, but Shake Shack definitely gets a lot of solid texture and flavor out of their fries, and just the right amount of salt.
Oh, they sell shakes, too?
Now I just need to figure out how to game the line…
RELATED NEWS: Looks like Shake Shack is also targeting a location in Grand Central Terminal, according to WNYC. As if I need more people clogging my path when I’m trying to catch a train.
MORE PHOTOS:
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Shake Shack Westport opens
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(Brett Mickelson)
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A cheeseburger and crinkle-cut French fries are shown at Shake Shack at 1849 Post Road East in Westport, Conn., on Tuesday, July 19, 2011. The new location, Connecticut's first, will open Wednesday, July 20, 2011. (Brett Mickelson)
Shake Shack at Madison Square Park. (Flickr/ajdecandis)
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Shake Shack at Citi Field. (Flickr/slgckgc)
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Shake Shack near Times Square. (Flickr/shinya)
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(Flickr/Jeffrey_Allen)
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(Flickr/SimonDoggett)
ABOVE: Shake Shack food porn, via Flickr.
SHAKE SHACK: 1849 POST ROAD EAST, WESTPORT
7/15/2011
Shake Shack, the NYC burger joint with a cult following among both tourists and locals, officially announces it will open their first store in Connecticut on Wednesday.
The highly anticipated Westport opening comes none too soon for burger fans in Fairfield County who have experienced the shack in the city. Hopefully the lines won’t be as long as the ones that snake through Madison Square Park, where the original establishment is located, but I’m not holding my breath.
Join me and a host of other panelists, including Bobby Valentine, at Fairway Saturday as local professional and volunteer firefighters face-off in a bbq “throw down” to kick off the summer grilling season.
Considering the saga that is the Stamford fire task force, this throw down may be a no-holds-barred grudge match.
FAIRWAY: In lieu of helmets, hoses, and axes, Fairfield County’s bravest will instead don aprons, barbecue tongs, and basting brushes when they compete in Fairway’s Firefighters Food Face-Off, a grilling “throw down” that will pit firefighters from Stamford, Darien and Ridgefield against one another to prove whose barbecue is best on Saturday.
The firefighters will compete to cook their tastiest ribs, beef burgers and turkey burgers. A panel of judges, Jodi Heilman, of the Stamford Patch, Chris Preovolos of the Stamford Advocate, Lou Gorfain of CTBites, Ray Venezia, Fairway’s Master Butcher, Steve Jenkins, Fairway’s Cheesemonger, and Bobby Valentine, baseball great, ESPN analyst and Public Safety Director for Stamford, will determine the first place finisher basing their decisions on taste and originality.
The winning team will not only receive bragging rights but also a $500 gift card to shop for groceries for their firehouse and the opportunity to name the charity of their choice to benefit from a Fairway “Shopping Night” which the Stamford store will host on their behalf.
All other firehouses will win a $100 gift card to the store. Participating Firehouses are: Stamford Professional Fire Fighters Association IAFF Local 786, Stamford Volunteer Fire Departments, Darien Fire Department, Noroton Heights Fire Department and Ridgefield Fire Department, Local 1739.
Fairway has a long-standing commitment to firefighters. Its history of supporting fire departments in New York and New Jersey was exemplified in the months following September 11, 2001, when Fairway supplied food for local firehouses throughout the search and clean-up process. Fairway also offers firefighters in uniform a special shopping discount at each of its seven locations to show its support and thanks.
WHERE: Fairway Market – 699 Canal Street in Stamford
I ordered food from the place advertising Spanish cuisine, and got Chinese food instead. This was not an error.
A brightly colored food truck, Lomo En Ruedas, has been stationed in front of the People’s Bank headquarters and alongside St. Vincent’s hospital. These days it’s on Broad Street behind the Superior Court. Whenever I walk by, I can see they are busy.
The side of the truck invokes “The Art of Spanish Cuisine,” and a closer look at the menu reflects a Peruvian bias. The first time I went there, I got a pork taco — not something that tells me much about Peruvian food in particular. So this time I told myself I would get one of their “Peruvian Specialties.” The Arroz Chaufa, or Peruvian fried rice, seemed interesting.
The menu ticked off the ingredients, which were identical to the Chinese variation until I got to for “our delicious hot sauce.” One small twist is all I need to get interested, so I took a container of it back to the office.
Visually, it looks like Chinese takeout. The only difference, besides the small container of green sauce, was the foam container. Put it in a square cardboard takeout box, and I’d have thought it came from Hunan Pavilion. The rice has lots of salty soy sauce tastes just like Chinese fried rice, but the chunks of chicken, as I had hoped, had been seasoned in their own spices, holding up well with the rice. I craved more of the green sauce, but it was delicious, creating a bridge between the rice, scrambled eggs, green onions and chicken. (The dish is also available with beef or shrimp.)
