Walpole Village Tavern - Walpole, NH

Walpole, New Hampshire was an old, small typical New England town.  There was an old, perfectly kept white church, a small town green and and a town center with a stone horse trough that I'm sure is genuine and got plenty of use in its day.  It was a Kodachrome-colorful fall day with the leaves in typical New England bloom.

The Walpole Village Tavern looks like a very old building but it is modern inside. You walk into the bar area and go either right or left into the dining areas.

The service was pretty good.  I just saw one waitress who was also acting as the bar tender or vice versa, depending on your perspective.

I got the salmon biggie, just because I had no idea what a biggie was.  A biggie is just anything on a kaiser roll according to my waitress.  The salmon was in patty form.  This must be a New England thing because this was the second time that I ordered a salmon sandwich and a salmon patty sandwich showed up.  No complaints though because the sandwich was pretty good. The salmon was light, not too fishy or salty.  The bread was less kaiser roll and more english muffin.  A kaiser roll should have crunchy crust and a light bread inside.  This had a soft crust and a harder bread in the middle.  It was okay but, different than advertised.

I'd give the Walpole Village Tavern an 8.5 on the triple-D scale.  This was a non-Triple D restaruant.  A big shout out to yelp which is where I found out about this restaurant.  There were a bunch of mostly positive reviews there that I found really useful.

Walpole Village Tavern
10 Westminster St
Walpole, NH 03608
(603) 756-3703
http://www.yelp.com/biz/walpole-village-tavern-walpole

Portillos - Schaumburg, IL

Maybe it was the cake shake that sent me into a diabetic convulsion that caused me to fall in love with this place.  Maybe cake shake is "love potion No. 9."

Portillos was not shown on the food network by Guy but, he would have been comfortable here.  Guy needs to start paying me finder's fees for all of the non-DDD goodies that I'm coming up with all over the country.

Actually, I was introduced to portillos by a local coworker from Chicago.   I liked it here so much that I ended up going back three times in the same week.  Thank goodness that I am done working in Chicago for a while.  Otherwise, I would have to find a magician cardiologist to keep me alive.  This is not health food; nothing here is.  What it is, is good Chicago style comfort food.

Portillos is a local chain.  I went to the one in Shaumburg, Illinois.  It is popular with the locals.  They even have the local police managing traffic outside every weekday.

My first time in Portillo's was a guided dining experience. I was advised to get the "Chicago-Style Hotdog."  When in Rome, do like the Romans do.  I thought that it was a little odd that they would call it Chicago-style when I was in Chicago.  But, no matter.  Chicago-style meant that they served it on a poppy seed hotdog bun with peppers, onion and slices of whole tomatoes.  The french fries were very good; not greasy or too salty but, I don't think that they got the memo about switching over to vegetable oil from animal based oil.

The serving style was old-time fast food, wrapped in waxy paper and drinks out of a styrofoam cup.  So, it is neither healthy nor environmentally friendly. 

If the design criteria was comfort food then it hit the mark right on the spot.  We all had to hit the Starbucks on the way back to work in order to keep our eyes open afterwards.

The service was cafeteria style but, the people still managed to give friendly, fast-paced service.  The restaurant was shooting for a 50's diner / aviation theme which was right up my alley.  I was here before Christmas and they had a Santa in a  model airplane pulling a "Eat at Portillos" banner behind him on the ceiling.

I tried to eat a little bit healthier when I went back.  I had the hallibut sandwich and the salmon sandwich.  Both were as good as the hotdog.  There was copious amounts of some kind of creamy sauce that was probably worse than just eating the hot dog with the vegetables.  Still solid comfort food.

I would rate Portillos a 9.0 on my triple-D scale. 

Portillo's Hot Dogs
611 E Golf Rd, Schaumburg, IL
(847) 884-9020
portillos.com 
  

La Derniere Goutte - Paris France

In my ever-expanding scope of Bill's Triple-D Restaurant Review with things that are neither Triple-D nor Restaurants, I'd like to review the best wine shop that I have ever been to, La Derniere Goutte not surprisingly in Paris, France.

I have not been there in quite a while (10 years) but, it still remains my benchmark for wine and liquor shops.

The things that made this wine shop stand out were first, it is in Paris where it seems like everything has some magic pixie dust sprinkled on it.  It is hard to explain.  You just have to experience it.

We got some outstanding personal attention which lead us to buy a case of assorted wine.  The best decision that we made was to allow the owner to pick out an assortment for us.  We set a budget for the whole case then just stood back.  I think that the average price per bottle worked out to about $15.  The quality was outstanding.

We were living in Stuttgart at the time and were able to find some of the same brands at our local wine shop.  We moved back to Texas shortly thereafter and were only able to find one brand for a short while, Morgon.

My wife had found this place a few months prior.  She and some of her friends did a girls' weekend in Paris.  One of the friends actually owned an apartment there and knew her way around pretty well and brought her there.

I was disappointed that I had forgotten the name of this place until I ran across their business card in my desk.  I was really glad that this survived moving and house cleanings in the meantime.

The shop is still there and there is information on the internet.  Dr. Vino wrote a good blog posting on La Derniere.  It is a good read.  I hadn't known any of this before.


La Dernière Goutte
6 rue Bourbon le Château
75006 Paris - France
http://www.ladernieregoutte.net
tel : 01 43 29 11 62