The Plough and Sail Pub Snape, Suffolk

The Plough and Sail is a Victorian Pub building that is located at the Snape Maltings. While the exterior of the building is certainly true to its roots, the interior is exceptionally light and bright. A separate dedicated dining room where you can have a well-priced and delicious meal is available. It is family-friendly as well.

Lunch and dinner are served daily and on Sundays, they have the typical Sunday lunch with a choice of beef or lamb roast. The roast is served with Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes and gravy. A bowl of vegetables, carrots, new potatoes and snap peas are also served for the table.

The dining room is large and has plenty of blond wood tables. You can sit in the dining room and order or you can call ahead as the locals do and when you arrive they will seat and serve you. The menu changes but can offer such great things as very tender steak with cheese sauce, fish and chips, a delicious bread plate with dipping oil, aubergine and pesto. A soup of the day is offered and was potato and leek when I was there.

The menu offers plenty of starters to choose from including pate which comes on a plate with lots of bread and is a very generous serving, enough for a meal when combined with the soup.

A nice selection of desserts is available to choose from. The apple and blackberry crumble can be served with cream, custard or ice cream. It is a homey dessert, reminiscent of something your mother might make.

The staff and the management at the Plough and Sail are very friendly and welcoming. You may come in a stranger but you will leave as a friend. Specials are not kept secret; you will be given the coupons with your bill. Both the manager and the waitresses were very solicitous and made several stops at the table to be sure that everything was going well. Leftover bread and butter were wrapped so that it could be taken away which provided breakfast the next morning.

Pubs are non-smoking now so you may have to walk through the smokers, who tend to congregate out front at the picnic tables but that is certainly the only downside. You don’t have to order alcohol to feel welcome. They do, however; have a few lagers if you want a cold American type beer, including Carlsberg.

The Snape Maltings is a very interesting place to do some shopping. The Plough and Sail is an excellent addition to the offerings. For good food, a warm welcome and a comfortable place to relax, the Plough and Sail Pub, Snape will provide everything you could possibly want. The location is less than half a mile from the Iken Barns if you are looking for self-catering in the neighborhood.

Afternoon tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace, London

One of the joys of a visit to London is enjoying afternoon tea. This is multiplied exponentially if it is combined with a magnificent historical location. One of my favorite London destinations for afternoon tea is The Orangery at Kensington Palace. The Orangery was constructed by Queen Anne in the gardens of Kensington Place between 1704 and 1705. 

It is a beautiful greenhouse so as one can imagine, there are many beautiful windows in the building.One of Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting, the Duchess of Bedford is credited with the tradition of afternoon tea and it is done very traditionally at the Orangery. Afternoon tea is served from 2-6 p.m. There are two options, the English Orangery Afternoon Tea which includes sandwiches, scones, sweets and of course tea. 

The Royal Afternoon tea adds a glass of Champagne, Spumante or Pimms. The cost of the tea is between £24 and £34. 

The presentation is the traditional three-tiered tray with sandwiches on the first layer, followed by the scones with clotted cream and jam and then the sweets. The tables have crisp white clothes and napkins and it is all very upper crust. If you plan to visit Kensington Place, The Orangery is the perfect place to complete or begin the entire experience. Having done it several times, it comes highly recommended.

We have had tea here several times and it is always a very special treat. I suggest you do it either before or after you tour the palace. 

Obed and Issac's Springfield, Il

What could be better than great food? How about great food in a historic building? That’s what you get at Obed and Isaac's. Obed Lewis and Cordelia Iles Lewis were neighbors of the Lincolns. Their children played with the Lincoln children. 

In 2007 Court Conn and his wife Karen bought the historic Lewis property. Court is their great-great-grandson and he intended to renovate the family home. It, however, was beyond salvaging so they decided to move another historic home onto the land. By the way, the owner of the house that they moved was Isaac Lindsey thus the name Obed and Isaac’s. The Lindsey house proved to be too small for the plans that they had for a microbrewery and pub. 

Together with the two Conn sons, Casey and Adam, it was decided to purchase an additional historic house, the Booth Grunendike house. Today the pub is located in the Booth Gruendike House and the brew plant in the original Lewis family carriage house.

