If you're looking to give your brown bag a break or if you just can't face another sandwich, you'd be hard pressed to find a better and more affordable lunch alternative than Thai Pearl in Ridgefield. With a prix fixe lunch menu featuring ten traditional Thai dishes and three courses starting at just $8.95, I'd say it's easily one of the most affordable and most satisfying lunches in town.
On a recent snowy afternoon, I began with the shumai as a warm and savory amuse bouche to start the meal. A combination of shrimp, tofu and vegetables fill three wonton wrappers. I presume these are steamed and then pan fried given their chewy exterior and crisp edges, and then finished with a chili and soy sauce. The other lunch appetizer options include soup, salad or spring roll. One course down, two more to go.
There’s good reason the parking lot at Little Pub is jam-packed before noon—and through the wee hours. When you step inside, you’ll swear you’ve entered a lively Austrian ski chalet, complete with distressed wooden ceilings, stucco walls, wrought iron chandeliers and a blazing stone fireplace.
Whether you cozy up to the hopping bar or take a seat next to the fire (if you’re lucky enough to snag one), this relative newcomer feels like it’s been here for ages. In actuality, Little Pub, which sits on busy Ethan Allen Highway in Ridgefield, was home to an antiques shop until four months ago, when Daneen Grabe, of Fairfield, worked her magic on the space, transforming it into one of the area’s most popular hangouts, drawing fans from across the state, and a large contingent of Europeans who find it feels like home.
Back when I lived in the city, I hit my corner bistro when I craved comfort food. There’s one on practically every corner. But since I moved to Westport, the authentic bistro has been elusive. That is, until friends turned me onto Café Luc’s, a homey, out-of-the-way Parisien gem tucked behind Ridgefield’s main drag, for real-deal peasant fare in one of the town’s oldest and most rustic buildings.
To get to Café Luc’s, you cruise up the winding Rte. 35, past antique farmhouses and sprawling country spreads, until you hit Ridgefield’s postcard-quaint town center.
Admittedly, it’s a bit of a schlep for a weekday lunch, but the payoff is a steaming crock of soupe à l'oignon gratinée or a heaping bowl of moules marinières with addictively thin and crunchy pommes frites—perfect cold-weather food. It’s a taste of Paris secreted away in the ‘burbs.
I am convinced that one of the best kept and most unfortunate secrets in the wine world is how good wines from Beaujolais actually are. Yes, that’s right–Beaujolais. The word itself creates a certain conundrum. It has been misappropriated and used as a gigantic ruse to convince the American wine drinking public that Beaujolais is actually that thin, fruit juicy froth that Georges Duboeuf has celebrated for years. Quel disastre!
Let me break it down: red wines of all stripes are crushed during harvest (the vendange), racked and barreled to age. Some wines – like great Spanish Riojas don’t get released for 7-8 years after they are harvested. The wait is worth it and the wines benefit from age. Not Beaujolais Nouveau. Beaujolais Nouveau is crushed and rushed into the bottle mere weeks after being picked. And it tastes like it. What the heck was Dubouef thinking? Obviously he wasn’t.
Fall is here. And beyond the obvious weather changes: frost alerts, foliage color and the end to most farmers’ markets, there are other exciting changes in the lives of wine enthusiasts: Fall marks the start of the red wine drinking season!
Sure we drink red wine in the Summer, but enthusiasm for the darker reds is tempered by the weather, and the kind of red wine experiences that appear easily from a slight chill in the air can at best be forced in the heat of outdoor dining.
But as the leaves start falling and people begin to spend more time indoors, out comes the Le Creuset for stews, Emile Henry for roasts, the cast iron skillets for, well, that restaurant style pan seared rib eye. We all know that wine is made for food – and Fall food is made for red wine.
So, here, in an inaugural ditty on wine in CT Bites, we wanted to share with you not only our unfettered enthusiasm (break out the mandolines – we’re talking the kitchen variety not featured instrument in Rod Stewart’s Maggie) for thehigh season of food and wine with some recommendations about what to try and buy across the next few months leading up to Winter. (See our local resource guide with recommendations below.)
If you're looking to give your brown bag a break or if you just can't face another sandwich, you'd be hard pressed to find a better and more affordable lunch alternative than Thai Pearl in Ridgefield. With a prix fixe lunch menu featuring ten traditional Thai dishes and three courses starting at just $8.95, I'd say it's easily one of the most affordable and most satisfying lunches in town.
