Chopbiscuit {at home} dining review: The Farmhouse at Top of the World - Lake George, NY

Welcome (again) to another delightful ad hoc Chopbiscuit inspection of some of the USA's most frequented saloons, dining halls, dive bars, food trucks, in-room dining and high end bistro's. At least one of your humble contributors is on the road virtually every week and luckily have the opportunity to dine at some of the finest institutions and loathsome watering holes known to man. Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, some deity would permit us to be pirates and savage our nutriment.

We like eating. It fascinates us. We sit and look at the food for hours. We often eat while laying down in my hotel room with a bib in my lap and my outlook calendar open. Eating is our tweeting, except it's much cooler. Food is often made into the celebrity of carnage, which makes us appear to be pompous and scarce in regards to the act of eating itself. You eat because you fuel. We eat because we're hungry. We eat because it's our job. We go out to these establishments to consume their lineups with arrogance.

I then judge it. (Poncho Sinatra style)

 

The Farmhouse Restaurant
441 Lockhart Mountain Rd
Lake George, NY 12845
(518) 668-3000

If you want a truly Farm To Table restaurant experience just north of the Capital Region in New York - get yourself to the Farmhouse at Top of the World in Lake George, NY. We had the opportunity to visit this amazing place this past weekend and it was one of my best restaurant experiences in sometime. The Farmhouse gets 100% of it's menu from it's local farm (Top of the world) and regionally located farms nearby. The menu changes often and is focuses on what's in season and appropriate.

Situated on a few acres on the backside of the mountain, Top of the World Farm grows sustainable and all-natural produce to be used to offer the freshest and highest quality products for the restaurant. The chef, Kevin London uses his experience to craft regional dishes showcasing only the freshest seasonal ingredients. Menus are frequently evolving, inspired by the organically-grown vegetables and herbs coming from our organic farm.

What I ingested

Can I get a little foul mouthed on here? This meal was one of the best effing meals I've had in the past 6 months. For all of you that shun the farm to table freshness movement as one for hippies and elitists - suck it. It's simply better and tastier when the chef knows the ingredients point of freshness and capitalizes on minimal processing. It's just simply better, period. I started out with an amazing green gazpacho with goat cheese crema. It was nicely balanced with a sweet mix of sweet and savory. I chose the farmer ground polenta w/ squash and chevre, romesco (seen above) .This was a top five dish of my summer. The nice, creamy polenta was cooked to perfection with some additional heat and bold flavors. I'm not going to say anything about the desserts - I will just let the visuals make the case. Amazing.

 

Concept & Design

The restaurant boasts a 19th century Adirondack dining room.  You will find the Adirondack style warm and informal  with wholesome cuisine and professional service that matches up to the interior.   Every Thursday they do a Harvest Dinner at 7pm which  is a 7 course dinner served family style on their community table.The view from the dining room shows the Eastern mountain range and picturesque landscape of the beautiful Lake George region. A great place to relax in the Adirondacks with an amazing view.

Chopbiscuit on the road dining review: Moosewood restaurant, Ithaca NY

Vegetarian food for the non-vegetarian

If you ever happen to be traveling through beautiful Upstate NY, make sure to stop by one of my favorite restaurants in the region, Moosewood in Ithaca. The Moosewood restaurant has been a staple with locals for over 35 years and serving some of the best vegetarian fare in the country. This menu offers a varietal of hearty dishes for your most carnivorous of friends. Moosewood was named one of the thirteen most influential restaurants of the 20th Century by Bon Appetit magazine. Nice lil' shout out to a local establishment that was founded on basic principles of healthy cooking.

The Moosewood collective has published may internationally acclaimed cookbooks and has really been a leader in vegetarian instructional cooking, consulting services and retail branding. I had the opportunity to visit the restaurant yesterday during a work trip to the Southern Tier of upstate NY. If you've never been to the region, Ithaca is home to some of the most picturesque backdrops, including Taughannock falls state park and Buttermilk falls. Ithaca has also been named one of the Greenest cities in America.

For lunch I started with Quinoa Tabouli. This may have been the best tasting Quinoa I've ever had. Made with high protein quinoa, sweet bell peppers, parsley and scallions in a lemon-mint vinaigrette. It's served with (opt’l) local Side Hill Acres feta cheese and seedless red grapes. The perfect mix of local and healthy ingredients for a light lunch. For soup I had an everyday split pea, which had some great undertone flavors that spit out Moosewoods classic freshness cues.

Moosewood is truly an iconic Ithaca staple founded by a collective of passionate folks who have a common goal.

According to their mission statement,

The Moosewood Collective is a crew of fourteen women and five men. Some of us moonlight from Moosewood, and among us we have a broad range of interests and avocations. Our group comprises musicians, singers, dancers, actors, performers, mediators, mediator's, activists, teachers, trainers, consultants, writers, gardeners, editors, poets, artists, quilters, calligraphers, martial arts instructors and enthusiasts, health advocates, parents, grandparents, good cooks, and really good eaters.

Much of the romance about groups that resist a hierarchical structure rests on the mythology that a group without a boss is a group without leaders. The "leaderless group" is a popular notion, especially among academics exploring ways to organize committees and teams. We can testify that leadership has little to do with title or chain of command. It is a quality that exists within every successful group. Several leaders among us with courage, creativity, self-discipline, principles, and willingness to learn, teach, support and share, have kept us going.

Leadership emerges in the unplanned heroism and grace under fire that every one of us has shown at times. Leadership is irrepressible. It gets passed around depending on the task. Collective work doesn't automatically generate equal voices. When some of our voices dominate, it's important that others speak up to add balance. The accommodating ones among us have to resist always going with the flow because it's easier. Sometimes we need to be active and raise conflict. We've had to work at developing diplomatic ways to express ourselves so that interpersonal disagreements don't turn into a test of skill and endurance.

The people, culture and atmosphere truly make Moosewood a necessary stop while perusing through the scenic backdrops of Upstate NY.