The item on the food truck that is probably star is their rotisserie chicken. You can buy a quarter, half or whole chicken and take home sides like rice, Spanish rice, beans, fries or plantains. That’s the kind of thing I’d like to bring home in the evening when I don’t feel like cooking. Unfortunately, the food truck is only there for lunch. But fortunately, they do have a brick-and-mortar restaurant on North and Park, open until 10.
If you’re looking for a place to grab lunch in Old Greenwich, things just got a little more interesting.
As first reported in Lincoln’s Log, ReNapoli opened its doors in early April, offering Chicago Italian beef alongside Napolitana, Romana, and New York pizza options. Since then, I’ve been able to return several times to solidify my opinions.
Maintaining consistency in the pizza industry must be difficult. When it first opened, I thought Tappo was one of the best non-New Haven pizzas I’d ever had. Over the last several months, however, something about their pies has changed, and not for the better. For what it’s worth, several other food bloggers I know have expressed similar thoughts, and Chris Preovolos says he has confirmed they changed something about their dough.
In combination with this, I was thrilled by my first visit to ReNapoli. While not as good as Tappo at its prime, the margherita was better than the last few times I had been. The crust was perfectly chewy, the sauce was both simple and flavorful, and the mozzarella (while not quite up to the buffalo mozz at Tappo) and basil were in perfect proportion. Add to that the big New York style slices and unique sides (can you say “calzoncini”?), and we had found a winner. Whole pies are pricey, but slices are reasonable and big enough for lunch.
Over time, however, I’ve noticed ReNapoli following a similar trend as Tappo. The sauce is a little more bland, the dough isn’t as tender, and the end result isn’t quite as good. Don’t get me wrong, the pizza, like Tappo, is still great, but it’s not AS great.
But don’t take my word for it. Head down to Old Greenwich and give ReNapoli a try for yourself.
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ReNapoli
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ReNapoli, a new pizza place in Old Greenwich, Conn., serves a variety of pizzas and sandwiches. Test (Brett Mickelson / Brett Mickelson)
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ReNapoli, a new pizza place in Old Greenwich, Conn., serves a variety of pizzas and sandwiches. (Brett Mickelson / Brett Mickelson)
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ReNapoli, a new pizza place in Old Greenwich, Conn., serves a variety of pizzas and sandwiches. (Brett Mickelson / Brett Mickelson)
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ReNapoli, a new pizza place in Old Greenwich, Conn., serves a variety of pizzas and sandwiches. (Brett Mickelson / Brett Mickelson)
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ReNapoli, a new pizza place in Old Greenwich, Conn., serves a variety of pizzas and sandwiches. (Brett Mickelson / Brett Mickelson)
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ReNapoli, a new pizza place in Old Greenwich, Conn., serves a variety of pizzas and sandwiches. (Brett Mickelson / Brett Mickelson)
Holy heatwave, Stamford. I’m all for super steamy summer days, but every once in a while, a girl’s gotta take a minute and cool off.
There was one sure-fire cure for blistering heat when I was growing up; my mom would roll into the driveway on the sweatiest days of the summer, and upon stepping into our kitchen would hold her pointer finger to her lips and coax me back outside and into her passenger’s seat for our secret ice cream missions. Her MG only fit two, so we’d keep it a secret from my dad and older sister. When we reached my favorite ice cream stop, we’d scan the sundae board for our favorite flavors before settling on our perennial picks. She’d have the mint-chocolate chip in a cone, and I’d go for the moosetracks in a sugar cone.
When the heat began to peak here last week, I became antsy as I tried to find the perfect place to sate my sweet tooth and cool down my body temperature at the same time. I tried the Dairy Queen on Summer Street. Don’t get me wrong, I was pleased with my vanilla soft-serve coated in rainbow sprinkles, but the line was freakishly long, and at the end of the day Dairy Queen seems like more of a mall treat than a sidewalk stop. So I was a little let down after my first cone of 2011.
Then last week, a friend of mine suggested Sunny Daes on Shippan Avenue. I’m so glad he did.
I pulled up to Sunny Daes at about 2 p.m. Monday, and spotted a mother-daughter pair on what looked like a secret mission, licking away at their cones beneath one of the eight umbrella-covered tables outside the ice cream stand, and several other customers milling around. But when I went inside, the only one there was the owner’s brother Jeff Keskin, who used the lull to guide me through their selection.
The ice cream stand, which opened in 1999, is the first of five Sunny Daes in Fairfield County — there are two in Fairfield, one in Trumbull and one in Westport — and boasts coolers of home-made gelato as well as home-made ice cream. Yeah. I said homemade.
Jeff Keskin serves up two scoops of moosetracks.
The Gelato: They have about a dozen flavors of gelato, including several fruit flavors, but I’m a die-hard sucker for the chocolate, which is both rich and creamy — way creamier than the hand-packed pints of gelato I buy at Whole Foods. But enough about the gelato, let’s get to the real stuff.
