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Whiskeybent didn't care for the Blue Tractor, but I quite enjoyed it. If nothing else, the menu is good for inspiration for one's own efforts. When I visited in May, I was with my mom, and after the first night, she wanted to go back, so I got to try it twice.

I thought the smoked chicken chowder was quite nice -- nothing to write home about, but tasty and smokey with real smoked chicken. Makes one think of other things to do with one's smoker. I'd never had fried pickles before, so they were a fun discovery.

The one thing I had that I thought was outstanding was the Black, Blue, Bacon Burger -- a blackened 1/2-lb sirloin burger with blue cheese and bacon. I also really enjoyed the blue cheese and scallion mac and cheese (mac and cheese comes five ways: the blue cheese and scallion; three cheeses and herbed breadcrumbs; smoked chicken, mild chiles and jack cheese; ham, smoked gouda and crispy onions; or BBQ pulled pork with smoked gouda.) Not a place you travel to visit, but if you want comfort food and you're in TC, it's not a bad option. I don't know about trying their barbecue offerings, as that's something that really has to be done right, but a burger is a bit safer -- just keep it medium rare and good toppings, and I'll enjoy it.

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"Nothing important is easy." Patrick White (Australian Nobel laureate)

http://waltzingaustralia.wordpress.com

Agree. Fantastic, creative stuff:

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Just returned from our annual summer vacation to the Leelanau Peninsula, which is adjacent to Traverse City. We were able to return to a few old favorite restaurants, check out some newer ones, and -- because we were able to do our own cooking this year -- find some nice sources for good ingredients. We were sans famille this time, so the restaurants below (except for Foothills) are a bit more adult-oriented and shaded towards the higher price range of places in the area.

The best meal was at The Cook's House, an apparent labor of love for chef and co-owner Eric Patterson and his partner, Traverse City native Jennifer Blakeslee. He runs a tiny, open kitchen that sits behind (and heats up) the six tables in the restaurant. The equally modestly-sized menu emphasizes locally grown food with a modern sensibility but no goofy combinations or high-tech preparations. The salad of smoked rabbit and warm vegetables was delicate and yummy, as was the gnocchi with spring onions and pesto. The duck with turnip and lentils was very moist and tasty, and the braised pork belly was succulent and flavorful. The service was smooth and professional but friendly. The place is BYOB. Appetizers, salads, and soups were in the $9-12 range, entrees $20-30, not inexpensive but definitely worth the prices. Because of the small size of the place, best to make reservations even during the week.

Red Ginger has been around for about a year, and we have gone twice. Between the fact that it is a popular, hip, local watering hole and that it features the potentially risky "Pan-Asian" type of menu, we approached with some trepidation, but our fears proved unfounded. The menu was actually rather thoughtful and even intelligently innovative, and all the dishes were done quite nicely. There was a good selection of sushi and maki rolls, regular-menu items, and daily specials. It was only a little too loud, and the service suffered from obsequiousness rather than inattention.

Phil's on Front is another, newish place in the downtown area. It was far larger, noisier, and with a more bar-like and casual atmosphere, but it turned out some very serviceable American food. Our meal included a nicely deconstructed wedge salad, prime rib with a Vidalia onion sauce, and locally-caught Walleye in a pecan crust with a creamy beurre blanc. The desserts choices were particularly good, including a sampler of the gourmet chocolates they sell from the front of the restaurant.

We returned to some long-time favorites on the Leelanau peninsula, including an always-killer breakfast at the Foothills Cafe (sort of a Patty's Up North without the sisterly squabbling) in Burdickville; dinner at the always-reliable Italian bistro Funistrada, also in Burdickville; and North, a relaxing, modern-American dinner place with a broad menu (and good winelist) in a lovely setting, halfway between Leland and Glen Arbor. We made the mistake of having dinner at the Riverside Inn in Leland one night, a place that though picturesque seems to have fallen into a time warp (the bad kind) and largely seems to serve long-time regulars who like the things the way they were in the past.

On the uncooked food front, we went to Max Bauer's (407 South Union, TC) for an old-fashioned German-style butcher shop experience reminiscent of Paulina Market and Gepperth's back home. In addition to serious steak, pork, and poultry, they had a very good selection of lamb and veal, two meats that can be tough to find up here. They also had a good selection of their own homemade sausages. For fish, we found a surprisingly good selection of fresh and smoked choices at Burritt's (509 W. Front, TC). Finally, Oryana's Natural Foods Market (260 E 10th St, TC) is a Whole Foods-like store with excellent organic produce and a variety of healthy prepared foods. In summer, there are also farmstands and farmers markets all over the place, with fruits, veggies, and herbs from the many local, family-run farms.

