Buffalo NY
So, I’m in Buffalo NY. Not one of the most likely places to take a holiday for a week but I have a bestie now living here so I thought I'd share my experience of this pretty cool place. She’s been here 3 months, working super hard and yet to venture out, leaving me free to do precisely what I love doing. Exploring, adventuring and eating!
Amongst all the food adventures below, Buffalo sitting close to the border of Canada has lots to offer. The week was jam packed with skiing at Holiday Valley, Niagra Falls Canadian side was ethereal this time of year with its magical frostiness, a first ice hockey experience watching a Buffalo Sabres game (wow!!! They love ice hockey and when they score woah)! Miles of walking, beautiful parks and an array of different people to chat to, oh and a few visits to Target to help stock up newly now cosy home. I can only imagine that in the summer it comes alive even more so.
Lucky for me on my first day here Jo was off work (the bestie) so we researched brunch in the area before heading out for a day of snowboarding and skiing. Wowsers there are a lots of places to brunch. Jo knowing me chose a quirky number called sweetness 7 café.
Sweetness 7 Café (220 Grant St)
What an awesome café/ restaurant. Not too sure what they call them here but I love it either way. The nice thing about this place is the amount of personality and soul it has…without that sounding cheesy. Sweetness 7 cafe makes you look around at all the quirky one off pieces. I noticed the ceiling and an old scrap piece of wood on the very top shelf saying “Do you get enough love”. It has defo been swiped from the street at some point injecting a touch of personality to the place (it's on a few mugs too) .
You can feel that this café has grown over the years and with it acquired many unique pieces. It actually reminds me very much of a café I ate at in Ubud Bali! Strange huh. There is a large worn wooden table in the center of the room with a lamp, some flowers, a chessboard and a book. A photo book of the journey that Sweetness 7 café took to get there, filled with pictures from the very start, constructing the building, to the end product. The lady that made this awesome café sounded so passionate and driven with her dream. Very much like myself and I will definitely do the same - produce a photo book with tastethegumptions journey. This huge table encourages people to interact, actually talk. Well, at least I like to think so. I do tend to enjoy talking and learning from as many interesting people as I can. We luckily had a great chap sitting opposite us; Alan, he lives above sweetness7 café and treats it like his second home. He did say this and I can totally see why, you feel super at ease in this café, you could get your laptop out and drink coffee without feeling frowned upon. Sometimes in cafes or restaurants you can be made to feel that you shouldn’t be on your laptop, you should eat and get out making room for the next customer to spend money. Don’t people know that it’s these spaces that bring out the creativity in us? :) Anyway, at sweetenss7 café it’s totally comfortable. This guy was a gem! He asked us what we were doing here in Buffalo. We told him the story, got onto the subject of food and he gave a great long list of recommendations to visit here. Thank you kindly!!! I’m ticking them off daily.
Let's get to the brunch shall we… YUMMY! I had eggs sunny side up, crisp bacon and a potato rosti. Jo had an awesome scramble. For the English people, this is not what we think. Just scrambled eggs, nope! The scramble seems to be a breakfast in itself here. It's eggs scrambled with numerous items. On this occasion; peppers, sausage, chorizo, tomato, potatoes and cheese. Potatoes seem to be a staple in breakfast in USA. (Bettys do amazing potatoes with their brunch, Bettys is on Virginia St). Sweetness 7 Cafes coffee is great, smooth with creamy milk froth. The barista knows what he’s doing. I tried the Vietnamese coffee to go. In case you don’t know, it's iced coffee with condensed milk. Typically served with the silver filter as it drips its coffee onto the ice. Croque Madam was good too... OK, I must admit, I’ve been to sweetness7cafe 3 TIMES this week! I shouldn’t explain all the food, head there and try for yourself.
Chef whites- feels like the 'coolest' chefs are in Buf! Chef whites what are they? So far seen a head chef rocking dungarees. His team in flannel shirts. Been a couple places now and chefs hats are wool beanies here. Pretty cool or shall I say cosy! Suppose they need here with the ever changing chilly weather. Liking the relaxed approach.
