Tag Archives: Egg Sandwiches

IT’S ALWAYS A PARTY AT FESTIVITIES EATERY IN NORWALK!

Posted on by
1

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Festivities Eatery At Sono Marketplace, SONO Market Place,                               314 Wilson Avenue, South Norwalk CT

Festivities Events Catering Website

Like Festivities Eatery at Sono Market Place On Facebook

Festivities was started by Bill Kaliff and his sister Roe Chlala and has been in the catering business for over 25 years.  They cater all sorts of parties like weddings, holiday parties and business events.  Today, we visited Festivities Eatery their very first location which is at SoNo Marketplace with some very special guests, Robin Kaminski, a reporter for The Norwalk Hour newspaper and her photographer, Matt Vinci.  Ms. Robin interviewed me for tomorrow’s paper about Sunday Diners!  We’ll be sure to post the story tomorrow… so check back then!

Today we chose to do brunch, and boy, Festivities can make brunch!  There are lots of good choices “The Brunch Benedict”, Pancakes, French Toast and even Burgers.  Today I had their specialty, “The SoNo B.E. & C,” which is Scrambled Eggs, Applewood Smoked Bacon and Vermont Cheddar served on a Brioche.  It was one of the best Egg Sandwiches I ever had.  The bacon was crispy, the cheddar was sharp, the eggs fluffy and the brioche was a little sweet, which went well the salty bacon.  The sandwich was served with Krinkle Fries – which were super crispy and delicious.  Dad had a PortoBello Mushroom Burger, which he loved.

IMG-20121223-00045I spoke with Nancy Esteva, the manager at Festivities, The Eatery and asked, “What is the most popular thing people order for parties?”

She said, “That’s hard to answer, as we will make most anything that you want for a party, so it’s always different depending on the event.”

IMG-20121223-00048I also asked Nancy, “What is your favorite brunch item on the Festivities menu?”

She told me, “I like what you just had, The SoNo B.E.& C, that’s my favorite!”

Nancy also let me try some Brioche with Festivities special Artichoke Dip on it — I loved it — if I was throwing a party, I would definitely order that!

The Sunday Diner Rating (Out of Five) 

FOOD * * * * * (FIVE)

SERVICE  * * * * * (FIVE)

LOOKS * * * * *  (FIVE)

BATHROOM * * * *  (FOUR) 

I also wanted to thank Ms. Robin and Mr. Matt for taking the time to interview me for the newspaper – it was a lot of fun and it meant so much to me that you like our blog!

IMG-20121223-00052

Wave Hill Breads Bakery & Café – “Rising” To Success in Norwalk!

Posted on by
5

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Wave Hill Breads Bakery & Cafe, 30 High Street Norwalk, CT www.wavehillbreads.com

Welcome to the second year of Sunday Diners!  We haven’t had a breakfast post in a few weeks, because we were busy with the 2012 Sunny Awards. Since we wanted to get  our new year started off with a bang, today we visited Wave Hill Breads Bakery and Café in Norwalk — so you’re in for a real treat!

Wave Hill Breads was started in Wilton in 2005 by Margaret Sapir and Mitch Rapoport and their bread is famous!  They are even in a book called 500 Things To Eat Before It’s Too Late.  I’ve had their bread before and it’s really great for sandwiches and toast.  But before we talk about the bakery, let’s talk about what I had for breakfast.

Today I had “The Ultimate Egg Sandwich” — which is Soft Scrambled Eggs, Cheddar Cheese, Fire Roasted Poblano Peppers, Applewood Smoked Bacon on Fresh-Baked Rosemary Croissant.  It was a great combination of the sweet and smoky taste of the bacon then suddenly it changes to the sharp taste of the cheese — but the best part was the croissant.  Dad had the Wave Hill Breads French Toast with Applewood Smoked Bacon.  I tried that and it was excellent — because the bread was so good!

Afterwards, we tried their Cinnamon Bun which was freshly baked and was really good  and went really well with a glass of milk.

