Rainbow Sweets Bakery & Cafe, Marshfield, Vermont

When you think of good old fashioned American desserts its often a cherry pie that springs to mind. Or apple, although thats been tainted somewhat by American Pie the movie, but nonetheless its what you dream of when you think of pie; sweet juicy deep filled fruit in a crumbly, buttery crust. So why is it so hard to find good pie in New England?! Rainbow Sweets was recommended to us by a kitchenware shop back in Vermont's state capital Montpelier as a good stop for lunch and particularly for pies. Located in small town Marshfield on Route 2 somewhere between Montpelier and St Johnsbury it is quite inconspicuous.

That low-key nature ends the moment that you walk through the door. Its charismatic owner Bill prides himself on not making anything American. “None of those cherry or apple pies” apparently which was, at first, disappointing as we had arrived on a quest for exactly that, a cherry pie to take to dinner as dessert. As we were hustled over to the counter ('come closer, no even closer still....') to hear what was fresh out of the giant iron stove for lunch, this didn't seem like a problem any more.

On offer on the day of our visit was spanikopita- greek filo pastry slices and a filling made of “spinach so tender its pubescent, no pre natal...”- Argentinian empanadas of beef or Moroccan b'stilla of cinnamon and clove spiced shredded chicken were the other two savoury options. Both the empanadas and the b'stilla were delicious, encased in perfectly crispy, golder outer shell of pastry and tender inside. Considering that I'm not a rabbit food eater, the accompanying green salad was also excellent, with crumbly feta and dark purple olives adding a salty bite to well dressed salad leaves and tomatoes. 

We were recommended (well commanded to have was probably closer to the truth) a pair of 'Johnny Depps'.  Consisting of two choux profiteroles stuffed with crème patissiere, they are then dipped in caramel and- once hardened- placed on a bed of puff pastry and sweetened whipped cream. Sharing your Johnny Depps is apparently 'cheating' and results in very public castigation, we split ours when Bill had his back turned and the other diners promised not to tell. 

Bill's jovial and upfront demeanour was infectious amongst the diners and only one miserable looking, skinny girl in running kit failed to crack a smile or join in the banter (what she was doing in a bakery to begin with frankly eluded me).

Drinks are predominantly local offerings whether beer or juice. We opted for apple cider which was a dark caramel colour but much lighter in texture than we expected. In apple country 'cider' refers to any juice made from apples whereas 'hard cider' is the alcoholic version so you can expect to see small children drinking 'cider' without any eyebrows being raised. Technically they do do apple pies by the way, just Austrian style with a streusel crumb topping. We took two small ones away with us and they were excellent.

You might think that its just a nice little bakery in a tiny Vermont village but it seems that Rainbow's fame has spread far and wide. A New York Times article from 1999 praises the Cherry cheese danishes which apparently come out of the oven at 9.15am every Sunday morning and are inevitably sold out by 10am. Indeed, we arrived for an early lunch and were out of luck.    Apparently people drive all the way from Boston to buy a box, a good 2.5hr trip each way. 

Bill started out as a builder whilst his wife was a trained pastry chef, perhaps explaining the reasoning behind the distinctly European flavour and style to all the dishes. The tables have turned now however, and it is Bill who oversees the ovens.  If you're ever anywhere near Montpelier in Vermont, please go, I promise that you won't regret it.

Rainbow Sweets,
1689, Route 2, Marshfield, Vermont

US Road Trip: Connecticut

With the sun blazing as we flew along the deserted US Route 1 hugging the coastline all felt well with the world. Quaint little fishing towns dotted with seasonal scarecrows and halloween decorations.

How can you not like this place? See, here's a picture of a scarecrow with his pumpkin butt cheeks a-pokin' right out:

Why it was all so puuuurrrddy it could have come straight out of a film. Oh but hang on, what's this town I see on the road ahead of me? Mystic. Don't I know that from somewhere? Yep cheesy as hell (in more ways than one) but one of those things that almost has to be done however much you hide your grimace through a smile; a visit to Mystic Pizza.

Upon walking in to the restaurant, if I hadn't known about the film I would have done immediately due, perhaps, to the fact that it is being played on a loop on a giant plasma screen tv in the lobby. The walls of the restaurant are plastered with screenshots of a toothy grinned, bouffy haired Julia Roberts staring out at diners as well as the obligatory Americana found in diners and pizza joints. 