Let's move onto to some of Alan’s recommendations. We're in Buffalo!!! Where are the best BUFFALO WINGS?
Gabriel’s Gate (Allen Town)
Gabriel’s Gate it is then. I was told Anchor Bar was the birthplace of the Wings so this is where most tourists’ head but we went to the locals recommendation. Discussing wings at our table. What makes good Buffalo wings? The sauce? Yes, the blue cheese sauce side? Yes… They MUST be crispy wings though and my oh my were they. The Buffalo wings at Gabriel’s gate were exactly what you wanted to them to be. Sounds over exaggerated but wings are simple so it's those 3 three things that need to be GOOD. That will be the meeting point for Jo and her visitors now. When they fancy a damn good plate of wings they will be heading to Gabriel’s Gate. It’s a nice place with an old skool feel, like a tavern with a huge bar, we sat by the fire downstairs in the window.
Something a little special now…Researched by myself and also recommended by Alan (This Alan guy knew his food, good job meeting him the first morning)
Martin Cooks (346 Connecticut St)
I'd researched Buffalo’s food a couple of months ago prior to the visit. Martin Cooks came up offering a tasting menu. We booked it straight away. Pretty much counted down the week to experience this in Buffalo. It was sure to be an experience far from the ordinary Michelin starred tasting menu experience, with its smooth, relaxed togetherness feeling, it surely was.
From the moment you enter into this restaurant's unique layout to the final sip of your last drink you are made to feel very welcome, the surroundings are an open space. The kitchen centre stage all open with high benches around the outskirts for the diners. There are also tables in the restaurant but we were fortunate enough to be sitting on the bench facing directly into the kitchen. The soft lighting of lamps, candles and deep colours easing you into this new open experience. Not too dark, not too romantic, not too formal but just right. They did an excellent job with designing Martin Cook’s restaurant.
The menu in its simplest form goes like this
Garlic
Cauliflower
Ricotta & Mushrooms
Jump in my mouth
Cannoli
At each course, you’re explained as to what the dish comprises of. Trying to work out the flavours, textures or what’s happening inside your mouth. Mmmm I debated to explain the full menu and settled with a brief explanation. I'd been told that Martin Danilowicz was renowned for his punchy bold flavours, really making your palate adjust to the strength of the ingredients. The menu very much does this.
Imagine Garlic - It was a smooth delicate garlic soup, strong in roasted garlic flavour but no after taste, no resounding garlic in your mouth for the entire meal. Even eating this I said ‘garlic as the first course, this menu has got to be punchy to beat that at every course’.
Cauliflower – A subtle cauliflower moose with capers and frisse salad. The ever so delicate cauliflower moose with the acidic capers punching their way to the side of your mouth awakening the marry of flavors, I was thankful for the crisp frisse to add some texture to the dish.
Ricotta & Mushrooms – My fave dish of this menu. Gnocci with an array of wild mushrooms in a cream sauce and tasty Parmesan cheese served in the most beautiful bowl that actually looked like a Cep mushroom. These flavors and textures were a delight inside my mouth. Taste buds enjoying the strength in the mushrooms and the pillow soft Gnocci’s melting aside the creamy sauce. MMMmmm!
Jump in my mouth – The first protein (fish or meat option) in the tasting menu. By this point I was longing for either or so it definitely did jump in my mouth. Pork escalope rolled and stuffed with cheese and tomato sauce topped with truffle oil, a soft fried egg and lashings of Parmesan cheese. I’m thinking the name of the dish symbolizes the strong flavors collating. It was indeed very tasty but not my favorite of the menu. Lacked an air of delicacy or appreciation to each flavor. Maybe I felt this way because I had tasted such powerful flavours from very little ingredients before, giving me a new appreciation of garlic alone and mushrooms in the different courses. Hope this makes sense.
Cannoli – 3 Cannoli’s, each filled differently with a lemon sorbet, a chocolate and a pistachio filling all sitting on top of a cinnamon mascarpone. It was a nice sweet end to an Italian menu, again with the punchy flavours.
I had the wines to match the course, definitely a recommendation to anyone having a tasting menu. Although I opted out of the Sambuca to finish, instead having a dessert wine.
