Every day these last couple of weeks, I give some thought to my last minute trip to Manchester, VT with Teddy over Memorial Day weekend. Just decided that Friday we would head over for a night. Beautiful little town in the heart of the Green Mountains which also offers high end outlet shopping. Last couple of times I stayed at the Inn at Manchester which is really lovely, but this time we went commercial and used our Starwood points to stay at the Equinox Resort, which converted 2 years ago to Starwood hotels. They also had a 10 million dollar renovation. Very nice place and worth the trip. But let me just tell you about the cheese plate. The Equinox has a deck bar overlooking the mountains, a fire pit in the middle of the deck, nice music playing, and offer drinks and appetizers. They customize a cheese plate for you, you can pick three or more different cheeses from local farms, then they bring out figs, nuts, and jam, crackers and bread to compliment the plate. I think it cost $12 for 3 cheeses and Ted and I could have made a dinner out of it, it was that yummy. So when I came home I tried to recreate it, I bought a couple of cheeses, apricot preserves, dried figs, nice crackers, and presented it on a handpainted platter - its my new favorite weekend snack! Also for you chocolate lovers, the Equinox boasts that they sell the 3rd best rated chocolates in the WORLD. Now thats a big deal. They are called Knipschildt and I can attest they are DEYUMMISH twice over. You can also buy those at the deck bar or take some home from the hotel gift shop.
I go from that heavenly experience to a less heavenly last night, we found ourselves in Derry, NH. I'm not going to name the tavern we went to, as the owners are very nice and Teddy is very fond of them, but you can ask me if personally if you want to know to avoid it. Last time I was there was the week before my wedding, on painkillers, sitting with my Mom and Teddy. We never went back, and I couldnt think of why, now I think I remember. Food is plentiful and reasonably priced, but subpar. The scallops in bacon were too syrupy, bacon overcooked and as an appetizer served with rice....it should have been labeled a small plate entree rather than appetizer, didnt make sense really. Their award winning seafood chowder was drowned in sherry or some other liquor I couldnt make out, though a good amount of seafood and nice creamy consistency. The seafood scampi lacked in taste...but chock full of lobster, crab, shrimp, and scallops, it had no wow factor, as if someone just tossed everything in boiled spaghetti...no lemony, buttery, garlicy sauce you would expect from a traditional scampi, though I certainly felt less guilty eating it given it was so bland it had to be less calories. They boast that they make everything from scratch while you wait, well we waited and waited, even before they took our order. I think we'll just drive by this one next time we contemplate why we dont visit there more often.
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