Posted by ayersian
, September 08, 2009 08:30
Now that we’ve unpacked, settled, and taken time to go through nearly 2,000 photos, we’re looking back at this long roadtrip and have come up with some stats and best-of lists. The most amazing occurrence is that we managed to eat only a handful of mediocre meals, with the vast majority (approximately 95%) being four- and five-star Roadfood menu items. We quickly found out, however, that months and months of advance research sometimes didn’t hold a candle to a quick Internet or local newspaper browse when pulling into a town.
Miles driven on trip: just shy of 10,000
States and provinces visited: 26
Roadfood-reviewed spots visited: 38
Non-RF-reviewed spots visited: 101
Places that should be RF-reviewed: 74
Best burger: 911 Burger, Eddie Burger + Bar, Banff, AB
Best hot dog: Buffalo Dog, Billy’s Giant Hamburgers, Jackson, WY
Best “fast food”: Grilled Bratwurst, Woudstra Meat Market, Orange City, IA
Best sandwich: Roast Pork Italian, Tony Luke’s, Philadelphia, PA
Best bar food: Charlie Boy, Miles Inn, Sioux City, IA
Best meal eaten in a bus: Grilled Cheese Grill, Portland, OR and Motoraunt, Edmonton, AB (tie)
Best pizza: Pizza Pot Pie, Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co., Chicago, IL
Best seafood: Smoked Mussels, Ecola Seafoods, Cannon Beach, OR and Smoked Salmon, Crabpot, Lincoln City, OR (tie)
Best sushi: Chef’s Choice, Yuki Hana, Chicago, IL
Best coffee: Captain Jack Mocha, Rusty Cup, Astoria, WA (also Friendliest service)
Best pastry: Raisin Scones, Fairmont Empress, Victoria, BC
Best doughnut: Bacon Maple Bar, Voodoo Doughnut, Portland, OR
Best pie: Strawberry Cream Pie, Cheyenne Crossing, Lead, SD
Best ice cream: Wilcoxson’s Mountain Berry, Yellowstone National Park, WY
Best milkshake: Huckleberry shake, Victor Emporium, Victor, ID
Best car food: Prime Rib Snack Sticks, S&S Meats, Grand Rapids, MN
Weirdest meal: Salami Curry, Manpuku, Toronto, ON
Favorite “new to us” meal: Meat and pizza pasties, Dobber’s Pasties, Iron Mountain, MI
Best breakfast: Chorizo & Avocado Eggs Benedict, Diner Deluxe, Calgary, AB
Most decadent item: 5-Layer Chocolate Pie Shake, Betty’s Pies, Two Harbors, MN
Most addictive food: Ginger Beef, Silver Inn, Calgary, AB
Best carnivore dinner: Greek dry ribs and sirloin, Lakeshore Steak House, Regina, SK
We’d also like to thank all the people who fed us, put us up for the night, and divulged their most secret places for fabulous food, especially: Jane & Michael Stern, Bruce Bilmes & Sue Boyle, Buffetbuster, Nocarolina, ChiTownDiner & Patti, the JRPfeff family, the Buffalo Tarheel family, WanderingJew, Sarah & Chris, Mary Alice, the Honey family, the Mr. Chips family, the Johnsons, the Westovers, Sarah & Kris, Kirsty & Darren, the Roseau crew, Susan, the Chafouleas family, SRO/Anthem, U.S. and Canadian National Park rangers, free wifi, and all the fine servers, owners, and customers of Roadfood spots across the continent!
Posted by ayersian
, August 15, 2009 08:37
The finish line is in sight! Bidding adieu to Buffalo Tarheel and family with promises to see each other next month on the Roadfood Tour of Buffalo/Rochester, we drove east to Syracuse, New York before hunger got the best of us. Given the chance to visit the original location of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, we gladly took it and skipped the lunchtime queue for tables in favor of barstools. We began with the Swag Sampler Plate for two: spicy boiled shrimp, fried green tomatoes, hot-spiced chicken wings, and deviled eggs. All items were scrumptious, but the eggs took the top prize—and neither of us is a particular fan of this hors d’oeuvre! We then split a Cuban sandwich with pulled pork, house-smoked ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and two sides: tomato-cucumber salad and bar-b-que beans. The pork was tender and juicy, of course, but it was the smoked ham that really gave this sandwich a mega-boost of flavor. The outstanding beans were tangy and dense with pork chunks, but it was the locally brewed Saranac root beer on tap that capped off this five-star lunch!
