Category: Food

A Gate City flavor tour

Taste of Downtown Nashua returns

Foodies will get a unique opportunity to discover the Gate City’s culinary scene during the annual Taste of Downtown Nashua, returning for a 27th year on Wednesday, June 7. Presented by the Nashua-based nonprofit Great American Downtown, the event pairs nearly two dozen area restaurants with participating businesses for a night of exclusive food and drink sampling.

“We have 20 stops, which is the most we’ve had in a few years,” Great American Downtown executive director Carolyn Walley said. “The tradition of the event is that there will be a flow of attendees going through the shops, and so you get a two-in-one experience. You get to check out the shops and the restaurants at the same time. … You also leave the event completely full, so you don’t have to buy dinner that night. I get messages from a lot of people saying that they like to go with their family and walk around downtown to try everything, and it’s fun.”

Pandemic woes forced the Taste of Downtown to pause for two years before it was able to return in full force last year. As a result, the 2022 event featured several first-time participants.

“It was so great to see Main Street buzzing again,” Walley said of last year’s Taste of Downtown. “That was the first time that a lot of us had seen such a crowd on Main Street in a couple of years. I think we sold about 750 tickets last year, and we’re expecting the same this time.”

Ticket holders will receive a map with a designated number for each assigned stop, featuring a participating restaurant or food truck paired up with another downtown retail business. Three outdoor areas of live local music — New Hampshire-based alternative rock band Hunter, Nashua group The Humans Being and the Nick Goumas Jazz Quartet — are also part of the experience.

The event is timed perfectly for attendees to discover Mike’s Italian Kitchen, which recently just rebranded from MT’s Local Kitchen & Wine Bar within the last several weeks. Walley said they plan to serve miniature Italian sausage subs, while their sister restaurant, Surf, will serve tiramisu.

Rambling House Food & Gathering and The Hidden Pig, two other local eateries that have joined Nashua’s dining scene within the last year, are also participating for the first time.

“This year we’ve really expanded our horizons from what downtown is usually considered,” Walley said. “We usually have it from City Hall to the Hunt Building and then east and west a few blocks. But we’ve expanded more down toward South Main Street, and so Root Awakening Kava Bar is participating, and then some of the other restaurants are down there. … I think downtown is naturally growing, so we’re trying to expand our normal perspective of it.”

In addition to the foods, of-age attendees will have access to two craft beer stops courtesy of Bellavance Beverage Co., at The Hidden Pig and The Peddler’s Daughter. Taste of Downtown tickets can be purchased in advance online via Eventbrite, and are also available the day of.

“I pair the businesses together and then it’s really up to them to collaborate … with coming up with the display and the offerings and things like that,” Walley said. “So it really generates a great sense of community between the businesses, which is what I like most about it.”

27th annual Taste of Downtown Nashua
When: Wednesday, June 7, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Main Street and several connecting side streets across downtown Nashua
Cost: $45 per person, which includes access to all the provided food samples (and beer samples for attendees ages 21+); tickets can be purchased online through Eventbrite
Visit: downtownnashua.org/taste
Maps of participating locations, which include parking guides, are available online or can be picked up at Scontsas Fine Jewelry (169-173 Main St.), CasaNova Men’s Boutique (147 Main St.) and Fresh of Nashua (178 Main St.) on the day of the event.

