Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [36]
Wells River, VT
BLD | $
P & H, a real truck stop, is not for the fastidious epicure. You need to pass through the aroma of diesel fuel outside to get to the smells of fresh-baked bread and of pot roast with gravy in the dining room. Enter past shelves of whole loaves of white and cinnamon-raisin bread for sale. This is a kitchen that means business.
Soups and chowders are especially inviting: tomato-macaroni soup is thick with vegetables, ground beef, and soft noodles; corn chowder is loaded with potatoes and corn kernels and flavored with bacon. We love the falling-apart pot roast and any kind of sandwich made using thick-sliced P & H bread, but the mashed potatoes (puree de pommes de terre on the bilingual menu, written for French-Canadian truckers) taste like they were made from powder, and the meat loaf is strictly for die-hard diner fans.
The homemade dessert selection is huge, including fruit pies, berry pies, custard pies, meringue pies, Reese’s pie (a peanut-cream), a few types of pudding, and maple-cream pie thick as toffee and topped with nuts.
Putney Diner
82 Main St.
802–387–5433
Putney, VT
BLD | $
“We’re ready for our pies,” we tell Ellie, the waitress at the Putney Diner.
“No, you’re not!” she responds, noting that we haven’t totally cleaned our plates of foot-long hot dogs with baked beans, macaroni and (cheddar) cheese, a meat loaf sandwich with cheese and cranberry sauce, shepherd’s pie, and split pea soup with ham.
We implore her, and she relents, cutting big, unwieldy slices of apple pie, crumb-top berry pie, and maple walnut pie. The maple walnut is especially hefty. “You want ice cream or whipped cream with that?” Ellie asks. “You need one or the other because that pie is so sweet.”
Although the logic of her recommendation escapes us, we do as Ellie says and have our maple pie topped with whipped cream. She is the kind of waitress who makes you want to behave right. “Can’t you tell I used to be a mother?” she says. Then comes the punch line: “But I gave it up due to lack of interest.”
So it goes at the Putney Diner, a delightful little town eatery just minutes away from I-91 at Exit 4. Although it doesn’t look like a classic diner, this place has the spirit…and the menu. In the morning, plates of plain or buckwheat pancakes come with only-in-Vermont maple syrup. Eggs can be had with kielbasa or corned beef hash. And broad-topped muffins are split and toasted on the grill. At lunch, you can count on square meals of meat loaf or roast turkey and stuffing or the arcane Yankee favorite, American chop suey.
Simon Pearce Restaurant
1760 Main St.
802–295–2711
Quechee, VT
LD | $$
Quechee is a magical New England village, known best for the nearby Quechee Gorge, “Vermont’s Grand Canyon,” and for the legendary Simon Pearce Restaurant. Originally opened in 1985 as the Glassblower’s Cafe, the restaurant is part of the Simon Pearce glassblowing factory that is still downstairs. An airy dining room is perched high above the rushing waterfall that powers the glasswork’s furnaces and has large windowed walls that look out over Quechee’s covered bridge. The setting is New England at its most picturesque.
Pearce himself is Irish, and his kitchen offers such homeland comfort-food specialties as soda bread scones and Ballymaloe brown bread, beef and Guinness stew, and an unspeakably delicious shepherd’s pie made from local grass-fed beef and topped with a savory cheese-enriched crust. Many dishes are a creative ode to favorite Yankee groceries, such as horseradish-crusted cod, Maine salmon in phyllo dough with Vermont chèvre cream, Vermont cheese soup, and house-smoked trout. And there is a grand Caesar salad garnished with crusty fried oysters.
Available libations include a choice from an astonishing 900-label wine list, locally brewed beers and ales, and hot mulled cider. For dessert, we favor the old-fashioned Irish apple cake and pumpkin bread pudding, served warm with cranberries and caramel sauce and a dollop of rich vanilla ice cream.
Up for Breakfast
710 Main St.
802