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dinwiddie
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2178
 | | 10/30/2005 11:35 PM |
| | We will be taking the boy up to visit Quinnipiac Univ. the weekend of Veteran's day and wonder where there are good places to eat in the Hamden, Milford, New Haven area. Is corkage permitted in CT? Any recommendations for great food and wine? | | | |
| Daniel Posner
Grape Fermenter
Posts:586
| | 10/31/2005 5:05 AM |
| | Stonecroft Inn, but near Mystic so a little far, but excellent restaurant. | | | |
| JimmyV
Central Connecticut
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5112
| | 10/31/2005 2:58 PM |
| In New Haven:
Union League Cafe -Corkage $15. Jacques Pepin's favorite spot. He had his daughter's wedding there. So that should tell you something.
Tre Scalini-100 Wooster Street (New Haven's "Little Italy", and home to Pepe's Pizza. You MUST try Pepe's if you never have.) Tre Scalini has a nice wine list with bottles with some age. Corkage is $15, but I always order off the list. Old School Italian, without any modern pretense. Very good food.
Ibiza -Gourmet Magazine cited this as the best Spanish restaurant in the country. Not sure about corkage.
Roomba-1044 Chapel Street-A very hip/trendy South American, Floribbean fusion restaurant that remains the hottest ticket in town. I haven't been, but I've never heard a bad word about it. (I'm just not really into that style of food that much.) Very high Zagat rating.
Bentara -upscale Malaysian. Corkage is $15.
Depending on how far you want to drive, Cafe Routier in Westbrook (about 30-40 minutes east of New Haven) is an excellent modern French/American spot with $10 corkage. A friend who went recently wasn't charged any corkage, but that may have been an oversight.
Le Petite Cafe in Branford is about 15 minutes east of New Haven. It is among the highest rated spots in the state, partly because of the quality of the food, but partly because of the concept. They do 2 (I think) seatings a night. No menu. $39 prix fixe. You eat what they cook that night with a couple of choices. A real casual place that will convince you that you are in France. Don't know about corkage. We usually just order wines by the glass to pair with the courses. Very hard reservation to obtain, but worth it. Jacque Pepin's other favorite spot.
If you need more, let me know. | |
Beta testing a new signature. | |
| dinwiddie
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2178
| | 11/13/2005 8:54 PM |
| We ended up eating at Chow in New Haven. I would have liked to eat at the Union League, but we were really not dressed for it. Chow is the less formal half of Zinc, and is down the alley. The decor is sparse, brick walls, wooden tables and booths with easy chairs and a long couch on one wall. The food is only small plates, dim sum to them, but it is excellent.
The three of us shared seven dishes, Chicken dumpling soup with ginger, shitake mushroom and coconut milk broth, a wonderful herb tomato soup with goat cheese, duck confit rice paper rolls with tamarino lime dipping sauce, chicken and peanut dumplings, red curry shrimp (hot and spicy and sublime) Asian eggplant sandwich with red peppers, cucumber, goat cheese and thai basil pesto and finally rare tuna and seaweed salad. All were excellent, and were served with a fresh peppery watercress salad, shaved carrots, and fresh pickled ginger. If I had to chose the best it would be the tomato soup and the rice paper rolls.
For dessert we chose the ginger flan, a major hit with everyone, steamed sweet chocolate buns with passion fruit coulis, and crispy banana rolls with tamarino dipping sauce. Again, hard to say which was best.
Prices ranged from $4 for the soup, served in a mug, to about $9 for the shrimp. Nothing outragous, but not cheap either. However, it was all so good, I sure didn't complain about the food.
They bill themselves as a wine bar, and they do have 5 reds, 6 whites, and three sparklers by the glass. Nothing exceptional, but nothing awful either. Theyt have about 10 beers, ranging from Red Stripe to Belhaven Scottish Ale, so if you want something to drink with the food, you can find it. Excellent iced tea too. I had a glass of the 2002 Trimbach Gewurztraminer for $8.
Service was friendly, efficient and fast.
I highly recommend Chow as a fun place with fun food. | | | |
| TBird
Park Slope, Brooklyn
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5219
| | 01/15/2006 10:31 PM |
| Quote:
Le Petite Cafe in Branford is about 15 minutes east of New Haven. It is among the highest rated spots in the state, partly because of the quality of the food, but partly because of the concept. They do 2 (I think) seatings a night. No menu. $39 prix fixe. You eat what they cook that night with a couple of choices. A real casual place that will convince you that you are in France. Don't know about corkage. We usually just order wines by the glass to pair with the courses. Very hard reservation to obtain, but worth it. Jacque Pepin's other favorite spot.
the food here was really good(it's now $42.50, but who's counting), reservations for the 6:00 seating were fairly easy to come by less than a week in advance.
it kind of bugged me that they feel the need to hang every review of the place in the front window and plaster the reviews in the bathroom too, but again, for $42.50 with the quality that good, i can get over it.
wine list sucked.
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| TBird
Park Slope, Brooklyn
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5219
| | 06/15/2006 3:01 PM |
| | headed back this weekend and will check out Nini's. any new info for the area? | | | |
| TBird
Park Slope, Brooklyn
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5219
| | 02/15/2007 7:05 PM |
| | has anyone triedBespoke(new haven)? will be there on saturday. wine friendly? | | | |
| TBird
Park Slope, Brooklyn
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5219
| | 02/15/2007 8:51 PM |
| Quote:
has anyone triedBespoke(new haven)? will be there on saturday. wine friendly?
for future reference(they just called), corkage is $15. | | | |
| JimmyV
Central Connecticut
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5112
| | 02/16/2007 1:47 AM |
| | Haven't been yet, but Franco-Camacho did wonderful things at Roomba. Bespoke is getting lots of positive ink, but in CT, that means little. Almost any place that strives for urban "hipness" is jumped on, even if the food doesn't warrant it. In the land of steady habits, anything that looks as if it has been plucked from Tribeca gets noticed. Let us know what you think. If it warrants a return visit, let me know and we can do a corkage blowout. | |
Beta testing a new signature. | |
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