Mr. Foodie and I recently went on a little weekend away. We went to Burlington, Vermont – our second trip to this fine city, but this time we went without the kiddo. Good times. I don’t know about you, but I definitely like to eat my way through my travel destinations. Burlington is a Foodie Paradise. There is no other way to describe it. Hundreds of locally-owned restaurants, cafés, food vendors, stores to buy local produce, meat, cheese, ice cream (VT is home of Ben & Jerry’s, folks!). We went to the Burlington farmer’s market (indoor for the winter) and there was so much produce, grass-fed beef and lamb, pastured chicken, raw milk cheese, pastured eggs, wine, spirits, food vendors and more. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My only bitching point is that both of the cool grocery stores there had no photography signs up. What’s up with that? There is also awesome skiing when it’s winter time (Sure it snowed on our way there, but it wasn’t exactly ski season!) I could drone on for hours about how much I love this place, but I’m not a pro travel critic. So just go there, okay? Put it on your bucket list.

One of the restaurants we visited was The Farm House. A farm-to-table concept restaurant, it had lovely chalkboards around the dining room noting which farms their ingredients came from. They serve local food, and damn, they do it well. When we came here on a weekend at noon we had the brunch menu. Mr. Foodie had the Grass Fed Vermont Highland Beef Burger with Landaff Creamery ‘Landaff’ cheddar, house made bacon, house pickled onions. Ah-maze-ing. Oh man. I only tasted one bite and it was absolutely delicious.

I had the Pulled Tarragon Chicken Salad . . . Salad with roasted local pasture raised chicken, greens, cider vinaigrette, dried cranberries, almonds, Cabot Clothbound cheddar. Again, insanely delicious. The fresh flavours were so well done and the tarragon with the chicken was a great combination.

We also saw some interesting beverages go to the table beside us, so we asked the server. It made us curious enough to try an Apple Carrot Ginger juice, made in house. Great flavour… would have been even better with some gin. Mmmm

There was also a fair bit of nutritional off-roading, but how could we resist indulging in the local delights. If we were only to eat local and in-season it would be damned easy to do it if we lived in Vermont. The local food movement is thriving there, no wonder it has been named the healthiest city in the United States (yes, I realize this is an old link). That said, there is a plan in motion to eat more local foods, but more on that later.

GO TO VERMONT. Or should I say, #vermont. And while you’re there – play our favourite game. See how long it takes to spot 3 Subarus and a Prius…