We arrived at Obed and Isaac’s for lunch on a steamy hot August day, it was over 90 degrees in the shade. Parking can be problematic in this area. We ended up parking across the street from the Lincoln Home visitor center; it was actually a great spot just a block away from the restaurant. Meters line the road so make sure to put some money in.

Outdoor dining is offered and if the weather had been a little more comfortable it would have been a good option. As it was, we chose to dine inside. It was comfortably cool in the dining room.

Let me introduce you to the “horseshoe”. If you are going to be dining in Springfield, you will come across it at almost every restaurant. A horseshoe is an open-faced sandwich that originally had ham, French fries and cheese sauce. The bread is thick and usually toasted. Today, there are as many incarnations as there are restaurants. It can be almost any kind of meat and hamburgers are especially popular but even a veggie burger is an option. A lot of competition goes on among restaurants in Springfield to have the best “horseshoe”. If this all sounds like too much, you can usually get a pony shoe which is a smaller version.

Obed and Isaac’s has a very good selection of “horseshoes”, everything from papa Conn’s ham to Buffalo chicken and leg of lamb. My husband sampled the ground sirloin and he loved it. Actually, it was certainly one of the best ones that we had during our three day stay.

I had a hard time deciding. Should I go with the fig pizza, the chicken and waffles or the bangers n mash? No, I decide to have the Strawberry Dreams Salad, mixed greens with roasted chicken breast, fresh sliced strawberries, candied pecans and bleu cheese crumbles with balsamic vinaigrette. It was a delicious salad and a good choice on such a hot day.

If you want something special to drink, they serve home-made draft root beer. Of course, this is a brewpub and they serve their own great beers including Obed’s Pride, Silly Pants Stout and Route 66 Pale Ale.

They serve lunch, dinner and brunch on Sunday. If you are into history and great food, this is the perfect place to get your fix of both.

Abbey Tea Rooms, Glastonbury, England

It was January and it was cold. We had just spent several hours touring around the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. We were in desperate need of a little nosh. Across Magdalene Street,from the entrance to the Abbey, there are several restaurants, snack shops and a tea room, any one of which would have provided what we needed. We chose the Abbey Tea Room and what a great choice it was.

We walked in and took a seat and began to peruse the menu. Two waitresses were covering the entire shops and they were quite busy. We waited a little longer than we should have had to but in the end, it was worth the wait. In addition to the menu, there are blackboards that will tell you what is being offered and there is also a pudding menu.

Parsnip and apple soup and grainy bread

For the soup of the day they were offering carrot ginger and also parsnip and apple. I love parsnip and apple so that was what I chose. My friend did as well along with a scone. My husband had a jacket potato with cheddar cheese. While we were waiting for our food we enjoyed our tea and hot chocolate.

An overloaded jacket potato

The cakes that they are offering that day are on a table on the side of the first room you enter. You can get up and have a look at them if you want. Quite a nice selection was offered including shortbread, a chocolate and cherry bar, brownies, banana walnut cake, and fruitcake. This is just a sampling, there were more than that, the entire table was filled.

The soup was good, the granary bread it was served with was great. It was thick, about three-inch slices and it was filled with sunflowers and other grain. The soup tasted more of apple than parsnip which for me isn’t a good thing but it was served thick and hot and it was very satisfying.

 A delicious crumble and custard

What was really outstanding here was the pudding. We ordered the apple and black raspberry crumble with custard and three spoons. The English always know we are Americans because we share our food like this.

This was the best crumble we had to date in England, it was so good that really I think we all wished we weren’t sharing. The custard tasted homemade. It was served piping hot and it was more fruit than crumble which is a very good thing.

The bill for our little feast was 23 GBP and with a three-pound tip, we left feeling very satisfied for about $40 American.

RRR Roadhouse Restaurant Clarion, Pa.

We were staying at the Comfort Inn in Clarion, Pa. and were looking for somewhere easy to have dinner. We decided that being able to walk to the RRR Roadhouse was very convenient.  They serve lunch and dinner in a Texas-style steakhouse setting. 

We arrived early for dinner assuming that would help us to avoid the Friday night rush. We requested  a booth and were seated quickly. 

