Monthly Archives: September 2010

Best. Day. Ever. And the Best Chowder in Connecticut. @GriswoldInn

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We did it! Thank you, FourSquare and History Channel for the best day of our lives.

For any of you who have asked me “Where can we find good chowder in Connecticut?” and I have answered “Massachusetts” – I present you with a revised answer.

The answer is The Griswold Inn in Essex, CT.

On Sunday we went to Gillette Castle in Haddam. ChowderDad and I might be high on the geek scale because we both have to check in there immediately. And then, the History Channel gave us the greatest gift. The gift of beer and chowder.

Foursquare and The History Channel say to me “Hey! The Griswold Inn is the oldest continually operating Tavern in the United States! And you are right near it!”

Okay, so their definition of RIGHT NEAR and my definition are a bit different. But completely worth every moment. It was even worth the Skunkpocalypse we had to drive through to get there.

Gillette Castle was absolutely fascinating. But man oh man was the chowder good at The Griswold Inn…

Not only was it tasty and thick and had skins on the potatoes and fresh perfect clams…but it came in a super cool bowl.

And did I mention the beer? The beer was awesome!! Their own brew they probably bought and relabeled as a microbrew but I don’t care. It was great. Revolutionary Ale!

ChowderBoy was a bit of crankypants about his pasta but he is crankypants in general these days, really.

I thought the pasta was great.

Plus, the beer was really good. Did I mention the beer was great?

AND they had a random guy playing a non-offensive quasi-interest acoustic set. And the floorboards were a mile wide.

The beer was really good so we bought a pint glass. It was THAT GOOD! We bought it at the gift shop with the pleasant and charming town residents who gave us advice on the various festivals all fall (THE PET PARADE!!!!) and about some in town event where all the female residents go to the Griswold and drink 50 bottles of wine and then walk home.

The only sad part of this story is that I didn’t get to try their Bloodies – but I think we can make it back there. Like, tomorrow or something.

We are retiring to this real life Star’s Hollow. We are going to walk into town holding hands and talking about books. Then we will go to the Griswold Inn and drink beer and eat chowder and listen to some music. Later, we will kayak a bit. Then drink more beer. Then pass out on the town green.

Shadows – Poughkeepsie, NY

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ChowderFamily sometimes visits places besides the Cape and NYC. This was one of those weekends. The kids like a nice pool so we took them on Sunday to a semi-nice pool in Fishkill, of all places.

We swam for a few hours and then decided to go get lunch. Here is something interesting I didn’t know. You really can’t eat on the Hudson. I learned this a bit last year when we went to a hotel for New Years Eve and tried to find a place along the west side of the Hudson on our way home. We ended up eating at some Irish pub in Sleepy Hollow but it wasn’t very good.

But I digress.

We went to a place called Shadows which just confirmed that I am a colossal snob in a thousand ways. But am amused and open-minded one. So I suppose that is positive.

It WAS on the Hudson! And it had this awesome faux grass tile in the foyer. Yes. Tile. That looked like grass. It also had a faux sky ceiling. And that was just on the way in. The rest of the place was special:

So it was great. And classy. But most importantly, how was the chowder? Well, first of all, it was crab and corn. Which we are coming to like – a LOT.

“ChowderBoy gives the crab and corn a 3. Dad loves it. Bloody Mary kicking in. Mom says 5 for the chowder.”

I think the boy’s face says it all:

 I thought it was fine. It was flavorful and all. But it was really buttery, really baconey, and not in a good way. More like in a “we don’t know how to make this taste good so we will just throw fat in it” kind of way.