We’ve never actually seen a Southbury business district, but it’s a place we love driving through for a trio of Roadfood favorites., among them the least promising convenience store chicken shack called Patty’s Pantry. One bite of Patty’s crisp-crusted, succulent chicken puts all superficial prejudice aside and makes one realize that great fried chicken is not just a southern thing. Southbury also is home to the Laurel Diner, a lovely vintage hash house where sitting at the counter and watching the short-order cooks make corned beef hash is a mesmerizing experience. As for the hash itself, it’s among the best anywhere: a mix of brittle-crisp shreds of beef along with moist, brick-red filaments of beef whose pickly zest is perfectly balanced by soft pieces of potato. Finally, a favorite Roadfood destination is Denmo’s Snack and Dairy Bar. It’s an old-time drive-in with picnic-table seating and eat-in-the-rough service. (Place your order at the window, pay, and wait to pick up the meal when it’s ready.) Foot-long hot dogs are available with exclamatory hot relish, which is a central Connecticut passion. Denmo’s fried seafood is exemplary, as is a repertoire of made-from-scratch soups.
We’ve never met a cooked potato we didn’t like. Baked with butter, salt-boiled, fire-roasted, puréed with cream, au gratin, dauphinois, frittered, and french fried—all are surefire transformations of the homely...
Fill Your Gas Tank and Your Stomach "Eat Here. Get Gas": It's a roadside jest as old as gas stations themselves. (Before gas stations, pioneering motorists bought gas in pharmacies.)...
The term diner has come to mean almost any inexpensive cafe that serves breakfast. But true diners are an elite class of eatery. They are mid 20th century design...
The only possible happy exclamation incited by corned beef hash spooned from a can is "Arf!" But freshly chopped and sizzled to a crisp, crowned with poached eggs eager...
Few eats stir Yankee passions more intensely than fried clams. Most devoted clamophiles insist on whole belly clams (the big gooey ones), and while clam strips do tend to...