Delighting in the familiar environs of the Albany area and Western Massachusetts, we took a right at Worcester and headed south to Rhode Island. WanderingJew was awaiting us in Warwick, and he first took us to dip our feet in the Atlantic Ocean (well, Narragansett Bay…close enough!) at Goddard Memorial State Park, thus completing our coast-to-coast journey. Our dinner table at the Crow’s Nest on Arnolds Neck Drive in Warwick had every possible Ocean State specialty represented: clam chowder, both red and white; stuffed quahog; fried whole-belly clams; a pound of steamers; and the curious Rhode Island delicacy, snail salad. The chowder was, of course, fabulous, as were the clams and stuffy, and we had forgotten how delicious steamers are, having not enjoyed them in many years. Our first time trying snail salad was positive, as the snail resembled the texture of firm mushrooms, and the lettuce mix benefited from the vinegary pepper rings. Dessert was ice cream at Hill-Top Creamery on Post Road in East Greenwich. We chose their frozen pudding ice cream, while Dale picked the soft-serve special that we should’ve ordered in the first place: chocolate and banana twist. We thank WanderingJew very, very much for his expert choice for dinner and hospitality—and a continental salute to all our family, friends, and RF compatriots who offered dining, lodging, and sightseeing suggestions, who put us up, fed us, cheered us on, gave feedback on the blog, and read all these chapters!
Posted by ayersian
, August 14, 2009 11:32
With a short list of must-visits and a scant six hours remaining in Toronto, we set out early to conquer the city’s best eats and more Rush sites. After fueling up with a jalapeño bagel with spinach & feta cream cheese from the Great Canadian Bagel, we headed for La Bamboche on Manor Road for their famed macarons: these are sandwich-like pastries of melt-in-your-mouth meringue with flavored cream or ganache in the middle (not to be confused with coconut macaroons). We reveled in their exotic flavors: cassis, lavender, Japanese yuzu (sour citrus fruit), espresso, salted caramel, and pistachio. They were decadently delicious, and we couldn’t leave the shop without a couple of Madeleine cookies for good measure…and quickly realized we should’ve bought a bag of them!
Our next stop was Sunshine Wholesome Market on College Street for their lip-smacking Tropicalia juice: coconut milk, pineapple, mango, and orange juices (made from local or organic fresh fruits) blended to frothy perfection. The master chocolatier at Xococava on Yonge Street boxed up twenty-five handmade chocolates divided into five categories: Spanish (chorizo, black olive, Seville orange), Savory (rosemary & honey, olive oil, black trumpet mushroom), Wild (cedar, birch syrup, sumac), Exotic (fennel pollen, cajeta [caramelized milk], grappa cherry), and finally Classic (mint, marzipan, gianduja). These are fine chocolates on par with Bridgewater of Connecticut and Christopher Norman of New York but with non-traditional fillings that broaden the sweetness envelope by offering more mature candies. Toronto Life magazine’s Best-of list never let us down!
While discovering these treats, we managed to visit a panoply of Rush sites. The Parliament Building in Queen’s Park was photographed for the cover of 1981’s Moving Pictures. Rush recorded their first live double album, 1976’s All the World’s a Stage, at Massey Hall (also a Neil Young landmark venue!) on Victoria Street. They enjoyed many a sold-out show at the famous Maple Leaf Gardens on Carlton Street. The 600-block of Yonge Street was a prominent area in Rush’s video for 1982’s “Subdivisions.” On our way to Niagara, we made our final Rush stop in St. Catharines at Lake Ontario’s Lakeside Park, subject of the eponymous 1975 tune, complete with lots of sunbathers and “willows in the breeze.”