On a week day lunchtime it was busy but still no hassle to get a table. Forgetting for a brief moment that everything is bigger in America, we ordered one small and one large pizza and regretted it pretty much instantaneously when the order arrived. Huge. Enormous. Vast. But good. The dough is not deep, deep pan but is on the doughier side of things than a thin crust. Hand tossed in house before toppings are added we went for two options. Texas chicken barbecue was nothing novel or innovative but a tasty classic. The house special consists of pepperoni, meatball, sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms and we added some gorgonzola to sate my blue cheese craving. That combined with a ton of mozzarella gave stretchy, stretchy cheeeeeeeese.......

I never fail to be impressed by the refilled-before-you-get-to-your-last-slurp bottomless sodas that you get in the States. It shouldn't be that impressive but I don't think I've ever been anywhere in the UK that offers them which is unfortunate considering a pint of Coke costs about 6p from a pump. It is inevitably about 3 quid a pint these days. H went for a Mystic Bridge IPA from the Cottrell Brewing Company, a micro brewery founded in 1996. They offer three permanent beers as well as a couple of seasonal specials.  The IPA was pretty light with a lemony fruit hint to it and a decent accompaniment to a sunny pizza lunch. You know you're on holiday, thats for sure. You can take a detour to the brewery in nearby Pawcatuck on Friday and Saturday afternoons for a free tour and tasting or to "fill your growler" (apparently a growler is a large drinks container in the US, for any Americans reading; this is another term that doesn't mean the same in the UK; get googling.....)

Its not all about pizzas though. They also offer salads, soups and grinders (some kind of sub baguette thing apparently, to me it brings to mind Grindr and sounds totally different to a UK girl). I'm not sure I would use the film's "Slice of Heaven" slogan to describe my lunch but it was jolly tasty all the same and a reasonable price.

Mystic itself is also a really pretty town for a wander and a great stop off point as you drive along the coast between more major towns. But the road is calling us if we're to make it to our overnight stop of New Haven. Home to Yale University, its about as close as the US gets to the dreaming spires of Oxbridge. Well, that was the picture that I had in my head but it seems as though New Haven pretty much IS Yale. Its not even big enough to have a branch of Gap for goodness sake. 

We arrived in New Haven late afternoon with slightly more grand ambitions of a wander round Yale, couple of cocktails then dinner at Box 63   . The online menu had me salivating and I'd fully planned out ordering truffle parmesan fries with a pulled pork sandwich and lobster mac and cheese but not everything goes to plan, even for a control freak like me. Sorry Box 63, you look fabulous but you got usurped.  A couple of minutes from our hotel (The New Haven Hotel - well located, perfectly comfortable and free cheese and wine in the early evening) we came across Owl Shop on College Street. From outside it initially looked like a cafe and then like a shop. It was only when we were on the threshold that the aroma of cigars wafted gently across the sunny evening breeze. Owl Shop transpired to be one of the oldest cigar stores in America. Opened in 1934 by Greek immigrant Joseph St John, it expanded quickly to five outlets.   By 1951 they had merged all the stores into the present day College Street store and even after the death of St John one of the original employees is still with the store now (Joe Lentine) albeit under the management of the store's second owner Glen Greenberg. The current staff are all lovely and very patient with cigar novices. 

Dark inside with wood panelling and acclimatised humidor cabinets containing over 400 varieties of cigar, it is a welcoming location.  A decent cocktail list invites you to stay a while and the heady scent of cigars tempts you to try the wares. As strange as it seems after years of the smoking ban in the UK, smoking cigars is quite acceptable inside in this bar.

I'm no cigar expert but I'd always worked on the basis that Cuban cigars were the best and other countries' offerings paled into insignificance. How wrong was I ?! Most of the main cigar manufacturers like Davidoff, Partagas and Cohiba all have Venezuelan or Nicaraguan outposts and they are a lot cheaper than the Cuban equivalents. I'm not enough of an afficionado to tell if the price differential is worth it for Cubans but for my level of knowledge a Venezuelan one was good for me. Coupled with an Old Fashioned and it would take a small natural disaster to move my butt.  

