Horse Inn

It was a snowy night in 2009 when my Lancaster guide walked me down Chestnut Street, steered me into a vacant alley and opened the door to a flight of steps under a weathered wooden sign that read “Horse Inn.”

The second-floor restaurant looked cool, and it was. Stalls lined two walls, tack hung here and there, and every time the door opened, a blast of winter made me think I had been exiled to the barn. We ate in our coats; I don't remember the food.

It took me five years to go back. Thankfully it was summer. But other things had also changed: a new owner and chef, a second entrance off Fulton Street, a cute back bar, a table with shuffleboard, and live music two or three nights a week. 

The food was excellent—simple, hearty and delicious. “Horse Inn used to have Dipco quality food at Pressroom prices,” said one neighborhood patron. Now it defies expectations with nearly every order.

Let’s start with drinks. In the weeks around the Kentucky Derby you can order a mint julep that comes out in a metal mug with a forest of mint leaves pushing up through the ice. If you happen to show up on October 21, 2015, you'll find a Flux Capacitor waiting. And in the winter Ben will make you a rye Holtwood that will knock your socks off—without offending your tongue in the slightest.

As far as eating, where should I start? The burrata is lovely. Order extra crostini. The fries are lovely. Bring extra friends. The cheeseburger is cooked to order—hey!—and will remind you why you’re still eating beef. 

Horse Inn is the first place I understood why people eat wings. The meat is ample, steaming and tender under crisp skin. The orange sauce is just hot enough to tingle your lips, and the dipping sauce is rich with soothing blue cheese.

Banh Mi is stuffed with succulent chicken meat and topped with house kimchi that is genuinely spicy. Shrimp and Grits are not as peppery as some restaurants serve, but there is nothing wrong with the temperature of the shrimp or the consistency of the grits. The Dutchie is a whimsical remake of local pork and sauerkraut. The hanger steak eats like tenderloin.

Chef Matt Russell and co-owner Starla Russell preserved the tips and toast that the Horse Inn used to be famous for. Now this Lancaster mainstay seems to be becoming famous for...everything else. 

http://horseinnlancaster.com/menus/food/

Rachel’s Cafe & Creperie

Early this year I visited the Skinny Pancake, a sort of bohemian creperie and performance space along Lake Champlain. I hope the shows are good, because the crepes don’t hold a Bunsen burner to Rachel’s Cafe & Creperie in Lancaster. Her skinny pancakes come out of the kitchen piping hot, satisfyingly chewy with lovely crisp edges, folded into neat cones, and packed with more than a dozen different savory or sweet fillings—but I would happily eat one plain.  

Rachel’s was smart to move from well-worn twin storefronts on Queen to a lovely window-lit house on Walnut. Their redesign features bright trendy chandeliers and wall coverings, a fenced outdoor seating area and off-street parking. Even though they added many more seats the lines just seem to get longer. In summer the host uses a buzzer system to call patrons to their tables.  

Even with these fine accomplishments, I would humbly suggest an improvement in each category above: 

• Food: With crepes this good, there really should be excellent coffee. The regular tastes bland to me, and the expresso drinks are hit and miss. Storm clouds are the only designs drawn in this steamed milk. Could French press be an option?  
• Service: My regular breakfast companion often mentions how promptly some restaurants bring water and take drink orders. It is a simple sign of welcome. The service at Rachel’s is not bad, but things fall through the cracks. People who have waited to be seated should not have to wait to get their morning caffeine.

Oh also—the hash browns are silly. No one wants to pay a buck for three bits of grizzled starch the size of quarters.

http://www.rachelscreperie.com/menu/

The Pressroom

Lancaster's Pressroom restaurant is coming into its own. Again.

Outdoor seating in Steinman Park always felt nice, if a little forlorn: a brick courtyard with spotlit trees and water roaring at the far end. But now diners have a real reason to wind down the ramp to the waterfall—alcohol!  

The Park Bar, some two years in the making, opened this summer to nonstop business. Cut into a wall of one of the adjacent Steinman newspaper buildings, the industrial chic niche serves all the drinks and food of the restaurant inside.

Service is slow, but polite. Tables are self-serve, but often available. The food can be hit or miss, even for the same item (e.g. pork belly sliders). 

Yet overall, with a few strategic ventures like the Park Bar, the Pressroom has pivoted from tired, overpriced Fine Dining to a lively, comfortable restaurant with tasty variety. Sunday brunch is served, with a dangerous DIY bloody mary bar. Dinner items like the mahi tacos have flavor that's easy to eat, even if the soupy contents make them structurally challenged. Live music pops up in the park as well as the front window.

