Another Good Eating Place in Tannersville

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There is a surprising variety of worthwhile restaurants and cafes along Route 23A between Hunter and Haines Falls. (I say “surprising” because one wouldn’t necessarily expect a rural region of the Catskills to have better eating places than a certain area of Bergen County, NJ with which I’m familiar, and yet such is definitely the case.)  A number of them are in colorful Tannersville, which prides itself on its restaurants and has taken to touting them quite enthusiastically.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERATannersville. If you read this blog regularly you’ll know I’m a fan of the Last Chance. But here’s a recommendation for something totally different: Maggie’s Krooked Cafe. It looks quite unprepossessing both outside and in, but on my visit to the Mountain Top last week I decided to try it out and got attentive and friendly service from Violet and the best beef burger I’ve had probably in my entire life. Coming from someone who hasn’t been a fan of beef burgers for many a year, that’s saying something.

Maggie prides herself on using fresh, local ingredients and all food is cooked to order. The extensive breakfast menu features a variety of pancakes — including potato pancakes — along with other dishes. (I’m going to have to try the pancakes some time, although I did warn Violet that my standards for pancakes are very high.)

If you’re traveling through Tannersville, you might want to give the Krooked Cafe a try. It’s on the north side of Route 23A. Oh, and it was written up in Hudson Valley magazine’s restaurants issue in January 2014. So if you hesitate to take my word for it, believe the experts!

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The beautiful sunflower field just outside New Paltz didn’t disappoint this year! Click on the above photo to get to my website, where you can enjoy more recent sunflower photos, which are also available for purchase.

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New Paltz — Decked Out for Christmas

With Christmas just around the corner I thought it would be fun to visit some of my favorite Hudson Valley towns and see how some of the stores are decorated. Here is a sample from New Paltz.

IMG_0371 sThis set of colorful stick figures that always greet visitors at the entrance to the famed Water Street Market is currently sporting Santa Claus caps.

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Many of the shop windows in the Water Street Market are decorated with this “gift-wrap” theme. The photo includes a reflection of the shops on the opposite side of the pedestrian path.

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My favorite place in all Water Street — the gallery of regional photographer G. Steve Jordan. If you’re in New Paltz, stop in for a real visual treat. Otherwise, visit Steve’s website. Anyone who has been to the Mohonk Mountain House should appreciate one of Steve’s prints of the area as a remembrance of their visit. One of his magnificent 2013 calendars will keep the memories alive on your wall all year long.

Huguenot Street and Treats from the Tea Room

The DuBois Fort Visitor Center is open for business.

Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz repays a visit at any time of year. The light is different, the flowers and foliage change–it’s even nice with snow (remember that white stuff?). Right now it’s open for the season. You can go on a guide-led tour of the

A Window onto the Huguenot World

buildings or just pop into the Visitor Center and enjoy the exhibits there. Currently there’s an exhibit titled Through the Lens: A Nineteenth Century Photographic Journey, which of course I found fascinating.

A weekend in mid-July brought some extra treats: the Visitor Center was selling baked goods from the Village Tea Room, with all proceeds benefitting the ongoing fine work at Historic Huguenot Street. So you got to enjoy some tasty muffins and brownies, along with an excellent cup of coffee, and know that your money was helping New Paltz’s jewel attraction.

Curious to learn more about the origin of these baked goodies, I returned the following weekend to visit the Village Tea Room. This Bake Shop and Restaurant offers, of course, the baked goods that you can buy to take out, but it also has indoor and outdoor sit-down service offering quite a varied and interesting menu. As a Swedophile, I made a mental note to return one day with a

The Village Tea Room’s cozy indoor restaurant

friend to order the gravlax open-face sandwich.

The Village Tea Room Bake Shop and Restaurant is located at 10 Plattekill Avenue, just off Route 299 in central New Paltz. They are open every day except Monday. Why not pay a visit the next time you’re in town?