The cone: Before I had a chance to inspect the contents of the hard ice cream cooler, I noticed the lineup of cones at my eye level. They have the classic cake cones, as well as sugar cones and (my personal favorite) sugar cones dipped in chocolate and coated with rainbow sprinkles.
The ice cream: I obviously opted for moosetracks ice cream to see how Sunny Daes stacks up to my hometown favorites. They more than met my high expectations. Their hard ice cream isn’t really hard at all. It’s been whipped into a texture somewhere between the traditional scoopable ice cream and soft-serve. It’s still firm enough to stay on the cone, but way more lickable than traditional hard ice cream.
Sunny Dae’s, located at 633 Shippan Ave., is open all year round. Hours: Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Friday, Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Got a favorite summer snack stop you want to recommend for the LBC? Leave your suggestions below.
Leave it to the British Empire to invade everything — including my belly.
I’ve been talking about the Royal Wedding ever since Kate Middleton threw on that pretty blue dress in November and announced that William had given her that pretty blue ring, so when one of our editors saw an advertisement for a Royal Wedding Menu, he gave me the heads up. He was probably joking when he said, “Hey Maggie, you should go there for dinner,” but I took it as a serious statement.
So on Monday night, I headed over to Mackenzie’s Grill Room in Greenwich, to try a taste. Their royal menu gave me a peek at how the other half eats. I even learned a thing or two about British food. I mean, did you know that the most popular food in England is actually Chicken Tikka Masala, an Indian dish? The restaurant’s manager, Joanne Gray, filled me in on this:
I have to say, my favorite part of the meal was Princess Kate’s Apple Pear and Candied Pecan Salad, partially because it was (sadly) the only thing on the menu named after Kate, and partially because I have a deep-rooted love of salads that mix greens and fruits. My friend had a hard time choosing between the Coronation Chicken Salad, and the Prince Charles Breaded Mushrooms, which our waitress said was one of the biggest hits, but he ended up going with the chicken salad. His reasoning? He wanted to try to Chicken Tikka Masala, and figured he’d go full-steam ahead with the curry palate.
Princess Kate on the left, Coronation Chicken on the right.
The main entree was a tougher decision for me. But Joanne explained some of the dishes, and I made the choice to go with Camilla’s Traditional Cod, Chips and Mushy Peas. Though I’d had mushy peas once before in London, and remember being less than pleased with their color, texture, and oh yes, taste.
Yeah. That was the biggest piece of cod I’ve had in a very long time. In fact, I’m eating the leftovers as I type this post. Unfortunately for us, we did not have the willpower to squeeze dessert in at the end. I didn’t even have room to order the Pimms & Lemonade Royal Wedding cocktail, which I unfortunately, did not see on the menu until after I had already ordered a glass of Harp. Of course, the menu is running until Sunday, so I guess I do have time to go back…
ABOVE: Plain cheese pie from Colony Grill in Fairfield. Please excuse the crummy cell phone photograph.
COLONY GRILL (FAIRFIELD): 1520 POST ROAD, FAIRFIELD
When I first heard a second location was in the works for Colony Grill, Stamford’s legendary Myrtle Street bar and pizza place (in the most literal sense), I believe my first words to LBC’s own Chris Preovolos were “please tell me this is a joke” followed immediately by “I’ll never go there.” Colony had always struck me as the kind of place that could not and would not be duplicated. Like many a Colony fan, I didn’t want to believe it.
Nearly a year later, curiosity and circumstance conspired to bring me to Colony in Fairfield, and I gave in.
The first thing I noticed was how large the Fairfield location is in comparison to Stamford. It wasn’t brightly lit (I went after dark), but I imagine it gets a lot more light during the day than Stamford.
At 8 p.m. on a Thursday night, the place was quite busy, so I made my way to the bar and wedged myself into the last available spot. Not one, but two friendly bartenders took attentive care of me (a definite change from the tepid attitude of the busy staff in Stamford). I ordered a plain cheese pie and watched the “highlights” from the Mets’ second loss in one day while I waited.
The pizza was definitely Colony: Thin crust, sauce to the edge, and dappled cheese, but it wasn’t quite up to snuff with the original. My pie was a bit undercooked, making the dough at once rubberier and flakier than the original. To be fair, I only had the one, so I’ll have to return for a second sample. I also didn’t try the hot oil, but I overheard a patron at the bar saying it doesn’t have the same bite in Fairfield as the original.
As I asked for the check, I noticed possibly the biggest difference between the two locations: Colony Grill Fairfield takes credit cards.
Overall, the Fairfield location is definitely a worthy addition to the downtown landscape, especially with the tangy allure of neighboring Pinkberry for dessert, but I’ll take the original location by a nose.
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