We were even more fortunate to be invited into the kitchen and talk with Martin. During service, he made the time to talk to us, again in this relaxed smooth atmosphere. A great experience, thank you to Martin and his team, Jimmy being very good at his wine pairing and personality to match.
A bit of vegetarian and Vegan…
Merge (439 Delaware Ave)
We ate at Merge one evening as a few of Jo’s friends recommended it. It’s a cool little place rough around the edges with a stage in the middle. They hold certain nights with music. Unfortunately I won't be there to experience any but its seems a pretty cool idea to be able to eat or drink enjoying local artists perform. This menu caught my eye, obviously before visiting restaurants I take a peek at the menu online and this was intriguing. They are using ingredients together that I wouldn’t normally or isn’t common in the UK. I’ll explain later. The sisters running this place are obviously passionate about food and dietary needs. They have a good selection of gluten free, vegetarian, vegan options with some meat and fish options thrown in there too. The daily specials were enticing. It's not often that specials of the day sway your choice but on this occasion they did.
Here’s what we had:
Starters (appies) - Sweet potato fries with lentils, kale and cheese, Kale with poached pear and walnut salad.
Mains (entrées) - Swede ravioli with mushroom beurre blanc (the daily special), Spiced quinoa cakes with salad, BBQ bean tacos and the basil king prawns with mushroom garlic risotto and a tomato chili salsa for myself.
Merge is very creative with their use of ingredients and flavor combinations. Perhaps a little confusion at times with certain ingredients trying to marry in the mouth but an interesting experience. You can see that they are pushing the classic boundaries with American food and most definitely using as many vegetables in positive ways. Example, I’ve never seen lentils on top of fries, normally a side component of a dish offering the carbohydrate option so this was new for me. I really enjoyed it, the creamy lentils with melted cheese added a new depth complimenting the sweet potato. Out of all of our mains I think I'd chosen the best option. The risotto was strong with garlic but luckily the chili tomato salsa cut through with its sweetness and the basil prawns complimenting the mushrooms. Without the chili tomato salad the dish would have been just been resounding with garlic so good job adding that :)
Juice it up!
Askers (1002 Elmwood Ave)
A clean cool café serving a variety of super juices. Serving them in glass jam jars and lids, sitting in a cold well filled with ice at the front counter. They have a system where you keep your jar and if you return each time you get a dollar off your juice. A different concept, encouraging you to think of their juices even after leaving the establishment. I sampled a couple of these tasty juices. Seems to be the place to go hang out for a juice, coffee, brunch or all 3 in my case. I had a great scramble I here too. HUGE! I could have taken half home and not expensive either. If you're doing yoga, going for a run or just want a healthy drink after whatever session you’ve had, head to Ashkers for a feel good juice.
SIMPLES & yet hitting the spot…
BEEF ON WECK ( 1065 Wehrle, Williamsville)
Beef Roll basically. This place was recommended to me by some friends. ‘You must try Beef on Weck before you go.’ It’s a must. Honestly, this really was just YUM. It is what it is, like my appreciation for street food, you get exactly what you expect but the best of it. Meaning delicious carved Roast beef in a soft fennel and sea salt roll with horseradish and a pickle and that’s it. At home in the UK we would call this a beef roll and no one would react but…that’s because it's not one of our ‘things’. A bacon sarnie perhaps but called a cool name or a chip butty (has to be with salted butter in a crisp white roll). So, thank you Charlie the Butcher for my first Beef on Weck. It went down an absolute treat (I could have eaten 2) but disciplined myself and enjoyed the vanilla milkshake instead. Enjoy the pic, no editing needed coz it just was a great Beef on Weck in my English gob.
Think I’ll end it there, I hope anyone visiting Buffalo is now a little excited about the food aspect of it. The above is a quarter of the list I had of things to try but one can only eat so much in 1 week. I’ve passed the list on for Jo to enjoy. Buffalo is an up and coming city. I imagine in a couple of years it will be the place to go. It will be known for its lovely Buffalonians (is this a word, if not it should be), their pride for where they come from and the cool hidden gem eateries it has all over the place. You just need to explore and find them.
Much love Buffalo