To tide us over until we reached Buffalo, we found the curious Flying Saucer Drive-In on Lundy’s Lane in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The restaurant is shaped like a UFO with blinking lights on the roof and all sorts of alien references inside. The triple-decker club sandwich was fabulous, made with crispy bacon and freshly sliced turkey instead of cold lunchmeat. Though the town was a sensory overload of every tourist trap you can imagine (wax museums, fudge shops, etc.), Niagara Falls was an unbelievable force of nature. We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride and were summarily doused with the hard rain thrown up by the falls’ massive walls of water. After the long line at customs, Buffalo Tarheel was waiting for us in Lockport, and we joined his wife Barb and daughter Elizabeth for a feast from Mazia’s Pizza of Clarence, New York (a year’s supply of this pizza was a featured prize on The Price Is Right TV game show several years ago). The Sicilian pie had a medium-thin chewy crust with little pepperoni slices that puckered in the oven, and the medium-spicy Buffalo wings were meaty and wonderful. For dessert, sundaes of cookies & cream, chocolate, and cookie dough were made with Wegman’s premium ice cream. Extra-special thanks to the Buffalo Tarheel family for their unfailing generosity and friendship, and for our final day of the trip, we visit Syracuse then join WanderingJew for seafood in Rhode Island!
Posted by ayersian
, August 13, 2009 08:40
After surveying Toronto’s culinary choices, we ultimately decided to sample as many world cuisines as possible without overlap. First, a strictly Canadian treat: a peameal sandwich from Paddington’s Pump in the St. Lawrence Market. Peameal is unsmoked back bacon, which historically was brined and rolled in a meal made from ground yellow peas (though today, fine cornmeal is more commonly used). Paddington’s “Oink on a Bun” had thick slices grilled and piled on a Kaiser roll with tomatoes, hot peppers, mustard, and mayo. The taste was unlike the ham-like Canadian bacon in the States; it was more flavorful with a ham/fresh turkey texture. An excellent delicacy of the Great White North!
This weekend was also Toronto’s Greek festival, Taste of the Danforth. A few blocks of Danforth Avenue were blocked off, and crowds chomping on gyros, souvlaki, and roasted corn filled the streets. The corner of Danforth and Pape Avenues was another Rush reference, this time from “La Villa Strangiato,” and seemed to be the epicenter of activity. We bought a Greek frappe (not the New England version of a milkshake but a whipped coffee drink) with a chocolate-filled rolled wafer as garnish. Reportedly, over one million visitors would visit this event, one of the largest Greek festivals outside of Greece. Then it was Indian food for dinner as we descended upon Aroma downtown on King Street. Four friends joined us, making for a smorgasbord of samplings: pakoras, samosas (stuffed pastries), palak paneer (spinach with Indian cheese), chicken tikka masala, lamb tandoori, mango lassis, and four types of naan bread—including one stuffed with dried cherries and pistachios. Tomorrow we optimize our morning in Toronto before departing to visit Niagara Falls and Buffalo!
Posted by ayersian
, August 10, 2009 10:57
Waking to a cool summer day in Toronto, we had our taste buds set on finding the best banh mi in town. It was Mr. Chips in Portland who got this Vietnamese sub sandwich stuck in our heads, and we attained nirvana at Rose Café on Broadview Ave. “You like spicy?” our matronly chef asked us as we nodded in excitement. She stuffed spicy pork, finely shredded into hair-thin strands, into a short baguette, along with a line of mayo, a few forkfuls of crisp daikon and carrot salad, cucumbers, and a mound of fresh coriander. Soft, vinegary, crunchy, and deftly piquant were our immediate reactions as each bite’s meat and veggies commingled with the French bread. We chose a refreshing can of coconut water and lychee juice (with tiny nata de coco cubes at the bottom) to wash it down and picked out a small banana rice cake for dessert—all this for lest than $5! Rose Café is a neighborhood grocery, too, and most patrons were purchasing frozen items to take home. Friendly is the name of the game here, and the eats are top-notch. This is wonderful street food that will earn further attention in our future travels!