The menu isn't overly large, which is a good thing, but  they do offer plenty of options.Naturally steak is a main feature, including a Delmonico, a bone-in ribeye. New York strip, 32 oz sirloin, which comes with a T-shirt, and filet Mignon just to mention a few. They also have prime rib on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which is what my husband opted to have. I ordered the Angus tenderloin tips which come served over a bed of trail rice.

All the meals come with a house salad with choice of dressing, a basket of rolls, and a side. The tips are listed on the menu as coming with the rice, so I wasn't sure if I could change that, but I could. I decided to try the Texas-sized sweet potato with the cinnamon butter and brown sugar served on the side. My husband chose a baked potato with sour cream, butter and scallions.

I asked which salad dressings are made in-house and our waitress Sue said the Dijon vinaigrette and the buttermilk ranch were, so I tried the ranch. The basket of rolls came out first and they were very tempting looking, so much so that I had one, which meant I wasn't going to be able to have any dessert, but it was a fair trade off. The rolls were hot and yeasty.

The salad is very pedestrian and includes a large hunk of tomato, a couple of slices of cucumber and red onion and a pile of croutons on romaine lettuce. Nothing out of the ordinary was included in this course.

A great note, however, is that the Michelob Ultra that my husband ordered was only $2.50; my unsweetened ice tea was $2.29. If I could drink beer, it would have been a better buy.

When our meals arrived, Sue had us cut into them to see if the wellness was as requested. My husband's prime rib looked brown on the exterior so he was sure it was too well done, but when he cut in, it was medium rare. I am not quite sure how they do that unless they grill the exterior of the slices but it was perfect. Mine on the other hand was supposed to be medium well and there was visible blood when I cut in, it went back for a re-cook.

I will say, the tips were back out very quickly and had been brought up to medium well and not at all over done. I was quite impressed. The tips were tended and had good flavor. They will offer you a choice of three steak sauces if you enjoy that.

The sweet potato was amazing. It is huge and cooked perfectly. My husband also enjoyed his baked potato.

We were much too full to eat dessert. Our dinner with the 10 percent discount that we got for being a guest at the Comfort Inn came to $43. Not inexpensive. Actually, the menu has very few inexpensive options, the cheapest being chicken, pork chops, fettuccine Alfredo or fish at around $14. 

There is a bar on the premise as well. Overall, this was a very good experience and I would eat here again.

Old Vines Wine Bar Kennebunkport, Maine

 Old Vines Wine Bar is located in the lower village of Kennebunk. It is about three-quarters of a mile from the Captain Jefferd’s Inn past Dock Square and over the causeway on Route 35 which is called Port Road at this point. You certainly can walk the distance if you prefer we drove however and there is a small parking lot in back and a public parking lot nearby.

Welcome to Old Vines

As you walk up to the front of the wine bar you will notice two things, first, there is a great fire pit and chairs if you want to enjoy the outdoors and also you will notice that there is a wheelchair ramp which was very nice to see.

Fire pit

The building that houses the wine bar is a former barn but you would never guess that as you enter the very minimalist interior. On one wall there are panels from wine crates displaying their logos and names and the opposite wall holds the bar. The tables are wooden and the chairs and stools are metal. There is a banquette that runs along the wall beneath the wine crate display.

They celebrated their seventh anniversary in May 2016 and owner Mike Farrell was greeting guests when we arrived. As soon as we walked in the door we were welcomed and told to sit wherever we wanted to. We chose to sit at a table along the banquette.

They have a very fine selection of wine as well as cocktails and specialty beers. My husband chose to have a Pils Urquell which comes from the Czech Republic and I had a seltzer with lime. The menu offers snacks, salads, small plates and tapas. Everything looked so good that it was hard to choose.

Pita and tapenade

We decided to start with a snack of pita chips and tapenade. The chips are also offered with tzatziki or hummus. It was a very good choice. The pita was grilled and lightly salted and the tapenade included pimento. It was a nice sized portion, enough for us to share.