Participating food and beverage purveyors

  • Bellavance Beverage Co. (bellavancebev.com; beer stops will be at The Hidden Pig and The Peddler’s Daughter)
  • Caribbean Breeze (caribbeanbreeze-restaurant.com; paired with PRG Rugs)
  • Casa Vieja Mexican Grill (ordercasaviejamexicangrilltequilabar.com; paired with Enterprise Bank)
  • Cravings Cafe & Gift Shop (find them on Facebook @cravingscafe.nashua; paired with NBT Bank)
  • Edible Arrangements (ediblearrangements.com; paired with Purple Finch Properties)
  • Giant of Siam (giantofsiam.com; paired with Glorious Possibilities)
  • The Hidden Pig (thehiddenpig.com; paired with the Nashua Center for the Arts)
  • JajaBelle’s (jajabelles.com; paired with Meredith & Greene Candle Bar)
  • Mike’s Italian Kitchen (mikesitaliankitchennh.com; paired with CasaNova Men’s Boutique)
  • The Peddler’s Daughter (thepeddlersdaughter.com; paired with the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen)
  • Rambling House Food & Gathering (ramblingtale.com; paired with Tangled Roots Herbal)
  • Riverwalk Bakery & Cafe (riverwalknashua.com; paired with Fresh of Nashua)
  • Root Awakening Kava Bar (rootawakeningkava.com; paired with Creative Vibes)
  • Soel Sistas (soelsistas.com; paired with Fortin Gage Flowers & Gifts)
  • Stella Blu (stellablu-nh.com; paired with Bar Harbor Bank & Trust)
  • Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream (subzeroicecream.com; paired with Nashua Coins & Collectibles)
  • Surf (surfseafood.com; paired with Wilfred’s Barber Shop)
  • Tostao’s Tapas — Bar (tostaostapasbar.com; paired with Scontsas Fine Jewelry)

Featured photo: Photo by Chris Michaud.

The Weekly Dish 23/06/01

News from the local food scene

• Bacon me crazy: There’s still time to get tickets to this year’s New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival, returning to Anheuser-Busch Brewery (221 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack) on Saturday, June 3, with general admission from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. and VIP admittance, directly following a cocktail hour, beginning at 12:30 p.m. A chief fundraiser for the High Hopes Foundation, the festival will feature more than 50 craft brewers serving beers, ciders, meads and cocktails. Local restaurants and food trucks and competitive barbecuers also join in on the fun, receiving bacon from Claremont’s North Country Smokehouse to create any kind of dish they want. Find a story about the festival in the May 25 edition of the Hippo on page 40; see hippopress.com.

• 110 Grill now open in Concord: The 110 Grill, a regional restaurant chain with several locations across New England and New York state, recently celebrated the grand opening of its newest spot in Concord. The 80 Storrs St. restaurant, the 110 Grill’s seventh New Hampshire location, opened on May 17, according to a recent post on its Facebook page. See 110grill.com to view the restaurant’s full menus.

• Getting corny: Join New Hampshire Audubon at its Massabesic Center (26 Audubon Way, Auburn) for Growing Corn: As Fresh As It Gets, a workshop on Thursday, June 8, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. featuring UNH Cooperative Extension master gardener Will Lowenthal. He’ll discuss how to select different varieties of local sweet corn this summer, including determining where and how to plant and maintain a healthy crop as well as how to address pests and other problems. Registration is required by June 5 — the cost is $15. Visit nhaudubon.org or call the Massabesic center at 668-2045 to register.

• Ya Mas on the move: Pelham eatery Ya Mas Greek Taverna & Bar is relocating to a larger space at the Mall at Rockingham Park (99 Rockingham Park Blvd., Salem), and has a projected reopening date of July 15, according to recent announcements on its Facebook and Instagram pages. “The Pelham location will be closing at the end of June,” the announcement goes on to read. See yamasgreektaverna.com.

Too many thorns

I know I’m not the first person to point this out, but the original versions of a lot of nursery rhymes and fairytales were pretty brutal. In the original version of Little Red Riding Hood, the story ends with the wolf eating her. Ring Around the Rosie is about the Black Death. In The Old Woman Who Lived in Her Shoe, the shoe is less an actual shoe and more a family-planning metaphor. An old version of Snow White was known in Switzerland as The Death of Seven Dwarfs.