As if this Vietnamese Roadfood couldn’t get any better, Toronto Life persuaded us to seek out the fish pakoras at Tangerine in Markham, an eastern suburb of Toronto. Indian, Hakka (a region of southeastern China), and Chinese cuisines are their specialty, and their fiery pakoras were simply the best we’ve ever eaten. Plentiful chunks of whitefish, combined with red Manchurian batter and green chiles, are fried to a crunchy-chewy consistency, and the spice stayed on our palates long after eating. A bottle of mango nectar helped to abate the pleasurable pain, however. Being ardent fans of the Toronto-based prog-rock band Rush, we stopped by Fisherville Junior High School in Willowdale, where bassist/singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson first met. The staff at SRO/Anthem Records (Rush joined their roster back in the early ’70s) were kind enough to let us tour their office and the dozens of Rush’s gold and platinum records covering their walls. Returning to the Village by the Grange food court for dinner, we wanted to give Island Foods a whirl. A West Indian chicken roti had our name on it, and its burrito-like presentation with tender chicken, potatoes, and gravy was rib-sticking and satisfying. An accompanying bottle of banana soda was scrumptious, and the earthy flavor of sugar-dusted tamarind balls served as an appropriate dessert. After seeing a friend’s band play at the Bovine Sex Club (nope, it had nothing to do with animal husbandry!), the luscious, quarter-of-a-large-pie slices at Pizzaiolo on Queen St. beckoned us to indulge for a late-night snack. Their Thai Pie was a real winner: the fusion of peanut satay, BBQ chicken, mushrooms, red onions, mozzarella, and spicy BBQ sauce made for yet another cuisine to check off our list. Amazingly, we found yet another chinotto soda, this one bottled by Brio, and merrily downed one with the mammoth slice. Tomorrow we continue our tour of Toronto’s exotic gastronomy!
Posted by ayersian
, August 08, 2009 17:23
Having a head start to Toronto by staying in nearby London, we hit the Queen City early to explore its multitudinous culinary treasures. After just half an hour of strolling downtown, we lost count of the different ethnic eateries festooned on every block. To wit, we could spend a month here and still only scratch the surface of Toronto’s incredible breadth of gastronomic choices. Consulting Toronto Life’s Best of the City features, we were drawn to what the magazine deemed “Ugly Lunch That’s Actually Delicious”: salami curry at Manpuku. A ‘modern Japanese eatery,’ Manpuku is located on McCaul St. across from the Ontario College of Art & Design. Topped with yellow curry with potatoes and carrots, grilled salami slices, ketchup, mayo, and a handful of green onions, this heaping rice bowl was almost too much for two hungry people to share! Manpuku is part of the famed food court at Village by the Grange, highlighting a wide selection of Greek, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, Polish, Chinese, Thai, and more. We found a stellar papaya milk bubble tea at Tea House and swore to return for further research.
Meeting up with our friend Susan later, we walked around the area and lighted upon the Flatiron and Firkin on Wellington St. We ordered a variety of dishes: a bowl of chicken mulligatawny, spinach salad, Firkin Burger, and the very Canadian butter chicken. The mulligatawny featured a clear chicken stock, unlike the thicker, creamier broths we’ve encountered. The salad was decent with a creamy ranch-like house dressing, and the burger was thick ‘n’ juicy with cheddar, crispy bacon, and bourbon chipotle onions (which tasted more sweet than spicy). Until this trip, we hadn’t heard of Indian butter chicken, known as murgh makhani on American menus. It’s a very popular dish in Canada, however, with its creamy and slightly spicy gravy and diced chicken, and we’ve found it on menus in every province thus far. Served on a bed of basmati rice with a side of naan flatbread, it succeeded as a solid staple, though we’d prefer more exotic dishes. Seeing the neon and pandemonium at Yonge-Dundas Square was spectacular, and we sang karaoke until the wee hours at Echo on Spadina St. in Chinatown. Tomorrow we’ll investigate a few of Toronto’s suburbs and see how many different ethnic foods we can sample!
Posted by ayersian
, August 08, 2009 15:42
After packing up at our neat-as-a-pin church camp, we drove into Frankenmuth, Michigan’s Little Bavaria, to find breakfast. We struck out searching for strudel at the Frankenmuth Kaffee Haus, but instead we found an item that we’d never encountered: ground bologna salad at Kern’s Sausages. Home to a dozen different wursts, blood sausages, and other delicacies (think pickled tripe, souse, headcheese, and smoked tongue), Kern’s also features aisles and aisles of imported products from Germany. The bologna salad tasted very close to the deviled ham that Chris’ father makes at home, but with a more pronounced pickly flavor. The Vehicle City of Flint was next, though we were vying for the burgers and malts at Red Knapp’s Dairy Bar in Rochester. A tall vanilla malt was first ordered, and it came with its silver beaker with another refill — not too thick or thin but the perfect viscosity for slurping through a straw. The burger was monstrous with cheddar, bacon, lettuce, and tomato, and we’re glad that we split it. The homemade onion rings came five to a plate and were gigantically crunchy. This is a true Roadfood stop, virtually unchanged since 1950.