We did still keep meaning to go for dinner honestly but the evening started taking a wiggly winding course through the cocktail menu and before we knew it it was 9.30pm. Owl Shop offers a limited menu of paninis and charcuterie that is more prevalent during the day and sparse at best at night. No problem though, Owl Shop suddenly became the best venue in the world when the waitress actually suggested we go out and get takeaway from Shake Shack and bring it back to eat. As H returned from Shake Shack laden with burgers and wiggly fries, a Blues group with an excellent singer struck up and I don't think the evening could have been much more perfect.

Breakfast the following day before crossing the state border back up into western Massachusetts? Why cold pizza of course!

Plymouth, Massachusetts

A New England autumn road trip has been a long time in the planning. Combining the majority of my favourite things from great food and cool wildlife to beautiful landscapes (oh and tax free shopping), New England holds everything except top notch wine. You can kind of see where those pilgrims were coming from. The dark satanic mills of England versus a brave new world of whales, moose and cranberries. Or something like that. 

So where better to start than following in the pilgrim footsteps by starting the road trip in Plymouth. Although from the driving rain and stiff wind on our first day I wouldn't have blamed them if they had said "sod this we're better off in Burnley" and turned on their heel or perhaps the cold, damp breeze felt familiar, who knows.  We dutifully visited the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock whilst getting soaked to the skin and building up an appetite (the rock is pretty small but the Mayflower is interesting and the town is really lovely - I just wished I'd seen it in the sun).

Its practically against the law to come to Plymouth and not sample some clam chowder. Can't for the life of me remember its name rather unhelpfully but there is a rather downmarket looking equivalent of a fish and chip shop on the main road near the Mayflower. Don't be put off by their exterior and the offerings of fried dough, their chowder rocks. Creamy and rich, with just a hint of seafood, at around $3 a cup its a bargain. Despite the many subsequent varieties of chowder we sampled over the next fortnight this one remained in my top three. 

The rest of the morning was spent driving to a cranberry festival in Edaville, a rather disappointing event with a painfully twee train ride and a handful of fading fairground rides. You barely even saw a single cranberry. Singularly the best thing about it was a venue called Porky's barbecue which ironically, considering the name, only sold chicken. But it was excellent  moist, smoky chicken with a fantastic honeyed spicy crust served from a hut right alongside the outdoor 'cue. Served alongside it was a hulk of sweet, grainy cornbread and a buttered corn. Part of me can't believe that I'm about to publicly admit this but I had never eaten corn on the cob before. Yup, its true, I broke my corn cherry in Massachusetts. A bad experience with some tinned sweetcorn a few years back had seemingly put me off corn for life but when in Rome and all that. Well it was a taste revelation! Before you could say "corn y'all" I had butter dripping off my chin and was sucking the sweet juice from the husk of the cob. It was divine. 

On the way back into town we did finally manage to find one of the fabled cranberry bogs mid harvest having just been flooded. Look how pretty it is!

After an afternoon of listening to role playing 'pilgrims' with dubious English accents I had built up an appetite that only a gluttonous quantity of lobster could fix. 

Woods Seafood is located on the seafront where lots of the boat cruises depart from. Unsurprisingly there are multiple seafood options but this one is 100% locally owned and also has a fresh fish counter for cooking at home. Its pretty rough and ready, pine panelled walls and vinyl table tops but super cheap. Once you've found yourself a table you queue up at the hatch and order your food. A $1 dollar deposit gets you a lobster cracker to get the most out of those bony suckers. 

After a few minutes wait our number came up and it felt like winning the village fete raffle only with better prizes. In the UK crab cakes are usually at different stages along the spice scale from making your tongue tingle to blowing your taste buds away. It was pretty surprising therefore that these have no spice at all. That doesn't mean they are lacking in the flavour department, in fact they were perfect; rich flakes of seasoned crab meat encased in a delicate golden crumb completely devoid of grease. 

The lobsters were a good 1.5lb each and super juicy. So juicy in fact that they were still full of their poaching liquor. It made the dissection and eating a bit on the messy side but totally worth it. I understand that the New England tradition is to slurp that liquid right out of the carapace but I couldn't do it. Maybe next time. Oh and whilst I'm raving about lobster the lobster roll was pretty good too....

My only real regret was that at $3.75 each we didn't order a portion each of the clam chowder and the lobster bisque to keep us going whilst the lobsters cooked. Still you can't have it all. 

For a total of less than $50 we got through two lobsters, 2 crab cakes, a lobster roll, various side orders and 2 soft drinks. That can't be bad value by anyone's standards. 

