"Time to make the donuts..." OK. Thank God that's not me, but time to EAT the donuts is just about any time for most people. I can only do morning time with my black coffee, but my husband is well known for stopping by for a dozen... Yes, he brings them back for the rest of us and the kids don't get theirs until after school.
I had to drop off Julie's sister at school this morning and had an hour wait before Julie needed to go, so we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts. Their coffee is actually quite good as most coffee drinkers know, and Julie loves hot chocolate. The server added a bit of milk and cream to her hot chocolate to help cool it down as it was very hot. She usually eats the whipped cream off the top, but the lid on the travel cup didn't allow for this and she commented how good it tasted when you get a bit of the whipped cream with the sip you are taking. Genius kid figures it out. Like, this is why the whipped cream isn't served as a side, right? I usually take my coffee black, but when I get it out I like half and half, so I got that. Julie and I both got a Boston Kreme filled "donut" with chocolate frosting, she with sprinkles, mine without. Mmmmmmmmm!
The modern Dunkin Donuts is diversified from the old days. Not an extensive menu beyond the great selection of donuts, but now you can get breakfast egg sandwiches and wraps, hashbrowns, muffins, bagel twists and individual apple pie pastries. A poster advertised a limited time blueberry waffle sandwich with maple sausage that wasn't on the menu. They serve latte and cappuccino and flavored coffee, iced coffee, iced tea, "Coolata" frozen blended drinks in strawberry, coffee or "Tropicana" orange flavors. They even do lunch items in the form of pepperoni or cheese stuffed breadsticks or ham and swiss, turkey cheddar and bacon flat bread sandwiches.
I stick with the main theme... it all sounds good, but coffee/hot chocolate and donuts is why we go there and what I know they do well. Bags of their now famous quality coffee beans are sold from a shelf in the front along with plastic "to go" mugs. "Congrats GRADS" covers were on some bags as it was still around the time of Clarkson College and SUNY Potsdam's graduation weekend.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Eben's Hearth
Mother's Day! Julie's sister and father went to grandma's house for the afternoon and evening and I had already been waiting the opportunity to go to Eben's Hearth for the Julie/Mom Project. I spied their Mother's Day Special advertisement in the North Country This Week that offered half off mom's dinner with a family member. I also planned that Julie and I should ride our bikes, as the restaurant at 115 Maple Street, is only about a mile away from our home in Potsdam, NY. I figured this would be our way of "paying off" the caloric price of what was certian to be a great meal. Since it is uphill to the restaurant and downhill back, we paid most off in advance.
Eben's Hearth used to be my favorite place to order chicken wings back in the old college days when they delivered and I have revisited several times over the past couple decades since then when I was visiting. My kid Julie doesn't remember, but I have brought her here at least once before when she was a little younger. They have a couple of fish tanks and one of them has just two BIG fish in them. I took a picture, but regular readers of this blog will know why there is none to post with this. The fish are Pacu, related to Piranha and they are older than my daughter!
Julie likes chicken wings and so we ordered an appetizer of 6 to split between us. Though she can handle a certain amount of spice, we got them mild. I generally order wings as hot as possible, but I do draw the line at certain sauces that require use of capsaicin extract. The heat is certainly unbearable but the worst part of such sauces is the taste is terrible. A whole pepper flavor from a super spicy habanero is wonderful, but the extract stuff is just yucky medicinal. Bleu cheese and celery with the wings were perfect traditional yumminess and we enjoyed them very much.
Julie got the half rack of BBQ pork ribs with her choice side of rice pilaf and salad. I got the locally raised, black angus filet mignon, medium well with burgundy mushrooms and my choice of thick french fries and salad. Vegetable side with our entrees was cooked baby carrots and yellow and green string beans. The salad was unexceptional with too much head lettuce, but we picked around and ate most of it, consuming all the darker greens as well as the cucumber, bell pepper, and red onion chunks. Julie drank ice tea and I drank Yeungling lager on tap. Julie and I traded a few bites of our entrees. Both were excellently done. Happy Mom's Day to me!