Few of them though, are as hard-core as Rapunzel:

“The prince was overcome with grief, and in his despair, he threw himself from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell poked out his eyes. Blind, he wandered about in the forest, eating nothing but grass and roots, and doing nothing but weeping and wailing over the loss of his beloved wife. Thus, he wandered about miserably for some years, finally happening into the wilderness where Rapunzel lived miserably with the twins that she had given to.” — Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Rapunzel

Never mind Rapunzel’s mother selling her into captivity to a witch in exchange for a head of lettuce at the beginning of the story. These four sentences alone would make an eight-episode Netflix series. Also, wife? Twins?

“That’s both fascinating, and disturbing,” you say, “but how does it relate to cocktails?” I’m glad you asked.

In my relative youth, a combination of poor decision-making skills and the callous forces of Capitalism left me living in a forest cottage for a summer, with literally no money, existing largely on birdseed and the berries that I could forage in a nearby clearing. I can attest to the flesh-slashing properties of blackberry thorns.

I call today’s cocktail“Too Many Thorns.” The prince from Rapunzel would agree with me.

Too many thorns

  • 2 ounces gin – this week, I’m using Engine Organic Gin, which comes in an oil can, because why not?
  • ½ ounce blackberry syrup (see below)
  • 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • ½ ounce blackberry brandy
  • 1 egg white

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker, and dry-shake it (without ice) for 30 seconds. It is important to do this, because if you add an egg white directly to ice it will seize up in an extremely unappetizing way.

Add ice, and shake for another 30 seconds.

Strain into a cocktail or coupé glass. Your drink should have a foamy head on it.

Raise a toast to our unnamed, bethorned prince wandering blindly through the wilderness, eating grass and roots, and eat some pâté on a cracker.

So, what’s with the egg white?

Two things: First, it adds a foamy, velvety quality to a cocktail. Additionally, egg whites are slightly alkaline, which levels out the acidity from the lemon juice and blackberries. Lemon is a classic combination with blackberries, and the bite from the gin cuts through the sweetness of the drink and reminds you that there is an adult in the room. Hopefully you.

Though it’s usually grown-ups who climb towers and get their eyes gouged.

Blackberry syrup

Combine one bag of frozen blackberries with an equal amount (by weight) of sugar in a small saucepan. Cook on medium heat. As the berries thaw, the sugar will draw the juice out from them. Because they’ve been frozen, all the cells in the berries have been stabbed by ice crystals and are more than willing to cry about it. Cook slowly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Somewhere in this process, mash everything with a potato masher. Let the mixture boil for 10 to 15 seconds, to make sure that all the sugar has dissolved.

Remove from the heat, then strain it to remove seeds and berry guck. This will keep for several weeks in your refrigerator.

Featured photo: Blackberry without the thorns. Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Adam Donnelly

Adam Donnelly of New Boston is the executive chef of the Riverside Grille (737 River Road, New Boston, 384-2149, riversidegrillenh.com), which opened in January. Known for its eclectic modern-American menu, served alongside a full bar in a family-friendly casual setting, Riverside Grille offers items like burgers, wraps, sandwiches and flatbread pizzas in addition to plated steak and seafood dishes. Donnelly is originally from Goffstown and has several years of local restaurant experience, mostly specializing in classic French and Italian cooking.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

The easy answer is to say a French knife, but it’s because it’s true. You can use it for almost anything.

What would you have for your last meal?

Mac and cheese. Always has been and always will be. … You can always mess with it a little bit and do it how you want.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

It’s Firefly [American Bistro & Bar] in Manchester. They are old friends of mine and great owners. I learned more from Chef David [Becker] when I was younger than anyone else and I attribute a lot of what I’ve done to those relationships.

What celebrity would you like to see eating at the Riverside Grille?

To be honest, I would much rather see the members of my community enjoying themselves. We have been missing a gathering point for our communities and I love that people can do that here. Especially in a small town like this, I think it’s really important.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

I would love to say it’s the new app sampler or the Mixed Grille, but it is definitely the grilled stuffed chicken. [It has] fresh spinach and feta cheese, topped with roasted tomatoes and a garlic cream sauce. It’s got everything you want in a dish.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I have really enjoyed that people are getting back to basic homestyle dishes — classic Americana. The culinary world got pretty pretentious for a while and I think it’s kind of returning to its roots now.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I really like to cook breakfast for my kids [ages 9, 8 and 7] in the morning. They have been picky up until now, but they’re really opening up to new things. Cheese omelets are their newest favorite.