Surrounded by Steinman newspaper buildings, the Pressroom was never a press room. But it was once the nation's oldest hardware store. With regular tune-ups of the sort we've enjoyed this summer, The Pressroom will keep running on King Street for years to come.

http://pressroomrestaurant.com/

Crush Wine Bar

Carr's Restaurant has a wine cellar atmosphere with good grub. It's nice enough in the winter—an angular wooden bar cuts under the stairs that descend from street level and the colorful walls and comfort food make you forget any blizzard that might be raging above. But when summer light glows against the orange bricks of Central Market, you really should be upstairs, sitting along the sawtooth windows of Crush Wine Bar and enjoying a panorama of small-town street life.

Crush is a kaleidoscope-themed cubby-hole at the junction of Central Market, Lancaster Dispensing Company and a busy parking lot. It is part of Carr's Restaurant, and Tim Carr will prepare you the same mouthwatering burger and fries (or pork & sauerkraut with apple fritters) there that he serves downstairs. 

You will also have an intimate selection of unusual beers, including the latest offering from Lancaster's understated artisanal brewers, Fetish. Much of their product is distributed CSA-style, by invitation only, but Crush carries a handsome variety. You may even be served by one of the Fetishists, Aaron Risser, who occasionally tends bar.

Except for an after-work rush, Crush is often strangely quiet. Enjoy it—it won't last. Tim plans to expand his dining operations upstairs, taking over the former Tamanend Winery tasting room, and Crush will be mashed in the mix. 

Here's to hoping that the new blend of space keeps a bit of the lonely comfort and quirky personality of the old.

http://www.carrsrestaurant.com/winebar.cfm

 

La Borimex

The Borimex website looks a lot like the restaurant: homey, hodgepodge and authentically Latin American. 

“Borimex” is a fusion of Mexican and boricua, or Puerto Rican. You’re literally eating in a Latin grocery. Bottles of salsa, candy, party favors and bags of corn flour line the walls. Before you sit you can grab a Jarritos or other soda from the fridge in the corner. The service is prompt and polite. The food comes out hot and fast. The bistek is not the chewy kind passed off as authentic (the way Old El Paso passes for refried beans at so many “Mexican” restaurants). The beans are runny and black and served with crema. There is no food coloring in the “Spanish rice.” Even the meat-filled chilis rellenos are dripping with cheese and favor. Two house salsas—including a spicy, smoky red—are perfect for adjusting the thermostat. 

But what makes La Borimex special is where it sits. Look out the front window, and you’ll see a Lancaster County farm. Sit on the back patio and you’ll see another farm. Like a Latino UFO, La Borimex has landed in Ephrata. But it’s no alien—this county has more Latinos than Amish. We just need more real Latino restaurants.

http://laborimex.com/

Tomato Pie Cafe

I couldn’t understand how anyone could tolerate a tomato pie, or why someone would want to squelch her business prospects by naming a cafe after one. Then I tried the Tomato Pie Cafe’s tomato pie. Twice: I also ordered it for dessert. It is remarkable.  

For those as lost as I was, let me bear witness: it is a savoury pie. It is not a custard pie (like pumpkin); it has a buttery, herbed crust, a generous melting of oily cheese, big hearty chunks of mild tomato (and sometimes extras like spinach or artichoke), and I suspect some dollops of ricotta. About the only thing bad I can say about it is that, unless you get it right out of the oven, it’s served warm, not hot. And sometimes the juicy innards inevitably sog up the flaky bottom. But this is like faulting Jesus for having a foreign accent. It is a heavenly pie.  

Regal rooibos lattes at Tomato Pie Cafe

How appropriate, then, that I have spent several lovely Sundays at the Tomato Pie Cafe, sitting at a high table by the window, or at the counter, in the garden or blinking in the sunlight of the second floor balcony, gazing reverently across the street at the stone buildings beside historic Lititz Springs Park. In addition to sandwiches with beets and breakfast specials with sausage and fennel, or buttermilk quinoa pancakes with whipped sage butter and maple syrup, Tomato Pie Cafe knows how to make a latte. In fact, they will make one with rich red rooibos (ROY-bus) tea that is fragrant and silky and a fraction of the caffeine.  

Brunch is my love language. Few things dismay me more than a lauded local joint with all the trappings of a fancy restaurant (price, decor, attitude) and nondescript food. And few things make me more grateful than wholesome, interesting breakfast options, served with casual consideration in a quirky house. Tomato Pie Cafe wins my (totally unofficial and just now instated) On Orange Restaurant of the Year Award.

http://www.tomatopiecafe.net/menu.html 
 

The Tomcat Cafe

Tomcat Cafe squats indifferently on a traffic-choked elbow of Route 422 in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania. It may be the town’s only locally owned breakfast joint. Nearby competition includes Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s and Friendly’s. On Father’s Day there was a one-hour wait for a two-top. 