There is absolutely nothing elegant or sophisticated about Woods but it hits the spot if you're looking for the freshest seafood straight off the boat at the best prices. 

Despite the crustacean overdose the notion of some award winning cupcakes couldn't be passed up. We stopped by Cupcake Charlies having heard lots of good things about it. We tried a few including a red velvet, a Twix caramel, and an M&M chocolate swirl. They weren't bad but the cake itself was not very flavoursome it was all about the topping which was just too sweet for me. This was disappointing considering the build up as was the fact that the small town little bakery image that they portray was blown out of the water by lists of their other branches and the fact they are looking for new franchisees. 

 

In summary Woods rocks and you should definitely hot foot it there pronto should you ever find yourself near Plymouth. Hell its so cheap you should drive 50 miles to get there. Cupcake Charlies? Give it a miss. Still, roll on the rest of New England, five more states to go.....

Woods Seafood            
15 Town Pier, Plymouth, MA 02360
800-626-1011 

Cupcake Charlies

6 Town Wharf  Plymouth, MA 02360 (508) 747-9225

Kit Kat Japanese Style

Kit Kats are Kit Kats right? Like Coca Cola and McDonald's fries, they are the same the whole world over. Except in Japan. Different flavours are launched on a regional basis. Sure, we have the current spate of flavours in the UK but by including mint, orange and hazelnut they are hardly pushing gastronomic boundaries flavour wise. I had heard tell of the unusual flavour phenomenon found only in the land of the rising sun and wanted to explore it however on my first visit, despite hunting high and low, I was only able to find two "weird" version of Kit Kats in the form of green tea and secondly cinnamon. 

Much more success on visit two. I arrived home with a suitcase full of varieties including strawberry, blueberry cheesecake, wasabi, brown sugar syrup, green tea and cherry blossom, strawberry cheesecake and rum & raisin. 

Apparently the reason behind the success of the humble Kit Kat relates to its meaning in Japanese. Phonetically it sounds like 'kitto katsu' which roughly means 'good luck to you!' Kit Kats are therefore offered as good luck tokens. The Japanese also have a tradition of taking cakes or sweets to people that they are visiting when embarking on a journey. Therefore, by making different Kit Kats limited edition to certain regions they attract a certain collectability.

After putting together a small panel of expert chocolate eaters (aka work colleagues) each flavour was scientifically contemplated and compared (aka wolfed down at coffee break time) especially for this post.


Wasabi was a little disappointing. It had a gentle horseradish type smell on the nose but was less exciting on the palate. Having tried Lindt wasabi chocolate which has a decent kick to it, I had expected a local Japanese version to, if anything, pack even more punch. On the contrary it was predominantly white chocolate with a slight hint of wasabi. Kit Kat flavour fail....

Second up was strawberry cheesecake. This one wasn't so great either in all honesty. Covered in white chocolate with only a slight strawberry flavour, it seemed as though the cloying white chocolate just masked the flavour.

Rum and raisin. This is possibly the one that I had been looking forward to the most and it didn't disappoint, a really distinct rum flavour pervaded throughout and was actually properly yummy, I'd be up for trying to persuade Nestle to do this one in the UK. Would have been better covered in milk chocolate than dark chocolate though. That said one of the samplers disliked this one the most.

Brown Sugar Syrup I'm not sure that I even know what brown sugar syrup is? I'm guessing that its something approximating treacle as that's what I got an olfactory blast of when I opened the packaging. Tasted something like treacle in porridge all in all though probably due to having been coated in that damned white chocolate again. Rather overly sweet, If it had been dipped in dark chocolate it would have been really rather lovely, shame. 

Matcha Green Tea  This remains one of my favourite flavours and tastes exactly like proper powdered matcha tea. The lurid green chocolate is quite alarming at first but all part of the fun...

Green tea and sakura blossom flower. YUM. I was being pretty cynical when I opened this one. After all, the Japanese are bonkers about blossom. Literally everything has a limited edition blossom themed version in the spring, even beer. Cherry blossom is also used widely in Japanese cuisine and has a really delicate pretty flavour that is also quite distinctive so I wasn't hopeful that it would be too faithfully reproduced in chocolate biscuit form but sure enough it was. 