Tasha’s pan sauce
From the kitchen of Adam Donnelly of the Riverside Grille in New Boston

Any cut of steak to your liking
Red wine
Pinch of garlic
Pinch of rosemary
Pinch of thyme
1 cup beef stock
1 to 2 Tablespoons butter

Sear the steak in a cast iron pan and finish it in the oven. Remove the steak and deglaze the pan with red wine. Add the garlic, rosemary and thyme and simmer for a minute. Add the beef stock and reduce by half. Take off the heat and add a couple of tablespoons of butter. Swirl until melted. Stir it up and serve.


Featured photo: Adam Donnelly, executive chef of the Riverside Grille in New Boston. Courtesy photo.

Bacon it happen

New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival returns

By Maya Puma
[email protected]

Unique flavors of savory bacon and smooth cold beer take center stage at the New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival, returning to Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Merrimackon Saturday, June 3.

The festival is a fundraiser for the High Hopes Foundation, which has raised more than $600,000 in the last seven years. It will feature 60 craft brewers — the greatest number in the event’s history, up 20 from last year — and each is expected to serve at least two to three varieties, including beers, ciders, meads and a few cocktails.

“Quite a few have been with us since Day 1,” festival organizer Jeremy Garrett said of the participating drink vendors. “We’ll have 150-plus different craft brews to pull from.”

North Country Smokehouse of Claremont, a longtime partner, provides the bacon to each of the event’s participating samplers, from food trucks to competitive barbecue teams. Samplers are then given creative freedom to craft any dish they want with the bacon. Attendees can expect to discover everything from maple bacon cupcakes and ice cream to bacon pizza, bacon macaroni and cheese, bacon-wrapped Italian sausages, fried dough with bacon and all kinds of other goodies.

Garrett said the Pulled Pork People’s Choice contest, a new feature to last year’s event that proved to be super popular, is also returning.

“These are competition barbecue teams from throughout the Northeast and Canada, so 25 of them will be doing pulled pork samples,” he said, “and again, they are going to be creative with it. It may just be samples of pulled pork with some barbecue sauce on it. I know some folks are doing things like mac and cheese with some pulled pork on top.”

New this year is a Bacon People’s Choice contest, in which attendees choose their favorite bacon samples.

“Between the bacon and pulled pork samples, everyone should leave with at least a pound of food in their bellies,” Garrett said.

Attendees receive a sampling cup and tickets they will use to vote for their favorite bacon and barbecue samplers as part of the contests. There are special perks available to VIP attendees, including a new cocktail hour from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. that will feature exclusive appetizers and drinks. According to Garrett, VIP attendees can also enter the festival an hour early, at 12:30 p.m. Live music by The Slakas will be featured.

The High Hopes Foundation, according to general board director Lisa D. Rourke, is now in its 40th year of providing life-enhancing experiences and adaptive equipment to terminally and chronically ill children in New Hampshire. As a New Hampshire-based nonprofit, Rourke said, the Foundation receives no government grants or state funding and therefore runs solely on volunteers.

Garrett said all proceeds from the festival go directly to the High Hopes Foundation, which is aiming to surpass its threshold of $110,000 in ticket sales from last year.

Seventh annual New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival
When: Saturday, June 3, 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. (VIP cocktail hour begins at 11:30 a.m., VIP admittance begins at 12:30 p.m.)
Where: Anheuser-Busch Brewery, 221 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack
Cost: General admission is $60 online and $80 onsite if available; VIP admission is $100 online and $125 onsite if available. Designated driver admission is $35 online and $50 onsite if available (food samples only)
Visit: nhbaconbeer.com
Event is 21+ only. No children, pets or outside alcohol allowed.

