New York State and Connecticut: Part One

It was fantastic to be back on the road this past week when my wife and I ventured up to New York State and Connecticut to see old friends and visit a couple historically significant tourist attractions. 

This turned out to be an unusual trip in that we didn’t eat any noteworthy food until its final 24 hours – although we did manage to pack a lot of it into that short time span. Yet the quality of the two attractions more than made up for the several disappointing meals we had prior to then. 

This first installment of what will be a two-part report will have a huge number of photos by the standard of what I normally post. The bulk of them will be from those two tourist attractions, although all of the meals we ate out will also be included.

The trip began Thursday when we drove up to the area around Poughkeepsie, New York, which is close to our first destination – the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park. We wouldn’t be visiting there until the following morning, so the only thing to report on for Thursday is our dinner.

I gave a few options for places to eat to my wife and she selected The Dutchess Biercafe, a Belgian restaurant in Fishkill, NY – a gorgeous little town a little south of Poughkeepsie. 

Outdoor seating was available, but it was just chilly enough for us to head inside. The beer theme to the decor was obvious immediately.   

Although the menu had plenty of other options, I had my choices down to frites with either a burger or mussels in a classic white sauce without looking at most of it. 

Mussels would seem to be the thing to get at a Belgian restaurant, but I was feeling the burger more strongly when the time came to order and went in that direction. I requested it medium-rare with American cheese, onions and pickles, but no lettuce or tomato. My wife opted for the Endive and Crispy Brussel Salad and the soup of the day – cream of mushroom.

Her soup and salad came out together and the salad in particular was extremely pleasing to the eye. It also was a winner in terms of my wife’s palate, as was the mushroom soup. 

My burger was cooked to medium-rare as requested and was good, but not spectacular taste-wise. The main problem with my meal was the fries, which weren’t actually traditional Belgian-style frites to start with. But much worse than that, they had way too much salt on them. I probably should have sent them back, but I ate as many as I could, as did my wife. Yet we still didn’t come close to finishing them. The portion was enough to feed a family of four. 

My wife was clearly at least a little happier with her meal than I was with mine, but I would have to think there was a bit of bad luck involved in that they don’t normally serve their fries so salty. Without that issue, it would have been an enjoyable dinner for me. 

The next morning, we ate a quick breakfast of muffins in our room and headed north to Hyde Park and the FDR museum. 

Unfortunately, it rained extremely hard during our entire visit to the facility, which impacted us negatively in a couple ways; most notably our failure to walk the grounds and see the house after we finished up at the museum. I also wasn’t able to get a decent exterior shot of the visitor center, which was our first stop and where we watched a biographical film on FDR. 

The walk from the visitor center to the main museum was blessedly short. I managed to snap a decent shot of the entry courtyard featuring an imposing bust of the former president front and center. 

Once inside, we got right to viewing the permanent exhibit that mainly covers Roosevelt’s presidency, with a little information on his family and personal life mixed in. 

The exhibit runs in chronological order with visitors starting at the Great Depression and shots of the misery faced by millions in the years and months leading up to the 1932 presidential election. From there, it was just steps to FDR’s first campaign and victory along with the blitz of New Deal legislation during his first 100 days in office. 

Rather than describe his presidency, I’ll let my photos do the talking. Here is a string that covers through his death. It’s obviously not comprehensive. I snapped a lot of photos but had to draw the line at times. 

After that there was a small section on what Eleanor Roosevelt did after her husband’s death as well as one of FDR’s cars and his Oval Office desk. 

It took a fairly long time to get through all of that. Neither my wife nor I had a desire to forge ahead any further in the rain at that point. We were also both getting hungry and wanted to get onto the road in the direction of our next destination – north-central Connecticut. Our friends, Rich and Tina, who we’ve been visiting in the Nutmeg State for many years, now live in that region. 

On top of seeing our friends, Connecticut is probably my favorite state for food. It’s great for so many things – pizza, ice cream, seafood, burgers, hot dogs; you name it. I tend to emphasize the first three items on that list when I’m there. But those would wait until the final leg of the trip on the state’s coast, where much of the food that is of primary interest to me is found in abundance. 

That’s getting ahead of myself though. We had a late lunch on our minds when we left the museum Friday, and I had a classic-looking small-town diner lined up that was just off our route to Rich and Tina’s. 

The Millbrook Diner reminds me of my beloved Summit Diner in Somerset, PA. Both have the look that one envisions when thinking of an old-school diner. 

I was in the mood for breakfast food and ordered a Canadian bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on an English Muffin. My wife went the lunch route and had a Roma Special sandwich, which featured tomato slices, fresh mozzarella, lettuce and mayo on a rosemary ciabatta. 

Both of us were very satisfied and I had enough room left over to order rice pudding sprinkled with cinnamon and topped with whipped cream. Talk about a comfort dessert. 

After a long and scenic ride on mostly two-lane roads from Hyde Park to north-central Connecticut, we stayed in to eat and catch up with Rich and Tina Friday evening. But we had a big agenda for Saturday and it got started with lunch.

One of the food items I always try to eat while in Connecticut is fried whole-belly clams, which tend to be found mainly along the New England coast. But I had other eating plans for the coast on this trip and our unusual route didn’t afford us an opportunity to visit Denmo’s in Southbury, CT, which is my usual stop for fried clams. As an alternative, I found a long-standing and popular restaurant that serves them and was also convenient to our second destination of the day called the Maine Fish Market Restaurant in East Windsor, CT. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect at this place and wasn’t thrilled with its sports bar-like decor. Wood paneling and fake fish on the walls is more my style when it comes to seafood restaurants.