After breakfast, I got to learn a lot about the bakery and café from Jake Rapoport and his mom Margaret  Sapir.

Jake’s mom and dad own Wave Hill and Jake has been baking bread since he was in the seventh grade!!! I asked Jake what makes the bread so good?

He said “Time.  It takes twelve hours to make a perfect loaf of bread”. 

I also asked him what the most popular thing on the menu for breakfast. He said, “The Ultimate Egg Sandwich is really popular”

Hey I had that this morning!

Jake and his mom gave me a tour of the bakery, it was like being on a field trip!  I got to see the oven which can bake 300 loaves of bread at once and bakes them at 450 degrees.  I figured out that if you had 1,200 people ordering bread — you would only need to run the oven 4 times.  Ms. Margaret also told me all about their spelt bread and all about the bakery.

“We work with local farms to get our supplies.  Our spelt comes from Lightening Tree Farm in Millbrook, New York”.

She showed me the fresh spelt which are called berries and showed me how they mill it into flour.  At Wave Hill they mill their own flour.

Ms. Margaret also told me how she became a baker… it’s a great story that you can read here, but she and her family all learned together from Gerard Rubaud a Master French baker in Vermont.  Who taught them how to make bread the right way.  I also asked her what is the secret to making great bread.

She told me “It’s the Three “Ts” Time, Temperature and Touch – And it has to be made by hand to be good”.

Wave Hill also sells their bread and baked goods at 16 Farmer’s Markets every week, we’ll be sure to check them out at the farmer’s market and will definitely come back soon.

The Sunday Diner Rating (out of 5)

FOOD  * * * * * (5)

SERVICE  * * * * *  (5)

LOOKS  * * * * * (5)

BATHROOM: * * * * *  (5)


Christie’s Country Store… Doing Good For the Community… And Good Breakfasts!

Posted on by
4

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Christie’s Country Store, 161 Cross Highway, Westport, CT

christiescountrystore.com

Christie’s Country Store is located right next to one of my favorite ice-cream places in the world, The Frosty Bear.  So I thought it would probably be good for breakfast too!  And it is.  Like the name says, it’s a real country store that sells fresh made food like baked goods, salads, sandwiches and other food items.

The store has been there since 1926 and the owners, Renee and John Hooper are very kind and generous and like to help the community — today, they were making a BIG pasta lunch for the Senior Center. They also love to support the farmer’s market that they host in front of the country store on Sunday’s during the summer and use a lot of the produce in their cooking.

Today I had the Egg, Bacon & Cheese Sandwich on a toasted poppy-seed bagel — one thing I noticed was that the Egg Sandwiches were very popular, it seemed like every person coming in the store was ordering one — one guy actually came in and bought not one…not two… not three… four or five… BUT six of them!  I wonder if he ate them all himself!  I also had some home fries which were tasty and hot.

Before I had breakfast, I got to taste their homemade jams — not surprisingly they were great!  I loved the Strawberry Lemonade jam so much, that I asked my dad to buy some.  Tonight, I’m going to have it on some vanilla ice cream.

Renee Hooper the OwnerI spoke with Renee Hooper, who owns Christie’s with her husband John and who told me:

“All of our jams and grilling sauces are 100% natural, the first ingredient that you see on the jam label is the fruit.  We only use fruit from the farmer’s market or from local farms.  We are very committed to the Westport community”  “We also do fresh baking everyday and make muffins, cookies and other treats”

Mrs. Hooper also told me a little bit about the history of Christie’s. She told me that Christie’s had been a farm a long time ago and had been a market as well.  The Hooper’s have lived in Westport all of their lives, and her husband’s family had been in the area since the 1600′s!

I also asked her the most important question,

“When will the Frosty Bear open for the season?”

She said, ” The Frosty Bear will open up in May!”

I will definitely be coming back this May for that!

The Sunday Diner Rating (out of 5)

FOOD  * * * * * (5)

SERVICE  * * * * * * (6)

LOOKS  * * * * *  (5)

BATHROOM: Did Not Go!

We’ll be back!