Participating bacon samplers

The Alamo Texas Barbecue and Tequila Bar (Brookline, alamobarbecue.com)
All Real Meal (Manchester, allrealmeal.com)
Bone Daddy’s Competition BBQ Team (find them on Facebook)
Celebrations Catering (Manchester, celebrationsmenu.com)
Clyde’s Cupcakes (Exeter, clydescupcakes.com)
Dandido Sauce (Manchester, dandiosauce.com)
Donali’s Land and Sea (Nashua, donalifoodtruck.com)
Heavenly Dogs and Catering (find them on Facebook)
Hill’s Food Service (hillshomemarket.com)
Jeannette’s Fried Dough (find them on Facebook)
New England’s Tap House Grille (Hooksett, taphousenh.com)
North Country Smokehouse (Claremont, ncsmokehouse.com)
Phily’s Good Eats (Candia, find them on Facebook)
Piggy Sue’s Steakin’ Bacon (steakinbacon.com)
Rambling House Food & Gathering (Nashua, ramblingtale.com)
R & J Texas Style BBQ on Wheels (rjtexasbbqonwheels.com)
Saucehound BBQ (saucehoundbbq.com)
Stark Brewing Co. (Manchester, starkbrewingcompany.com)
The Traveling Foodie (jrmcateringllc.com)
Uno Pizzeria & Grill (unos.com)
Welbilt (welbilt.com)

Featured photo: Scenes from the New Hampshire Bacon & Beer Festival. Photos by Celia Gatsas.

The Weekly Dish 23/05/25

News from the local food scene

• Eats by the slopes: McIntyre Ski Area (50 Chalet Way, Manchester) is due to reopen its seasonal onsite restaurant, The Hill Bar & Grille, for a fourth season on Tuesday, May 30, marketing director Aly Coakley confirmed. Since 2020, the eatery has been open during the spring, summer and fall months, offering a menu of burgers, sandwiches, plated entrees, salads and appetizers, with an outdoor patio and lawn seating areas in addition to indoor dining. Coakley said a number of weekly events and happenings are scheduled throughout the summer before the restaurant closes for ski season around the end of October — beer, bourbon and boards nights on Tuesdays, ladies’ nights on Wednesdays, trivia nights on Thursdays and live music and prime rib specials on Fridays and Saturdays are among those that are planned. Visit mcintyreskiarea.com/the-hill-bar-and-grille to view the eatery’s full menu.

• Third time’s a charm? Postponed twice due to inclement weather, Gibson’s Bookstore’s (45 S. Main St., Concord) author event featuring longtime New Hampshire radio personality Mike Morin is now scheduled for Thursday, June 1, at 6:30 p.m. Morin will present his newest book, If These Walls Could Talk: Celebrating 100 Years of the Red Arrow, America’s Most Beloved Diner, which details various stories and anecdotes that contribute to the original Red Arrow’s lasting legacy in Manchester’s culinary scene, from connections to celebrities like Adam Sandler and Kevin Costner to its reputation as a spot for presidential hopefuls over the past four decades. No admission to the event is required, and for those who can’t make it, signed copies of If These Walls Could Talk may be ordered online at gibsonsbookstore.com. For additional details on the Red Arrow’s 100th anniversary, check out our cover story that appeared in the Sept. 29, 2022, issue — go to issuu.com/hippopress.com to find the e-edition. The story starts on page 10.

• Green Mountain spirits: Vermont’s Village Garage, a craft distillery and tasting room that opened last year in the town of Bennington, recently launched three bottles of its products in New Hampshire, according to a press release. The distillery’s Village bourbon, Village rye and Village Bonfire — the latter a campfire-inspired smoked maple whiskey — are all being rolled out across the Granite State through Republic National Distributing, according to the release. “We brought Village Garage to Massachusetts, and New Hampshire is the logical next step in our New England expansion,” distillery co-founder and Vermont native Matt Cushman said in a statement. “We think Bonfire will do really well here, especially around these summer campfires.” See villagegarage.com.

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