We walked around the cemetery across the street. Somewhere nearby was the town’s namesake, a natural spring that periodically disappeared into the ground. We didn’t bother looking. Probably during one of its retreats it was paved over and a plaque put in its place.

Tomcat does not fret about appearances. Each table comes with a plastic container of UNO cards and a pump bottle of hand sanitizer. Pop icons are venerated on the bathroom walls. 

The menu is a phone book. Every possible combination of two dozen ingredients is listed with its own name (usually a song, movie or TV title) for each of the following categories: wraps, omelets, scrambles, sandwiches, crepes, pancakes, french toast. Then there are specials, and special specials, and special-special specials, and sides.

It’s ridiculous.

More absurd are the portion sizes, which make the all-you-can-eat buffet look like a promising model for self-restraint. No retiree or office worker should attempt to eat half of what they’re served at Tomcat. It’s indecent.

Indeed, I bet the cafe could save a ton of time, money and food by (a) cutting the portions in half, (b) cutting the menu in half, (c) cutting the styrofoam to-go boxes out completely. In the process, diners might think about how good their food is rather than how much they’re trying to jam down their throats.

But the Tomcat yawns and licks itself. It doesn’t care.

http://www.tomcatcafe.com/menu.html

Waltz Vineyard Bottle Shop

Manheim's Waltz Estate Winery has a bottle shop on Main Street in Lititz, with a cute little bar built for an awkward threesome. The cheerful newlyweds behind it last December served up four tastes of their best mediocre wine in plastic cups, which we paid for.

So far, no surprises. Whether by terroir or terrible taste, Pennsylvania wineries delight in making god-awful syrupy Jell-O-pop reds and, out of custom or misplaced pride, Pennsylvanians gulp them down grinning and ask for more. (No judgment here!)

What I didn't expect was to leave with a $40 bottle of 2010 Crow Woods Cabernet. This wine, they said, is so good they didn't even put it on their tasting menu (a backwards business tactic that apparently worked for me).

Several months and one special occasion later, I'm pleased to report that Waltz has managed to make the first Pennsylvania red wine I ever enjoyed. It's almost certainly not worth $40 a bottle, but it is light and dry without an astringent finish.

Cheers!

http://www.waltzvineyards.com/estate-wines.php

Lily's on Main

Lily's on Main has the most comfortable, classy dining space in Lancaster County, even with the oddly embossed moon-and-star ceiling panels and the cheaply framed art prints. When dusk falls, the glow of candles and immense faceted ceiling lamps make one forget that the Art Deco windows were installed in 1993 and afford only a wide view of Ephrata car traffic.

No, really, it's a beautiful space, and on some days atmosphere is almost as important as food and drink.

Which unfortunately weren't stellar. The sweetness of muddled cucumber, lime and mint all but obliterated Hendrick's Gin in the Spring Martini. The Man Up Manhattan embarrassed itself with cranberry juice and Drambuie.

In the Portuguese Mussels and Clams, the mussels and sausage were delicious. The sweetbread that came with the meal was not quite right for sopping up white wine and garlic butter.

Salads were green and fresh. My caesar shared its plate with roasted tomatoes and sausage on flatbread. Shepherd's pie was served in a very hot skillet. It was tasty, but to answer the rhetorical question on the menu: no, we needn't say anything.

My date's "New Orleans style" meatloaf had never been to the bayou.

The most striking thing about the evening was the pace of service. Although the room was half-full with no one else waiting, it took the hostess nearly 15 minutes to seat us.

While hanging out by the coat closet, we watched one woman leave swearing to never return, then overheard an argument between a server and our hostess over table assignments. We wondered if we were being punished for not making a reservation.

Speed picked up as the evening progressed. Dishes were cleared as we finished them; water and coffee got refilled unobtrusively. We felt taken care of and not rushed. "It's like service from a bygone era," we joked. "1993."

http://www.lilysonmain.com/

Of Boys and Burgers (Belvedere and Jethro's)

Monday nights are burger nights for at least two Lancaster restaurants: The Belvedere Inn on Queen and Lemon, and Jethro's Restaurant & Bar on Ruby and First. I know this because a bunch of friends convene at one of the two sites nearly every Monday night.

Meeting the group for drinks is a lesson in rules and exceptions. They are mostly bikers—both motorcycle and bicycle. They are coupled to smart, beautiful women—but Mondays are "men's fellowship," and they're drawn to the Belvedere like dogs to ice cream. Conversation can be eclipsed by mechanical problems and dirty jokes, or it can explode in opinion about film, food and fashion.

One integrating theme is craft. These guys appreciate well-designed, well-made stuff. Which is why, in a town full of "best" burgers, I venture to say that The Belvedere and Jethro's are doing something right.

• The Belvedere Inn
  The Belvedere has a sparkly, dark interior with bars and table seating on two levels, including an outdoor deck. Jamie Hornberger is often behind the downstairs bar on Monday nights, and keeps the spot popular with quick service and generous pours.
  
