Note - you should probably read the posting below this one first.. I wish could be more brief, but i can't
After our "experience over food" evening in Escanaba, we started out for Boyne Highlands, our next destination. Turns out that (so far) it was probably the best day of the trip. The route took us through the lower part of “da UP’ along the northern shore of Lake Michigan. While cloudy, the colors were gorgeous, and the lake beautiful. We stopped a couple of times along the way at little parks for views leaves and the water,
and evidence of other visitors:
The road is a survivor for a long time and was used by tourists forever, so there were lots of roadfood signs. One of the unique local foods of the “UPers” arrived long ago from the mine workers in the copper and iron mines in western UP. Called the “Pasty” it is a sort of Stromboli affair of meat (pork and/or ground beef), rutabegas (or turnips) required, onions, and potatoes, all encased in dough, and baked. Supposedly kept warm in lunch box.. Of course by now, they are “tourist” food, and I haven’t tried one since my boyhood days. Another staple is smoked fish.
Some survive, some don’t
Eventually we crossed “big Mac”
to the lower peninsula and took some back roads to through the “tunnel of trees” from Cross Village to Harbor Springs. Memories started to flood back now as we drove into “Harbor” although much has changed since I was there. It’s now definitely a playground for the rich, as large sailboats bob at the piers; large homes are all over (with about half of them labeled “available”). It still remains a charming little city. MFO, through some research found that Boyne Highlands, a winter resort has some attractive rates so we decided to stay there..
we saw some lovely leaves
Since this was to be our last night for “real” food, we had a couple of places to choose from, including the restaurant at the lodge, and a couple of places in town. Remembering the “don’t sleep where you eat, don’t eat where you sleep”, we finally settled on Staffords, because we knew they had a pretty good heritage in Petosky and the Perry Hotel. The other possibility looked good, “The New York Restaurant”, but Staffords featured the planked whitefish (since 1961) and perch that we were anxious to re-sample. So a call secured a reservation, and this day we had a chance to walk the grounds a bit and observed some of the other guests at the lodge.
We arrived at the restaurant to find a nice table by the window overlooking the little harbor and some of those nice boats that reminded us of Maryland. Our server arrived, and zapped us back to Wisconsin with the dialect, unfortunately in the higher registers. The place was nicely decorated with ceilings of fabric drapery, visually and aurally softening, with a very nice canoe mounted on the ceiling, which sounds funny but it was nice. We decided to order a bottle of wine for the table which MFO would start with, and then I would cycle to after the dry manhatten. This time without admonishment it was correctly delivered, however again, there was more ice than drink. We ordered a Stag’s Leap Chardonnay (no vintages given) and eventually “you betcha” came to the table saying they weren’t sure they had any, but the manager was checking. Eventually they uncovered an ’07, which at first seemed a bit musky, but finally blew off and turned into a nice selection. At $49 per bottle, it was a pretty good (restaurant) bargain as it retails around $33. They had fairly nice glasses, with different ones for reds and whites (as it should be). The menu offered some interesting combinations, and turning at last to the menu after a couple of “are you ready to order” nudges followed by the disappearing act, we settled on appetizers of the Shrimp “Cargot” and the Michigan Morel bisque. After an inquiry as to the difference between the featured planked whitefish and the planked whitefish with flash fired perch revealed that the only difference was the white fish was half portioned, I opted for that and MFO took the parmesan encrusted version.
People began to trickle in filling the tables with plenty of regulars “how are ya today?”
The appetizers arrived and MFO’s shrimp prepared as escargots with garlic, prosciutto, spinach and feta were hot and tasty, and although my Bisque did contain morels, it is, after all, October, not May. Not a bad attempt. The fish on the other hand was everything we were hoping for. The parmesan crusted whitfish was lightly crusted, even daintily, and let the flavor of the fish shine through. My fish was a nice portion, served on a blackened plank, with a few perch, which were eaten by hand, no bones to worry about. Both were fresh and tasty. Service remained inconsistent, although I would say the person responsible for water did a good job. I did notice that quite a quantity of Perch were delivered to other tables. They were featuring an “Octoberfest” menu with items I couldn’t pronounce, but the dessert was an Apple Fritter which we were informed was available with two forks. After a too long wait, the “captain” lady delivered it saying the first attempt was not suitable for serving the table. Good idea! Ours was crunchy and probably with fresh apples as they were very good. An order of coffee to accompany was delivered with a pleasant surprise. A little tray with four square cups of lump sugar, candied lemon peel, and two other items which escape the mushy brain at the moment. That little twist provided a nice variation from just coffee.
So that so far was the meal of the trip (sorry butter burger), based on the food, and would merit a return anytime. And besides ourselves, at least all we saw were
DFD
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