HELLO EVERYONE!
I’m back!!! I took a brief hiatus from the blog because I ended up being very overwhelmed with job hunting and school. But, I am back and better than ever! I love that this blog is a place where we have a variety of different topics and are able to write about anything we are interested in. I usually write about travel tips and makeup– today, however, I want to talk about something else I care deeply about: food. I love discovering the best food (usually for cheap) and being able to recommend food to people where ever they go. I also am fortunate to travel a decent amount so I had to learn how to find good food, for personal sanity!
During my “spring” break, my mom and I spent a few days in the Burlington Vermont area. We love going to Burlington and our tradition has been to go every Halloween weekend, but this year I was too busy to make it so we delayed the trip a few months. We’ve figured out our favorite spots and now I’m going to share them with you. I did a bad job as a blogger and forgot to take pictures of pretty much everything… oops!
I love coming here every time I go to Burlington. It’s a Vegan cafe that has awesome sandwiches, smoothies, salads and other delicious things. My mom and I shared a berry smoothie, broccoli bites, and something that isn’t on their usual menu, but it’s basically a vegan version of a Taco Bell CrunchWrap. It was so good and came with a salad that had honestly the best dressing I’ve ever tasted, I ended up putting it on everything. We also bought some eggplant bacon to take home for my brother (not a bacon fan, vegan or not).
This is definitely a restaurant that is a splurge, but well worth it. We love coming here and always make sure to work it into the schedule. This time we had their homemade rolls, a small plate of pasta with mushrooms and kale (there was meat in this dish but we asked for it without meat), and roasted cauliflower with farro and butternut squash creme. The pasta was in the top 5 best things I’ve ever eaten, I’ve been talking about it since then. I found the cauliflower to be great, but my mom did not think it was roasted enough. For dessert, we had chocolate cremeux, which was basically chocolate mousse with whipped cream and ice cream.
I find myself not always being the biggest fan of higher end restaurants because I find them to often be incredibly pretentious. That’s one of the reasons I love Hen of the Wood (other than the food), it’s so completely unpretentious. You can wear what you want and you’ll be treated like anyone else in the restaurant. It’s a great spot and I highly recommend going if you get the chance.
This is where we went for breakfast both days we were in Burlington for breakfast. I’m currently living in Montreal and here we have a different kind of bagel. It’s smaller, denser, sweeter, and covered in sesame seeds. To be honest, I’m not that into it, so every time I’m back in the states I try to find some good New York style bagels. These did not disappoint. They’re big and squishy and taste awesome. I had the jalapeno and cheddar in an egg sandwich one morning and then a plain bagel egg sandwich the next morning. The jalapeno and cheddar is actually spicy and I really enjoyed it as someone who loves spicy anything. I got a bakers dozen to take back home and have been steadily making my way through them. In addition to the two bagels I tried, I also got the Asiago cheese to take home and it’s good but keep in mind it’s a very strong cheesey taste, so it’s best served more plain.
If you know me in real life, chances are you’ve heard me complain about the pizza in Montreal. I mean, we have a Little Italy neighborhood here and it’s a very diverse city, yet the pizza here just sucks. As someone who grew up in the Boston area with fabulous pizza this has been a very tough thing for me. When my brother came to visit me in NYC this past summer, we ate pizza FOUR times in 3 days because it was so good compared to Montreal.
All that being said, I knew I needed to get some pizza while I was in Burlington. Lucky for me, a lot of the top rated restaurants in Burlington are pizza places! We ended up going to Pizzeria Verita and had some amazing pizza. We had the Insalata Colorata to start which is “Roasted tri-colored beets, avocado, microgreens, citrus vinaigrette.” I hate beets so just picked around and ate the avocado, but the vinaigrette was one of the best tasting things I’ve ever had. I told my mom I wanted to douse my life in that stuff. We ended up getting some focaccia to dip in the dressing (it was that good) and the focaccia was one of the most amazing things I’ve eaten, and I know my bread.
For dinner we had the Funghi Rustico pizza which is “Trio of wild mushrooms, béchamel, parmesan, provolone, fresh sage, scallion, truffle oil.” W O W. I am obsessed with having mushrooms on pizza and these wild mushrooms really took it to the next level. In addition, the crust was absolute perfection, it’s what pizzas wish to be. I was so pleased with our meal here and would highly recommend to pizza lovers!
I always love coming to this place. We usually do a bad job planning and go on Sundays, when they are closed, so this time we were sure to go on a different day. Stone Soup has daily soups, a hot and cold food bar, sandwiches, quiche, and baked goods. We got some food from the self-serve bar and a piece of quiche. Everything was quite good and I think it’s a great place to stop for lunch. However, where they really shine is their baked goods. This time we had a carrot cake cookie sandwich, and we were very sad to have gotten the last one because we could have eaten 10 (so maybe we were fortunate?).
There are three Lake Champlain Chocolate stores in the Burlington area and they are some of our favorite spots. My mom and I are obsessed with the chocolate and caramel covered pretzels. We get at least one a day and I brought 6 back home with me to Montreal. The downside? They’re $4.50 a pop!! I highly recommend you try them, they are worth it, but our new goal is to create imitation ones to eat at home for cheaper.
This farm is in Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier. We came here because it was recommend to us by the tourist center for the awesome maple soft serve ice cream. It was so rich and creamy with a clear maple taste. As Canadians, maple syrup is the food of our people, so we loved this. We also believe that it is never too cold for ice cream.
DO YOU LIKE CHEESE?! DO YOU LIKE FREE SAMPLES?! If you answered yes to these questions then this is the place for you! Located in Waterbury Vermont, this store is a cheese lover’s heaven. They have a TON of cheese samples so you can pretty much spend 15 minutes just trying all the cheeses they have to offer. Then we bought our favorites! My brother is a huge cheese lover so we got him 3lb of cheddar. I got the everything bagel cheddar and the habenero cheese (SO spicy!!) to take home and enjoy.
Lastly, here are two coffee recommendations from my mom. I’m not a coffee drinker but she is very picky about hers so I tend to trust her recommendations. I had a chai latte at both places and they weren’t hot enough and were too sweet, but that is literally always the case for me!
Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea and Maglianero Cafe
Feminine Boutique Blog 