5 PLACES FOR...
Meals With Bacon!
January 24, 2007
ctnow.com
In a sandwich, with eggs or on a potato, here are five places in Connecticut to order up meals with crispy, chewy, salty bacon.
Chelle's 50's Car Hop Diner
107 W. Stafford Road, Rt. 190, Stafford
860-684-6622
Bacon and Eggs $4.75
Sometimes it's not so much about the bacon, as it is the ambience of the breakfast spot.
Let's face it -- you can overcook bacon, or undercook it but most cooks hit the satisfaction zone without thinking. So when we find ourselves sitting in a candy-apple-red booth, in a 50s diner on Route 190 in Stafford with a classic breakfast plate of eggs, bacon, home fries and toast placed before us ... it's easy to swoon.
Chelle's does the 50s just right. Elvis is on the walls and in the jukebox. The servers scamper around the dining room in poodle skirts and bobby socks (except when the temps outside begin to fall). The menu has all the right items, many named after "Happy Days" era icons.
And yes, you can get bacon with just about everything. BLT's, bacon omelets, bacon melts, bacon cheeseburgers, pancakes and bacon. The cooks know what to do with these strips from our fateless porky friend. Order your bacon crisp, and the kitchen will take it to a cracklin' plateau.
The eggs are cooked to your liking, the home fries are roasty brown with a hint of seasoning and the toast is never over buttered. On the whole, it's an experience that marries bacon and breakfast, lunch and dinner the way it should be.
-- GARY DUCHANE
Little Mark's Big Barbecue
226 Talcottville Road, Vernon
860-872-1410, www.littlemarksbbq.com
Potato Skins, $5.95
Set back from the main drag of Route 83 sits Little Mark's, a small bungalow of big BBQ flavor. Mosey into in the modest dining hall where modern meets simple southern frills in a room adorned with small square tables draped in red and white-checkered tablecloths and clear, dangling light fixtures.
Little Mark's Barbecue ribs and burgers are delectable, but it's the appetizers that make for the real chuck. My order of potato skins made for a pre-dinner delight.
Served in four huge helpings on a plain plate, the potato skins are loaded with melted mozzarella cheese. The potato inside of this soft baked skin has a whipped/mashed potato smoothness. And sprinkled on the skins are loads of real bacon bits. Sour cream is served on the side.
-- MELISSA LAFLAMME
The Blue Turtle
Shoppes At Buckland Hills, Manchester
860-648-0405, www.playatblueturtle.com
Texas chicken sandwich, $8.99 (fries extra, .99)
Kahunaville at the Holyoke Mall closed its doors quite a while ago, and Providence's Dave & Buster's is too far away for a quick weekend-night jaunt. So when the Blue Turtle opened in Manchester earlier this month, I was excited to check out the newest mall-based venue to eat, drink and spend too much money on game tokens.
Before sitting down for dinner, we stopped by the bathroom, and I was afraid the restaurant had taken its aquatic theme a little too far. Water pooled around the entrance to the stalls. Eventually the flooded restrooms were shut down, and the hostesses stopped seating patrons for awhile, to the dismay of the large crowd waiting for tables. The Turtle's new restaurant kinks are still getting smoothed out, it seems.
Any cravings I might have had for seafood had vanished by that point, so I chose some simple, hearty landlubber fare--the Texas chicken sandwich, topped with bacon and fried onions. The sandwich was large and tasty: a thick, juicy grilled chicken breast brushed with sweet, tangy barbecue sauce and piled with fresh lettuce, tomato and onion.
The bacon strips were the star of the sandwich, though. They were perfectly crispy and lent a great smoky flavor to the chicken. Since the chicken breast could have used a bit more BBQ sauce, the bacon's savory taste kept the sandwich from tasting too dry. The promised fried onions were MIA, but I didn't realize that until after we'd left.
- LEEANNE GRIFFIN
Casey's Café
127 West Road, Ellington
860-870-8784, www.caseyscafe.com
Ranch Chicken Sandwich, $7.95
Hidden in the farmlands of Ellington, down a partly desolate road is Casey's Cafe, a cozy restaurant and bar. Green, billowy, curtains drape above the wide windows and pictures of antique cars hang on the walls. Big-screen TV's shine from every corner of the cafe.
Locals seem to frequent the joint by the busload. They don't seem to mind that the seating selection is limited, both in the dining area and bar. This may be because Casey's serves up hearty homemade portions at a reasonable price.
The Ranch Chicken sandwich is a concoction of leafy layers and meaty middles. Strips of crispy bacon added salty flavor to the layers of lettuce, tomatoes and white bread roll. The sandwich was a meal that nicely handled my hearty hunger.
-- MELISSA LAFLAMME
Randy's Wooster Street Pizza
777 Queen Street, Southington
860-276-8600
This Spud's For You, $13.40/small, $17.50/medium, $19.50/large
Pizza lovers looking for a non-traditional pie will find many tempting options at Randy's. When I want something different, I go for the "This Spud's For You" specialty pie.
An interesting combination of taste and texture, this white pizza (translation: no sauce) is loaded with "smashed" potatoes, garlic, cheddar and jack cheeses. The menu says it comes with ham, but I always substitute with bacon. It adds a pleasant salty, chewiness to the mix. The result tastes a bit like a potato skin on a pizza crust -- delish.
Yes, it is a pretty high price to pay for a pizza. But you can take comfort in the fact that it's even better re-heated in the oven the next day. The 16-inch pie has 12 nicely-sized slices, enough to stretch into at least two meals.
The menu boasts that "This pie is awesome!" Definitely not false advertising.
-- CHRISTINE W. TAYLOR
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