The Cook's House
439 E. Front Street, Traverse City, MI 49686, (231)946-8700
http://www.thecookshouse.typepad.com/

Red Ginger Restaurant
237 E Front St, Traverse City, MI 49684, (231) 944-1733
www.eatatginger.com

Phil's on Front
236 E Front St, Traverse City, MI 49686, (231) 929-1710

Foothills Restaurant
7097 S Dunns Farm Rd, Maple City, MI 49664, (231) 334-3495

Funistrada
4566 MacFarlane, Burdickville, 231-334-3900

North, A Centennial Inn
149 E. Harbor Highway / M-22, Maple City. 231-228-5060

Hellacious weather has been punishing Indianapolis this summer. Less than an inch of rain total since May 1, and then a stretch of 6 straight days of 100+ overlapping the 4th to cap it off. Ouch. Go North Young Man, and contemplate the Manitou's:



TC continues to grow in stature as a food town. I think Bon Appetit named it one of the top 5 in the country, and the meals we had did nothing to dispel that. The whole local, sustainable, farm-to-table yeah yeah whatever seems like a tired concept, but we had a couple meals here that were real eye-openers.

Our first dinner was at The Cook's House also discussed upthread, owned and operated by a chef with monastic fervor toward achieving his vision of dining perfection. We chose the 5 course tasting menu, which started with a tomato soup of intense purity of flavor:


Followed by spaetzle with short rib ragu (there was a salad course in here somewhere too)


Then whitefish with ramps, followed by steak with bone marrow mashed potatoes



Capped off with a delicious blueberry panna cotta:


Pretty amazing meal, especially considering he recreates his menu every single day. Each course was expertly prepared with fantastic ingredients, and the cost for the 5-course tasting was a bargain at $55/person. Highly highly highly recommend this restaurant. There's only 12 tables, make sure you make a reservation.

Apres beach late lunch next day was at Martha's Leelanau Table in Sutton's Bay. The lunch menu is pretty much limited to a few salads and sandwiches, BUT they do have a raclette made with the excellent Leelanau Cheese Co's raclette cheese - more apropos for a snowy winter day than a 90+ scorcher, but hard to pass up:


Sandwiches were pretty good, my wife had a bacon, cheddar, green apple and I had a Cuban. But that dinner at Cook's Table had set the bar pretty high, this didn't quite reach those levels:



Dinner that night was at Trattoria Stella, which is an Italian restaurant in the basement of a renovated lunatic asylum. We'd eaten here on our last trip a few years ago, and I had fond memories of an insanely good meal.


We started with beef carpaccio and an heirloom tomato salad, both were excellent.


I believe my wife had some bucatini preparation, but I had crazy good porchetta topped with a homemade sausage. Porchetta is a little cliched, but this dish was a deconstruction with finely shredded pork and small pieces of crackling skin swimming in molten pork fat. This dish was better than anything we ate in Italy just a few months ago. I was in such a pork delirium that I've completely forgotten what we had for dessert, but I seem to recall it was pretty good, probably a tiramisu. But that porchetta, man that was a dish you dream about, unforgettable

Love this restaurant, it's some of the best Italian cooking I've had in the US.

Final dinner was at the Boathouse Restaurant on Mission Peninsula. I'm still kicking myself for picking this place, because I knew what I was walking into and still went. Wildly overpriced and overfussy preparation, it stood out in even stronger contrast after the two excellent dinners we had before. Most indicative of the gouging going on here is this petit filet mignon (on the menu described as Queen and King, so as to question your manhood if you select the smaller cut). Buried somewhere under this lone onion ring resides a $53 3oz piece of filet, no sear, basically wagyu mush. Pretty room and nice setting, but there's much better eating to be done in this town, a wasted meal. Can't believe that miniscule piece of meat cost as much as the entire 5 course tasting menu at a Cooks Place tsk tsk:


Will definitely have to try and make it up here on a yearly basis, it keeps getting better. I think this is now officially my favorite spot in the midwest.

Looks like you had some great finds, Fast Eddie! My family's up on Little Traverse Bay, so I always think of Traverse City as a place to quickly get into and out of in anticipation of our final destination. Sounds like we should be dilly-dallying a bit. (I've eaten at McDonald's, Wendy's and Subway along 31 a few too many times with my 4-year-old nephew who sometimes needs food & needs it ASAP. He's a good eater, but sadly speed & convenience sometimes win out.)

It's nice to see the food changes that have come to N. Michigan. I used to joke that every restaurant near Little Traverse Bay was required to have at least four of the following dishes on their menu:
* Fried whitefish
* Fried chicken
* Ribs
* Frogs legs
* Prime rib
* Salad with dried cherries

You forgot the cheeseburger!

Totally agree, the food scene has really changed dramatically in the last five years or so, and it keeps improving. They've got some great synergies going on now between the farmers, the wineries, the restaurants, the clientele, and the Great Lakes Culinary Institute. There's some really great talent working there now, you can't turn out these kinds of meals without having everyone in the kitchen line pulling their weight. A lot of the GLCI grads are staying right in town instead of scattering to Chicago, and area residents are really supporting these places.