As a footnote to this since I wrote it so late after the fact, I want to mention how cool Eben's Hearth has been as a place for me to catch certain sporting events when I am without a television at home. I have used it to watch football games while visiting years ago. So, this past weekend when I realized the French Open women's tennis final was on at 9 am before any bars were open, I called them to ask if they would put it on for me. Even though the bar area wasn't officially "open" with a bartender on duty, they let me sit there and watch the match on their nice tv. Breakfast muffin egg sandwich with very crispy home fries of small potato chunks were quite good. The bloody mary needed more worcestershire sauce. And no, Julie was not with me. This part was just a Mom Project :)
Eben's Hearth used to be my favorite place to order chicken wings back in the old college days when they delivered and I have revisited several times over the past couple decades since then when I was visiting. My kid Julie doesn't remember, but I have brought her here at least once before when she was a little younger. They have a couple of fish tanks and one of them has just two BIG fish in them. I took a picture, but regular readers of this blog will know why there is none to post with this. The fish are Pacu, related to Piranha and they are older than my daughter!
Julie likes chicken wings and so we ordered an appetizer of 6 to split between us. Though she can handle a certain amount of spice, we got them mild. I generally order wings as hot as possible, but I do draw the line at certain sauces that require use of capsaicin extract. The heat is certainly unbearable but the worst part of such sauces is the taste is terrible. A whole pepper flavor from a super spicy habanero is wonderful, but the extract stuff is just yucky medicinal. Bleu cheese and celery with the wings were perfect traditional yumminess and we enjoyed them very much.
Julie got the half rack of BBQ pork ribs with her choice side of rice pilaf and salad. I got the locally raised, black angus filet mignon, medium well with burgundy mushrooms and my choice of thick french fries and salad. Vegetable side with our entrees was cooked baby carrots and yellow and green string beans. The salad was unexceptional with too much head lettuce, but we picked around and ate most of it, consuming all the darker greens as well as the cucumber, bell pepper, and red onion chunks. Julie drank ice tea and I drank Yeungling lager on tap. Julie and I traded a few bites of our entrees. Both were excellently done. Happy Mom's Day to me!
As a footnote to this since I wrote it so late after the fact, I want to mention how cool Eben's Hearth has been as a place for me to catch certain sporting events when I am without a television at home. I have used it to watch football games while visiting years ago. So, this past weekend when I realized the French Open women's tennis final was on at 9 am before any bars were open, I called them to ask if they would put it on for me. Even though the bar area wasn't officially "open" with a bartender on duty, they let me sit there and watch the match on their nice tv. Breakfast muffin egg sandwich with very crispy home fries of small potato chunks were quite good. The bloody mary needed more worcestershire sauce. And no, Julie was not with me. This part was just a Mom Project :)
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Village Diner
Ah, yummy family breakfast Saturday late morning at an all American style diner. Perfect. Another place in the North Country This Week's Spring Restaurant Guide that I had never been to gets knocked off the blog list.
The whole family went to look at a house we are now going to buy and we decided to celebrate by walking the short distance to downtown Potsdam's Market Square Mall for breakfast. This is a true mall with an indoor common space through which the entrances of the businesses are accessed. At 22 Depot Street it is quite small with only a few businesses including our dentist... and the Village Diner. The diner is only open for breakfast and lunch until 2 pm.
It is very pleasant and homey with a friendly and efficient wait staff. It was quite busy with a capacity crowd, but our orders were taken and served very timely. The girls (MJ and Julie) ordered the same meal from the kid's menu: 3 pancakes with a side of bacon and a side of mandarin oranges. My husband ordered the veggie omelette, so I balanced that by ordering the carnivore omelette! Sides of roasted potatoes with the omelettes were as delicious as the classic three egg concoctions. Very satisfying.
And, of course, I took pictures of our food and a shot of Julie with her scooter outside the door to the diner and never downloaded them before I lost my camera a couple of weeks ago. Life and eating goes on, hold the photodocumentation.
The whole family went to look at a house we are now going to buy and we decided to celebrate by walking the short distance to downtown Potsdam's Market Square Mall for breakfast. This is a true mall with an indoor common space through which the entrances of the businesses are accessed. At 22 Depot Street it is quite small with only a few businesses including our dentist... and the Village Diner. The diner is only open for breakfast and lunch until 2 pm.
It is very pleasant and homey with a friendly and efficient wait staff. It was quite busy with a capacity crowd, but our orders were taken and served very timely. The girls (MJ and Julie) ordered the same meal from the kid's menu: 3 pancakes with a side of bacon and a side of mandarin oranges. My husband ordered the veggie omelette, so I balanced that by ordering the carnivore omelette! Sides of roasted potatoes with the omelettes were as delicious as the classic three egg concoctions. Very satisfying.
And, of course, I took pictures of our food and a shot of Julie with her scooter outside the door to the diner and never downloaded them before I lost my camera a couple of weeks ago. Life and eating goes on, hold the photodocumentation.
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