Blueberry Cheesecake-This one came packaged in a very cool Mount Fuji shaped box. Good job it had something going for it as this was my least favourite of all the bars. Didnt taste much of actual blueberries just more of that sticky sweet white chocolate with an indeterminate fruit flavour. I'm soooo over the white chocolate thing now and getting grumpy despite the sugar rush.....

Strawberry. Unlike the cheesecake version, this one was covered in pale pink chocolate and had a more distinctive strawberry flavour although it was that synthetic strawberry taste that you get in bootlaces and medicine.

If we could routinely get them over here I would buy the green tea, the green tea and blossom and the rum & raisin but I wouldn't bother with the rest.  The rest of the tasting panel agreed that they are too sweet even for chocolate lovers. More gimmick then flavour and substance. I love the idea though. If you wanted to give them a whirl and don't know anyone headed to Japan any time soon you can get them on Amazon albeit it at a price!

Tokyo: Ueno Park



I hold my hands up and admit that I am a nightmare to travel with.  Half the fun is in the advance planning for me and several months can be spent researching locations, restaurants, transport, weather. You name it and there is a fair chance I have researched it. So when it came to planning a trip to Japan one of the major criterion was weather and more specifically blossom or sakura. I consulted various websites detailing the bloom dates in various towns over the preceding five years to try and ensure guaranteed blossom.  So we arrived. No blossom. Not a problem, still two and a half weeks of the trip to go and quite a journey south. Two weeks on and down in Kyoto there is still no blossom. Back to Tokyo and our last full day in Japan having left Ueno Park to the last possible moment, perhaps most famous for its blossom and the hanami parties- essentially picnics- held under the trees.  There were odd patches of blossom so I didn't go completely without...

Spot the bird.

In summary a grey, windy and rather chilly day was not how I had hoped my Ueno Park experience would pan out....

We started in the north of the park from Ueno station on the JR train line. At least nine  museums are located within close proximity including the National Museum of Science and Nature , the Ueno Royal Museum, and the National Museum of Western Art. as well as Tokyo zoo. Wading through the hordes of overexcited groups of Japanese schoolchildren we headed towards our target for the morning, Tokyo National Museum.

 

Tokyo National Museum is worth a visit if you are interested in better understanding some of the historic Japanese periods throughout the ages and seeing artefacts from each era.The building it is housed in is also quite beautiful. Just like the British Museum or the Met in New York, you could spend an entire day there and only scratch the surface but for me it was more interesting to dip in and see a few of the highlights to get some context to what I was seeing elsewhere.  The park is far from being only about museums, it also holds several shrines including the Toshogu Shrine (close to the zoo) and Bentendo Temple in the middle of Shinobazu Lake.

Bentendo Templev

Some of the lonely businessmen and my favourite of the Ema Shinto shrine plaques.

I had heard stories of how lower ranking businessmen are sent by their bosses to sit all day and guard the best sakura spots but had never quite believed it to be true until I saw it with my own eyes. Junior accountants, lawyers, management consultants all suited and booted just sat, all day, on a blue tarpaulin awaiting the arrival of their colleagues after hours.

One thing that cannot be disputed is that the Japanese truly do LOVE blossom. Gaggles of people were crowded around the few trees already in bloom taking pictures on everything and anything from top of the range Canon SLRs to the most basic of mobile phones. Much posing and peace finger signs ensue.

Wandering down along the long, straight lane of over 1000 cherry blossom trees, around a quarter were about to bloom and many early sakura hunters were out in force.  Restaurants and shops all release special sakura themed dishes or products, even international companies get on the bandwagon, I came home with a limited edition Le Creuset blossom shaped tea set and Lanvin, Celine and Dior sakura handkerchiefs all at much lower prices than the non limited edition would be at home.

Reaching the Southern end of the park I took a detour towards the lake. During sakura season numerous street food sellers line the bridge that crosses to a small islet set out into Shinobazu Pond. 

All kinds of weird and wonderful sweet and savoury finger foods are on offer and stalls are busy with passing trade.   I ordered a barbecued chicken yakitori stick. In all honesty it was a bit disappointing, too much overly sweet sauce but it was a bit early in the day for salted sardine or chilled octopus kebabs.

Baby octopus anyone?

Locals and tourists weren't the only ones eyeing up the seafood....

You can't go to Tokyo and not visit Ueno Park no matter the time of year- it is such a melting pot of Japanese culture and a relaxing spot in an otherwise non-stop city.