Melt in your mouth short ribs

I decided to try the burrata which is a handmade mozzarella ball with a balsamic, orange and honey drizzle, over arugula with toasted hazelnuts. My husband chose the short ribs served over polenta. Where to begin, let me just say that neither one of us left a morsel on our plate. The polenta was creamy and the short ribs just fell apart and melted in your mouth. The mozzarella was perfection and the honey orange balsamic was the perfect sauce, a little sweet and a little savory.

Service was amazing. We never felt neglected or had to wait overly long. Our entire meal was ordered, cooked and eaten in under 50 minutes. I am not implying that anything was rushed, it wasn’t, it was just perfect.

They do offer dessert and this day it was three truffles. One of them was made with alcohol in it so we opted not to have it since it might have caused an issue for me. We watched some salads being delivered to a guest nearby and they were huge and looked so good we certainly wished we had larger appetites.

This is a very lively place with a crowd that was on the younger side but there were guests of all ages including a family. If you are looking for a place to enjoy a great glass of wine, cocktail or even a mocktail, I highly recommend Old Vines Wine Bar and plan to dine there as well, the food is top notch and not over-priced considering what a touristy area this is. They close during the colder month but reopen in April.

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Barbeque Exchange Gordonsville, Virginia

Craig Hartman, the chef-owner of the Barbeque Exchange has had one extraordinary culinary journey that has taken him from the Culinary Institute of America to the Rocky Mountains, the Catskills, and finally to the outskirts of Charlottesville. He and his wife Donna have settled here for the last 5 years but it is likely it won’t be their last stop. 

Located in the small town of Gordonsville, Va. The Barbeque Exchange is a bastion of culinary delight in a most unexpected place. When I dined at Fossett’s in Charlottesville several people told me that Craig was formerly the chef at that amazing restaurant. 

The food that is served at the Barbeque Exchange is not surprisingly, barbeque. However, leave behind any preconceived notions that you may have about barbeque. While the atmosphere is casual with picnic tables inside and paper tablecloths, there is nothing at all casual about the quality of the food being offered.

This is a very popular place. In an average year, they go through a quarter-million pounds of meat. On both occasions that I visited here even though it was definitely an off time, it was crowded. I can only imagine what it might be like at a popular time. 

You place your order at the counter where the sides are all visible. You start by choosing your plate. I won’t list all the proteins but there are platters, depending on your appetite you can choose several combinations. The typical platter has a protein with two sides and cornbread, pumpkin muffin or roll. Platters with more than one protein for larger appetites are also offered.

Hot and cold sides are offered. I was lucky enough to be given a sampling of all the cold sides and most of the proteins and I didn’t find one that I didn’t like, well almost. I have to say the Fu-Q, fried tofu was not something that I enjoyed but my guess is that it is terrific for vegetarians who usually would find little to eat at a barbeque restaurant. 

However, I loved the sausage enough on the first visit to order it for my protein on the second visit. One thing that I got to sample that isn’t on the menu was Sticky Love bacon, OMG I could eat a pound of it. Ask when you are there, it may be available.

All the sides are made in-house and are so fresh and delicious. Five varieties of homemade pickles are offered, everything from sweet pickles to horseradish pickles. Try the hog wings if you get the chance, they are addictive. We brought them back to the hotel and ate them cold, still awesome.

If you prefer, you can have a sandwich, homemade soup or a sandwich combo. Try the entree salads and fried sides such as hush puppies or fried green tomatoes. You can see their full menu on their website. It is a good idea to look it over before you get there because it can be just a little overwhelming.

Once you have decided on your meal, picked your drink and maybe grabbed one of the amazing desserts that are baked by Amanda. Head to your table to decide which of the outstanding barbeque sauces you are going to use. I tried them all, Hog Fire, Colonel Bacon, Craig’s Carolina, QX Sweet and Soo-eet.

You will feel like a regular from the moment you come in the door. Someone from the staff will greet you and make you feel at home. You can help yourself to more ice tea or water if that is what you choose. I highly recommend that you try the Barbeque Exchange if you are going to be in the area. It is not too far from James Madison’s home Montpelier and after a visit there I can’t think of a better or more delicious place to have lunch or dinner.

As a travel writer, I get to visit lots of restaurants. I am treated special and I eat free. I loved this restaurant enough to go back on my own and pay to dine here, what more can I say!!