Detroit was a given, but before we could begin our Coney challenge, we first toured the Henry Ford Museum. The bus for the Ford Rogue Factory tour was just about to leave as we jumped on and rode over to the finishing plant for F-150 trucks. Absolutely fascinating and informative, we watched plant workers assemble doors, windshields, front ends, stereo speakers, and tailgates from a catwalk above the factory floor. Back at the museum, we ogled the Rock Stars’ Cars & Guitars from Metallica, Cheap Trick, the Who, and Detroit’s own Ted Nugent and Alice Cooper. We sat on the actual Rosa Parks bus and relived her moment of civil rights. We marveled at the exhibits on pop culture through the decades — including impressive displays on “Road Food” (two words!) and the fast-food industry — and of course the hundreds of cars, trucks, tractors, and vehicles that shaped our nation. Having walked up an appetite, we drove downtown to the Motor City’s most recognizable Coney Island hot dog stands: American and Lafayette, next-door neighbors on W. Lafayette Blvd. We ordered a Coney all the way (mustard, chili, raw onions) and a Vernors in each place; not surprisingly, both dogs tasted virtually the same. Lafayette had a softer bun, while American offered Vernors on tap. Tomorrow we reach Ontario for a weekend in the mighty T.O.!
Posted by ayersian
, August 07, 2009 10:48
Waking up in Escanaba, Michigan, we packed up quickly and went back into town to explore a few places we’d passed yesterday. As in Iron Mountain, Escanaba had a branch of Dobber’s Pasties, so we indulged in a scrumptious Breakfast Pasty, full of eggs, potatoes, and crumbled sausage. Amy declared this as her favorite pasty, but Chris loves them all. To stock up for the day’s drive, we also stopped at Gram’s Pasties for a meat pasty to go, and at Swedish Pantry for a bag of Scandinavian skorpa (biscotti-like cinnamon bread eaten with coffee or tea). Another friendly server made us laugh at the drive-thru at Jo to Go Coffee, where Amy grabbed an eye-opening iced coffee. With Lake Michigan on our starboard side, it was a long but scenic drive on our first 80-degree day in a week.
We must’ve passed thirty pasty shops on the road to St. Ignace, every one of them showing maximum Roadfood potential. Oh, how we long to be official Yoopers to sample them all! Crossing the Mackinac Bridge to Mackinaw City and the Lower Peninsula, we stopped for gas and gulped a Vernors Ginger Soda, a Michigan original and one of America’s oldest surviving soft drinks. Traverse City came and went while we were focused on reaching the small town of Beulah and the Cherry Hut. Recently featured in a Michael Stern article for USA Today, the Cherry Hut is the definitive place for cherry pie, though we made a meal of it by ordering cherry BBQ ribs, cherry chicken salad, a cherry muffin, and cherryade to drink. The pie was indeed the standout with its flaky crust and juicy cherries. Amy bought a bag of washed whole cherries from the adjoining market to eat in the car. Tomorrow we’ll investigate Bavarian eats in Frankenmuth, then on to Flint and Detroit Rock City!
Posted by ayersian
, August 07, 2009 02:55
Crossing our fingers that the rain would hold off, we signed up for a three-hour boat tour around the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Every island (and lighthouse) was different, it seemed, with Devil’s Island being our favorite because of the huge caves cut into its sides from centuries of crashing waves and erosion. It’s easy to see why these islands are a kayaker’s paradise. After docking, we set out in the small port of Bayfield to find coffee, and Big Water Café & Coffee Roasters fit the bill. Amy got an iced mocha latte, while Chris opted for a bottle of Wisconsin-brewed Sprecher Root Beer. The bumbleberry pie from Betty’s Pies was also consumed, and it was gloriously firm and fruity. Before we crossed into Michigan, we ducked into a grocery store for a bag of cheese curds and bagel chips to munch on in the car.
Michigan is the land of pasties, and the signs seem to converge on Iron Mountain, beckoning us to stop for dinner. We’re glad we don’t live near Dobber’s Pasties, for we’d end up spending waaay too much money here! This was our first encounter with the famous pasty (say “PASS-tee”), sort of a hot pocket with crimped edges and filled with meat and/or veggies. We split a meat pasty and a new (to Dobber’s) pizza pasty. Both were superb: the meat pasty was chock full of meat and diced rutabagas, and the pizza pasty was gushing with pepperoni, cheese, and tomato sauce. The flaky yet firm crust, however, was what really made the meal. On the way out of town, Amy’s eagle eyes spied Storheim’s Gourmet Frozen Custard, so we pulled in for a dish of the flavor of the day, O’Brien’s Irish Cream. If you can imagine a creamier-than-thou Bailey’s ice cream, then you’re close to this outstanding custard. Tomorrow we make our way across the Upper Peninsula, cross the bridge at Mackinac, and head for cherry country around Traverse City!
