Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [13]
Beyond hamburgers, the Sycamore also offers frankfurters topped with bacon and sauerkraut, a fine “pot o’ beans” (baked), and good chili. It is famous for root beer, made on premises from a top-secret recipe and served in frosty glass mugs. The root beer varies from sweet to dry, depending on where in the barrel your serving comes from, but whatever its nature on any day, it always makes the perfect basis for a root beer float.
The Sycamore is a genuine drive-in with carhop service (blink your lights) and window trays for in-car dining. Indoors, there are booths and a long counter. And in the summer, on weekend evenings, Cruise Nights attract hordes of vintage car collectors in their finest restored and custom vehicles. It’s a true blast from the past!
Ted’s
1046 Broad St.
203–237–6660
Meriden, CT
L | $
Central Connecticut is home to about a half-dozen restaurants that all make steamed cheeseburgers, a regional specialty so geographically focused that even people in eastern and western Connecticut have never heard of it. A steamer, as served at Ted’s (since 1959), is cooked not on a grill or grate, but in a steam cabinet, the meat held inside a square tin as it browns. Adjacent to the beef in the cabinet are tins into which are placed blocks of Vermont cheddar. The cheese turns molten and is ladled atop the burger in a hard roll (preferably with lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mustard). Curiously, this dish was created in the 1920s, when eating steamed food was a health fad.
Ted’s is a tiny place with four booths, but the best place to sit is at the counter—a short slice of Roadfood heaven. Here the seats provide a view of the twin steam boxes, the bin of chopped meat from which fistfuls are grabbed for burgers, as well as a pile of hard rolls and big blocks of cheese ready to be melted.
Timothy’s
2974 Fairfield Ave.
203–366–7496
Bridgeport, CT
$
The antique hand-cranked, salt-and-ice churners in the windows of Timothy’s are now only for display purposes, but the ice cream you will eat here does have the kind of extreme purity and goodness you’d expect from a farm-churned brand. We adore the elemental Sweet Cream (dulcet white with no flavor other than dairy sweetness) and supercharged Black Rock (French vanilla studded with chocolate-covered almonds), and the Dutch Chocolate is simply the most chocolaty ice cream possible. Waffle cones are made on premises in irons behind the counter, and they are broad mouthed enough to hold multiple scoops dolloped with fudge and whipped cream.
Dining facilities include tables inside and a few chairs out on the sidewalk that are good for watching traffic pass on Fairfield Avenue. A big bonus of Timothy’s location is the fact that it is around the corner from both Super Duper Weenie (Connecticut) and the Fairfield location of Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana (Connecticut).
Whistle Stop Muffins
20 Portland Ave.
203–544–8139
Georgetown, CT
BL | $
Located inside the Branchville, Connecticut, train station where commuters hop Metro North on their way to the city, Whistle Stop caters to people with little time to sit and eat. We aren’t commuters, but even when we buy a couple of sticky buns to take home, which is a mere two miles away, it is not likely both will arrive at the kitchen table. They’re too much fun to eat while still warm, and frankly, licking the caramel goo off one’s fingers is part of the pleasure. When Whistle Stop originally opened, muffins were the only thing on the menu; there are still about a dozen varieties baked every morning, as well as rich-textured scones, biscotti, and other sweet coffee companions.
While most customers get their breakfast to go, it is a pleasure to take your muffin and a cup of coffee to the adjoining “waiting room,” where there are a few tables for those in no hurry to eat, sip, and read the morning paper.
Maine
Beal’s Lobster Pier
182 Clark Point Rd.
207–244–7178
Southwest