Offbeat Eats
@offbeateats.bsky.social
Food-related ramblings of an oft-traveled engineer
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Sacred Profane Brewery and Tankpub in Biddeford, ME. Solid Czech-style lagers brewed and served well. And, alas, one of the more annoying side-substitution policies I've dealt with, one that left an unpleasant taste. offbeateats.org/2026/08/sacr...
Sacred Profane Brewery and Tankpub (Biddeford, ME)
In early June, Carol and I did a short vacation to Acadia National Park with our
offbeateats.org
London indulgence: Roti canai and kari from Gopal’s Corner
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of 506 Bistro in Woodstock, VT. One of the few places in the greater Upper Valley with the combination of "fine dining" and "open Mondays", 506 Bistro offers up some good food, but also some disappointments. offbeateats.org/2026/07/506-...
506 Bistro (Woodstock, VT)
We recently had reason to celebrate a major milestone on a Friday evening, and other obligations of mine already had me visiting Woodstock, Vermont the same day. Normally, this would have been a grea...
offbeateats.org
A Reuben Scramble (with sauerkraut and pastrami) at Batter & Bacon in Wallingford, VT
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of the new Odd Duck Diner and Donuts in Claremont, NH. Serving up a surprisingly diverse menu in Claremont's former Country Café/Fast Lane location. offbeateats.org/2026/06/odd-...
Odd Duck Diner and Donuts (Claremont, NH)
A recent hiking trip had us passing through Claremont, New Hampshire during breakfast time. Claremont has a good selection of restaurants, but it also has several locations that just, for one reason ...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats "Health Check" re-review of Beefside in Concord, NH. A few years into new owners, they are still one of the best places in the area for old-school, piled-high roast beef sandwiches and French Dips. offbeateats.org/2026/05/heal...
Health Check: Beefside (Concord, NH)
Anyone that's known me for a long time knows that two of my favorite sandwiches are the related roast beef sandwich, and the French Dip. As I discussed in detail with my review of Jamie's Roast Beef ...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Shirley's Kitchen in Suncook Village, NH. Not just your average breakfast and lunch diner, Shirley's also has a great menu of Korean- and Korean-American fusion dishes, including an awesome Omurice. offbeateats.org/2026/05/shir...
Shirley's Kitchen (Suncook, NH)
A recent trip over to Dover, New Hampshire resulted in us looking for breakfast options around the greater Hooksett area (the region between Concord and Manchester, NH, straddling the Merrimack River)...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of an old favorite, Windsor Station in Windsor, VT. A converted rail station serving up steaks, burgers, and some of the best hand-made pasta. offbeateats.org/2026/05/wind...
Windsor Station (Windsor, VT)
Last month, we were looking for a good place to go to celebrate Carol's birthday, and realized we hadn't been to one of our area favorites for a while: Windsor Station in Windsor, VT. As you might su...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of The Wooden Soldier in Fair Haven, VT. Serving up classic diner fare in a restaurant that's changed surprisingly little since it opened in 1965, The Wooden Soldier offers up a great breakfast, including a top notch Benedict. offbeateats.org/2026/05/wood...
The Wooden Soldier (Fair Haven, Vermont)
We recently had to do a short day trip over to the Adirondacks in New York, and that left us looking for a new place for breakfast on the drive over. We've had a lot of great little spots on this dri...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Jalisco Bar and Grill in Newport, NH. One of several Mexican places in the "Lower Upper Valley" to open in the last few years, Jalisco offers up some good Mexican food in the old Country Kitchen location. offbeateats.org/2026/05/jali...
Jalisco Bar and Grill (Newport, NH)
Back in 2021, one of my favorite breakfast spots, Country Kitchen in Newport, NH, announced that they wouldn't be reopening after Covid-19 closures. I miss that spot; it was definitely a bit of a di...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Odysea Coffee in Bristol, NH. In-house roasted Honduran coffee, and a great selection of pastries, sandwiches, and crêpes. offbeateats.org/2026/05/odys...
Odysea Coffee (Bristol, New Hampshire)
One of the odd details of NH that you don't really appreciate until living here is that we only have two major interstates (I-89 and I-93), and if you aren't driving between Manchester and Vermont (I-...
offbeateats.org
15 years ago today, Kate and William killed Osama Bin Laden at their wedding.
I like dino nugs, even if the paleontology on them is suspect.
Spirit air going out of business is gonna impact the “videos of people getting arrested on airplanes” industry in the short term. But fear not, Frontier still exists.
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Zaytoona Middle Eastern Restaurant in South Burlington, MA. A good selection of Middle Eastern food, and one of the best chicken shawarma bowls I've ever had (almost as good as Haji Baba). offbeateats.org/2026/05/zayt...
Zaytoona (South Burlington, Vermont)
After a weekend of robotics judging in Burlington, activities wrapped up around 7:30pm. The I-89 route back to my home in New Hampshire isn't exactly heavily populated with dining establishments, and...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Taco Gordo in Burlington, VT's Old North End. Great tacos and good tequila drinks in a converted bottle redemption center. offbeateats.org/2026/04/taco...
Taco Gordo (Burlington, Vermont)
Like my trip to Portland in March, early April had me spending several days in Burlington, VT at the University of Vermont (UVM) campus, volunteering as a robotics competition judge. Like usual, this...
offbeateats.org
Sharing my #OffbeatEats review of Restaurant Abouda in Montreal's La Petite-Patrie neighborhood. Serving up some great Tunisian food, Abouda is particularly good if you need a family- or group-based outing. offbeateats.org/2026/04/rest...
Restaurant Abouda (Montreal, Quebec)
Our second day in Montreal involved a pleasant outing to the McCord-Stewart Museum (which had an excellent Offbeat-eats relevant exhibit, On the Menu, featuring menus and other paraphernalia from vari...
offbeateats.org
French Dip at Beefside, Concord NH. How can you *not* like a place with a giant cow on the sign?
The brewery I’m at has “Surf and Turf”: a mix of animal crackers and goldfish.
i fully understand why gefilte fish is such a divisive food (I adore it), but one of my favorite bits of concrete applied food history is the Gefilte Fish Line, which maps the sweet vs salt gefilte fish divide precisely via the historical sugar beet trade www.npr.org/sections/the...
The Gefilte Fish Line: A Sweet And Salty History Of Jewish Identity
Gefilte fish can be a hard sell even in its standard savory form. But some European Jews like it sweet, a preference that, surprisingly, overlaps exactly with a geographic and linguistic divide.
npr.org
Jennie@unabridgedopinions.com · 4mo agoha! I was thinking gefilte fish.
One of the odder things about food blogging is that occasionally I end up going down some odd historical rabbit holes. In this case, the question came up of whether the (long-gone) famous Bens Deli in Montreal ever had an apostrophe in the name.