Posted by ayersian
, August 05, 2009 23:49
Today we made it out of our campsite at Norway Beach in the Chippewa National Forest minutes before the rain re-emerged, and hopped on Route 2 East toward Duluth. On the way we stopped in at S&S Meats in Grand Rapids to sample some of their beef jerky. The store is a hidden pearl inside a Spur Gas Station oyster on the west side of town, serving up over 30 different flavors of bratwurst (including wild rice, strawberry, and peanut butter & jelly!) in addition to a wide range of steaks, chops, and ready-for-the-grill kebabs. After silently cursing ourselves for not having a cooler on hand, we settled on a package of the prime rib beef sticks (the beef jerky was sold out!)...and were not disappointed. The snack tasted as good as it smelled, packing loads of spiced meat flavor into each thick cylinder. We can't wait for a return trip to northern Minnesota just to indulge in their bratwursts as well!
Our prime target in Duluth was the second branch of Minneapolis' Hell's Kitchen restaurant, located on a renovated row down by the harbor. Although the Duluth restaurant still has the same blackened walls and pajama-clad servers, we found the ambience to be less reminiscent of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, lacking the mammoth fireplace, Gothic décor, and hologrammed bathroom mirrors of the original location. But, alas, we did come for the food, and luckily found no difference in this category between the two restaurants. Our meal began with a steaming hot cup of Mahnomin Porridge (bursting with roasted hazelnuts, blueberries, cranberries, and maple syrup) and a small plate of Toasted Bison Sausage Bread, onto which we liberally slathered their homemade peanut butter, blackberry jam, and orange marmalade. We had sampled both on a previous occasion and found that they equally satisfied our palates with their respective mélange of textures and flavors. Our main course was a Walleye BLT and the Ham and Pear Crisp: the former featured crunchy parmesan-crusted walleye with lemon-scallion tartar sauce, thick bacon, lettuce, and tomato on sourdough toast, while the latter (prominently featured in Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood Sandwiches book) had shaved smoked ham, Fontina and Swiss cheeses, and poached pears on grilled sourdough. Everything was, of course, divine, with the Walleye BLT winning the best plate, hands down.
Having made it this far northeast into the Land of 10,000 Lakes, we couldn't pass up the hour-detour to Betty's Pies in Two Harbors. We took the North Shore Scenic Drive past gray-yet-gorgeous shoreline vistas of Lake Superior, stopping to see the historic Two Harbors Lighthouse, the historic iron ore docks, and the giant statue of Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur. When we pulled up to Betty's we could see the long line of people waiting to be seated and opted to take our dessert to go. For immediate consumption was a 5-Layer Chocolate Pie Shake, whereas the slice of bumbleberry pie would have to be eaten at a later date and time. The five layers of pie consisted of dark chocolate, cinnamon meringue, chocolate whipped cream, and regular whipped cream, and we learned that bumbleberry is a combination of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. The pie shake was indulgently delicious, although the chunks of pie crust do necessitate a wider bubble tea-type straw.
Crossing the border into Wisconsin, we made a sharp right and landed at the Anchor Bar &Grill in Superior. Although primarily a watering hole, the Anchor Bar serves up a variety of burgers with creative toppings, including our choice of the Cashewburger. It's just what it sounds like: a thick patty with melted Swiss and a handful of cashew halves. The cheese holds the cashews in place, and the taste is really unique as the nuts' saltiness meshes perfectly with the beefy goodness and the melted cheese. This place is a shining star on our Roadfood map! After we found a tent site at the Apostle Islands campground, we struck up a conversation with two lovely ladies from Michigan next door to our tent. Later they offered us a piece of their campfire dinner: Cornish game hen cooked with onions and potatoes, wow! This was the ultimate finale to another five-star Roadfood day. Tomorrow we explore the Apostle Islands, then head to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to indulge in pasties!
