Here’s me trying my hardest to make a post on time. As for December? Hmm, fingers crossed.

November was a very exciting food month. Since I had so many vacation days saved up at work and nowhere to travel to, I ended up taking an entire week off to celebrate my birthday. Yep, I’m that girl that who believes in celebrating for more than just the day. I ate my heart out and was able to celebrate it with some of my favorite people. Birthday celebrations should last the entire month, if you ask me. Maybe 2 during a pandemic.

1. Fatt Root – Pleasantville, NY
This place is among my top 5 in Westchester County, NY. I go when I can, but it is pretty annoying to get to from CT. The drive is around 40 minutes from New Canaan. Believe it or not, you can take all the back roads and end up here! I’ll usually go when I’m dogsitting in Armonk. Even then, the drive is still annoying, but also takes half the time. This was the first stop to kick off the birthday week. I will say, the scenic drive was pretty nice at the beginning of November.

Fatt Root brings Asian comfort food without the bloat and the inevitable cat nap. From buns to salads to noodles to ramen, this place has you covered. They have fairly clean ingredients too. You’ll see that their menu has many markers – gluten free, dairy free, nut free, vegetarian, and vegan. Any first timers should definitely order the chicken bun, Korean steak + eggs, or their spicy miso ramen.

2. Sift – Mystic, CT
Here’s another spot I love so much that I went twice in one month (lol it was a week)! As you know, Mystic is quite the hike from lower Fairfield County. But it’s all worth it. I have yet to find a treat that I don’t like from here. The first time I went, I got the carrot cake roulade and the second, a white chocolate pumpkin cheesecake.  

3. Arethusa al Tavolo – Bantam, CT
I have been dreaming of coming here for a meal for years now. First off, let me preface that Bantam is not only far from me, but also in the middle of nowhere. Why the heck would I ever find myself here on any other given day? I mean, yea there’s Arethusa ice cream, but New Haven is a lot closer… Remember that week I took off from work? Yup, this was the perfect time to go.

The meal starts off with fresh bread and a dallop of their whipped butter. After you get a few carbs in. your system and lick the butter bowl clean, they bring out an amuse-bouche for you to enjoy. We were brought out bitty cones filled with figs, apple, and whipped blue cheese and mozzarella. Sounds weird, but tastes great. Next came the apps – smoked pork belly dumplings and blue cheese and bacon flatbread. For my main entree, I chose the roasted duck breast with honey. In the 5th picture below, you will clearly see that I did not enjoy my meal. At all. They brought out ice cream as my dessert since I put that it was a birthday celebration on my reservation. When they bring out the check, they also bring out house-made Oreo-like cookies. This night’s creation was a dark chocolate with passionfruit filling. Between the staff and the food, the experience was one of a kind. I also loved that they give extra treats to guests with each sitting.

(Perhaps I should mention now that we pre-gamed dinner with ice cream from next door as well. Don’t judge.)

4. Mothership Bakery – Danbury, CT
Danbury doesn’t get enough street cred. In fact, I feel like no one really makes an effort to come to this part of CT. They have some pretty cool spots here and there’s actually things to do (aka shop at the mall…if that’s still a thing). I stopped by Mothership Bakery after getting some Peruvian food at Empire of the Incas. I needed to walk off my food baby, but I laugh now because I ended up ordering something to eat. Since it was already past noon, I didn’t opt for coffee. Instead, I ordered a chaider – which is chai + apple cider. I’ve been on a huge cider kick lately and this hit the spot. In the display, I eyed a lemon poppy seed bundt cake and HAD to order it. The decor inside is really homey and cute. I’d love to come back here some time for some coffee!

5. Blue Cactus Grill – Norwalk, CT
Yup, this one is back on the list this month. I am lucky that the restaurant is close, yet far enough where I won’t go every day. They had two specials on their menu that I couldn’t resist ordering. One was their buffalo style waffle fries. ‘Cuz buffalo sauce. And ‘cuz waffle fries. Easily a match made in heaven. Second was their life-changing chicken wrap. It was chicken tenders, cozied up in some sin city sauce (not really sure what that is, but we’ll go with it), lettuce, tomato, cheese, green onion, AND ranch. I want to start a petition to keep it on the menu.