  Belvedere burgers are unusual. They are miniature "Kobe" sliders on steamed bao buns with spicy chili oil as a dipping sauce. Those of you who have read Larry Olmstead's exposés on Kobe beef will know that what the Belvedere serves is almost certainly not real Kobe, and if it were, the chef would not be grinding it into hamburger.
  
  It doesn't matter—that sh*t is delicious! Plus, on Monday nights you get each mini burger for a buck—a third of their regular price. It's gotten so bad that Jamie doesn't bother asking what we want; we just give him a number.

• Jethro's Restaurant & Bar
  Jethro's is a comfortable neighborhood hangout with food a cut above. On Mondays co-owner Bob Esbenshade is behind the bar. Their drink specials—the Manhattan, the Hot and Dirty Martini and the unlisted margarita with mezcal—are special indeed.
  
  The Jethro's burger is not so much of a patty as it is a round. It arrives sizzling hot with a side of mixed veggies, oozing natural juices and flavor.
  
  The only mistake you can make is trying to eat it like a burger. The two dry slices of French bread that flank it are for decoration only. My one attempt at getting teeth around a Jethro's sandwich sent a fountain of hot grease and myoglobin flying across the table, nearly drowning my buddy's new iPhone.

Neither restaurant asks you what temperature you want your meat. This is a relief, since most burger joints will overcook your order anyhow.  

For Jethro's and the Belvedere, I take it as a sign of cockiness befitting a guys' night out. Like Steve Jobs said, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them."

http://www.belvederelancaster.com/menu.html
http://www.jethrosrestaurantandbar.com/menu.pdf

  

SukhoThai

One autumn just after Yom Kippur, I swear I heard someone at Prince Street asking how to get to Sukkot High.

SukhoThai is a Thai restaurant. To my knowledge, they are not kosher and have no tables al fresco. They do, however, make a mean mango smoothie, and the coconut soup comes with lots of nice fresh mushrooms and green peppers.

You can BYO Manischewitz.

I am not Jewish, so I like ordering the spicy pork sausages which come with an excellent sweet-hot dipping sauce.

My other improvised order is sticky rice with a little bowl of green curry. Just like you would do with ugali, mielie-meal and the like, pull a bit of the rice out of the basket with your (right) hand, mush it into a ball and dip it in the sauce. Always satisfying.

http://www.sukhothai-restaurant.com/menu.php

Ma(i)son

Here are some things you should know about Ma(i)son:

• When you come in the door you won't necessarily be greeted right away. 
• The "chef's table in the back" that is "a little more private" is actually the high bar at the end of the dining room that faces the kitchen.
• The menu is on a chalkboard that may not be legible from where you are seated.
• It is BYOB.

Here is the most important thing to know about Ma(i)son: the food is lovely. 

Chef owners Taylor and Leeann Mason delight in letting each ingredient be itself, delivering tight harmonies of seasonal vegetables and herbs featuring rabbit, cornish hen, beef, boar, pasta or seafood.

Ma(i)son burrata, January 2014

The menu uses words like burrata (squeaky white cheese), chevre (goat's milk cheese), sugo (Italian pasta sauce), escarole (a kind of endive) and haricot vert (thin green beans). In a lesser restaurant it would be pretentious. Here it's simply accurate.

For $14, the handmade burrata with cherry tomatoes, basil and smoked prosciutto (or with speck and roasted shallot and fig jam last winter) is as delightful to look at as it is to devour. 

While fast food chains busily pepper their websites with "artisanal" buzzwords (smashed potatoes, anyone?) Leeann and Taylor go shopping—and bring the best tastes home for us.

http://www.maisonlancaster.com/menu/ 

 

Bulls Head Public House

Lititz is a charming town, with boutique shops in old buildings that no one bothered to “improve” in the 1960s. On a winter night with snow falling and Christmas lights glittering in windows, you might be delirious to find a bustling British pub on Main Street, complete with red tin ceilings, two fireplaces and 14 strange and delicious brews on tap.

You might, in fact, go back to Lititz the following morning just to make sure, and find yourself sitting at a dark wood bar with a hot breakfast of perfectly crisped sausage, English bacon, sweet baked beans, squeaky mushrooms, a grilled tomato and two runny over-easy eggs. Plus toast. And a bottomless cup of coffee.

Suspend cynicism for one more hour. This is not the product of some national chain's market research. Owner Paul Pendyck grew up in Liverpool and most of his decor came from England, too. In fact, Lancaster Online reports that not even the name was calculated: Pendyck simply found an old wooden sign from a British pub with big letters in gold: “Bulls Head Public House.”

Let it be.

http://generalsutterinn.com/bullsheadph/