On the plus side, their menu featured just about anything a seafood-lover could ask for – most importantly, both warm and cold lobster rolls and fried clams. Rich and Tina wanted the former while I was focused on the latter. I would get my lobster roll the following day – after we reached the coast. 

To start, we ordered clams casino for the table. I’ve written about how much I love this dish in past posts. But this version turned out to be disappointing, primarily because of the excess amount of breading that was stuffed onto the shells, along with the clams, roasted peppers and large pieces of bacon. 

My fried clams platter came with soup or salad, but lobster bisque was not included. Yet I wanted it badly enough to upgrade and ordered a cup. It turned out to be the highlight of the meal – thick, tasty and full of small pieces of lobster meat.

Both the cold lobster rolls Rich and Tina ordered and my fried clam and French fries platter were unsatisfying. They are former Maine dwellers and know a good lobster roll when they come across one. Both said this one was solid, but not at the level of a good Maine lobster roll. Tina wasn’t nuts about the untraditional roll it came on.

The problem with the fried clams was that they weren’t battered and fried very well. Several of the bellies had almost no coating at all, and the coating that was on there was too soft. While they tasted fine, their texture was way off from the better fried clams I’ve had in the past. The fries also could have done with a little more time in the fryer. I like them crispy.

We had a fairly short ride from lunch to our next destination – and the second significant tourist attraction we’d visit on this trip. I came across the New England Air Museum of Windsor Locks, CT, online while searching for something to do for a few hours during our Saturday afternoon in Connecticut. It was a very good find.

After walking through a lobby with a large number of airplane models hanging from the ceiling, we entered a huge room with rows of military airplanes on one side and helicopters on the other. It was a spectacular sight to behold.

I don’t have the expertise to adequately describe everything I saw, so I’ll again just provide you with the photos. There are a lot of them, so if seeing old military planes and helicopters doesn’t interest you, feel free to scroll on down.

After seeing everything in that first big room, I noticed a side exhibit on the history of female aviators and made my way through it.

To my surprise, there was another large room full of planes at the other end of the exhibit. Here are photos of what I saw in there.

Once again I was surprised to find a third large room after I had finished viewing what was in the second one. This one contained what may be described as the museum’s grand finale – a B-29 Superfortress. There were also a few smaller planes and an exhibit on the Tuskegee Airmen. 

That was one hell of a museum. I highly recommend seeking it out to anyone who finds themselves in that area – or even taking a detour to see it. 

We spent a considerable amount of time at the Air Museum. After a short respite back at the house, it was time to head out again for dinner. 

Our destination, which I again suggested to Rich during the week leading up to the trip, was Munich Haus in Chicopee, Massachusetts – slightly north of Springfield. 

German food has never been a favorite cuisine of mine. I may have it once every 10-15 years and have yet to walk away from the experience happy with what I had just eaten. But I saw a video online a few months ago about the making of sauerbraten, which I had never tried, and it looked good enough for me to want to give it a shot at the earliest opportunity. 

Rich was stationed in then West Germany during his military days and has a fairly good knowledge of German food and culture, so when I saw Munich Haus while searching for dinner options, it felt like opportunity knocking. 

The restaurant had both an authentic look and menu, so our hopes were high as we were ushered to a booth next to the bar.

As is often the case, I had my ordering mind made up long before we arrived at the restaurant. In addition to sauerbraten, I wanted to try an order of potato pancakes to see how they compared to those I’ve had at various Jewish delis and relatives’ homes. 

We all shared an order, which came with both apple sauce and sour cream on the side. The former has always been my latke condiment of choice. 

As soon as they were set down on the table, Rich commented that they didn’t look as good as those he ate during his days in Germany. They seemed a bit over-fried and there wasn’t much there in terms of flavor. 

My wife and I both had a cup of soup as well – lentil in her case and beef goulash in mine. And for the second time that day, the soup turned out to be the best course of our meal. The goulash was extremely flavorful and packed with vegetables and chunks of beef. 

Unfortunately, none of us enjoyed our entrees, with the possible exception of Tina, who probably did the wise thing by ordering a chicken parmesan special.

My wife opted for the Jägerschnitzel , which came topped with a thick brown mushroom sauce. While she enjoyed the sides and thought the schnitzel itself was good, she described the sauce as mucilaginous, which is like gummy but with more syllables.

Rich went with the Zigeunerschnitzel, which he said traditionally comes topped with a reddish sauce. In this case, it arrived with essentially the same thick brown sauce that was on my wife’s schnitzel minus the mushrooms. He wasn’t pleased. 

And I didn’t have better luck with my sauerbraten, which is essentially pot roast with a slightly vinegary sauce. The beef was tougher than roast should be. 

As is always the case – and in spite of the disappointing meals – we had a wonderful time visiting with Rich and Tina, who are both fantastic hosts. 

We said our good-bys the following morning before my wife and I headed to the Connecticut coast for the final leg of our vacation and a day of what would be much more satisfying eating. 

I’ll get to that along with the following day’s lunch and a bonus stop, in part two of this trip report, which will be almost entirely about food, as we had no more tourist stops planned by that point. It should be posted Friday morning. As I alluded to previously, the emphasis will be on seafood, pizza and ice cream – three foods that always come to mind when I think of Connecticut.