The Amazing Rochestarian Chicken French

Although I'm in Chicago now, I occasionally get a tad homesick for the beautiful land of Upstate New York.  I grew up in a suburb of Rochester, near the Finger Lakes.  Most of my friends here, if they know it at all, know it for the casinos. Which I did not realize was that much of a thing.  But it is a stunning countryside with lots of lakes and trees and farms and our little city in the middle.

Food-wise, we're close enough to have fantastic Buffalo wings- or as we call them wings. Which should only be served with bleu cheese, for the record.  When restaurants ask if I want ranch it just makes me sad I even tried to order them in the first place.  

We also have the Garbage Plate- a late night/hangover staple that is as bad for you as it is delicious.  Home-fries and mac salad, with two meats of your choice (I go with cheeseburgers), all smothered in meat sauce.  So good.  

But the focus of tonight's post before I get myself even more distracted is the Rochester classic Chicken French.  From some rigorous research on google I can tell you that everyone had a different story.  The best was that some italians invented it at a world's fair in New York City in 1939 to attract customers to buy it as french cuisine was all the rage.  However it came to be, somehow this stuck in Rochester but no where else.  It's a standard at Italian restaurants throughout Upstate.  I didn't realize it was actually a Rochester thing until I had a hell of a time hunting down a recipe online.  I've taken a few into my cookbook as reference, but it always ends up with me winging it in the end.

Regardless of how it came into being, Chicken French is delicious.  It's a light egg-battered chicken in a white wine, lemon, garlic, and butter sauce that's usually served over spaghetti (but also makes quite the scrumptious sandwich).  

Adios Upstate!

For my last night in Rochester, New York we celebrated by going to one of my favorite new-ish restaurants- TRATA (a.k.a. The Restaurant at the Armory).  The Culver Road Armory was built in 1916 for the local Army National Guard, but fell out of use after WWII.  In 2012 it was totally redone to include office spaces, galleries, and this delicious restaurant.  In the renovation they kept a lot of the old brick walls and steel beams and rehabbed it with more modern touched, including a lot of hand-blown glass lamps.  

We started with a tuna bruschetta, steamed buns with slow-roasted pork belly, and tempura green beans. We ordered double of those delicious little steamed buns because there is no way to describe how heavenly they are. I'm in love.

In fact, I got so excited about those little pork belly rolls I totally forgot to take pictures for the rest of the evening.

But, needless to say, everything else was equally as good.  My mom got duck quesadillas with gruyere and creme fraiche (you can't go wrong with cheesy gooey-ness),  C.J. got the Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp which he really enjoyed despite none of us being curry people, and Dad and I split the Short Ribs.  They're braised in oatmeal stout and served over a cheddar potato cake. I replaced the broccolini that came with it with a side of mac and cheese because, if you haven't understood this yet, I'm in love with everything cheese.  The mac and cheese was crispy on top and gooey inside and had some pancetta in there for good measure.  Well worth the swap!

The next morning my mom and I went for a walk in the canal before my flight went out since the weather was still perfect (75 and sunny).  This time we parked in Bushnell's Basin so we could jump on the highway quick.  

This must be just about the perfect place to relax on a day like this.

Home Sweet Home in Upstate New York

After a week in Ohio it was time to hop a plane and head back my homeland of upstate New York!

Because I was flying from small city to small city I ended up on one of those itty bitty propeller planes.

And before I knew it I was home.  My mom being the wonderful woman with a similar love for food we stopped at Wegman's on our way home.  If you don't know it, Wegman's is seriously The Best grocery store.  It was started in Rochester, and I've been going there forever.  It's so great Cher demanded to go there when she came here to perform.  It's that good.  We got all stocked up for a delicious grilled dinner to take full advantage of the warm and sunny weather- steak, girl scout potatoes, corn on the cob, and salad.  Every item was cooked on the grill and totally scrumptious.  Next time we'll have pictures, I promise!

After dinner we settled in with a glass of homemade Limoncello made by my very own Dad.  My parents went on their honeymoon to Capri, an island off of Italy.  To celebrate their 20th anniversary we all went on a mediterranean cruise that was the trip of a lifetime.  While there we fell in love with limoncello- a lemon liquor.  This year he decided to try his own hand at it, and from what I hear it's pretty simple.  And I can vouch that it is very very good.

 my petite glass