Left at the Fork

the road | the food | a new direction

Category: Utica

The grand gallimaufry named giambotta (say jim-BOT) is built from eggs, sausage, potato, greens, onions, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and mozzarella. It's the signature breakfast of Utica.

Craylee’s, Utica NY

November 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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Signs of life in downtown Utica! Craylee’s, just down the street from the old Hotel Utica (now a Doubletree) has been open for three years, serving breakfast and lunch till 2PM everyday except Monday. Breakfast at Craylee’s is a Utica highlight, especially on Sundays when the off-the-menu fried dough is offered. We tried to nab a serving but, damn, they’d just run out. Almost every other table had a basket of these sugared, roughly hewn doughnut cognates; we were tempted to beg sweetly from a neighbor but thought better of it.

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Clockwise from left: pumpkin pusty, vanilla pusty, and sfogliatelle.

Checking in at: Florentine Pastry Shop, Utica NY

November 12, 2019 / / 0 Comments

We can’t visit Utica without stopping in at the Florentine in the old Italian neighborhood for our pusty fix! For the uninitiated, pusties are what Uticans call pasticciotti, which are small filled tarts. They’re a Utica passion. The fillings are usually some kind of pastry cream or ricotta cheesecake. The crust is gently sweet and the cream fillings are exquisite, especially when fresh.

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Orecchiette (little ears) with broccoli can be found wherever Italian food is made, but they're a particular favorite in the city of Utica, where the pasta is known as hats. At Top of the Morning, the hats are homemade.

Top of the Morning Cafe, Utica NY

November 11, 2019 / / 2 Comments

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Apparently, the New Jersey/metropolitan NY diner tradition of a late-night sandwich or burger with a plate of onion rings doesn’t exist in Utica. Oh, there are diners, alright, plenty of them, in fact, but try finding one that’s open past 7PM. Seems most of them close after lunch, while a few push it to early evening. We searched hard for a diner open past 8PM on a Friday and were led to Top of the Morning Cafe.

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From left: The Old Main (Helles lager), Stump Jumper (farmhouse ale), Jack (IPA), and Busier Than Hell (a hoppy porter)

Checking in at: Woodland Farm Brewery, Utica NY

November 10, 2019 / / 2 Comments

Utica, NY is not a hotbed of microbrewery and brewpub activity, no doubt due to the long-time (since 1888) presence of  Saranac Brewery, formerly known as the F.X. Matt Brewery, originally known as the West End Brewing Company, perhaps most commonly known as the Utica Club brewery. The only other brewer in town is Woodland Farm Brewery, open since 2015. The joint was jumpin’ on a Friday evening, both inside and out on the patio.

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Whether you call them pierogi or varenyky, these dough pockets stuffed with potato are as soulfully satisfying as any we've ever had.

St. Volodymyr the Great Ukrainian Catholic Church, Utica NY

July 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

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Here’s one important lesson to keep in mind when searching for superior local food: keep your eyes, ears, and, especially, nose on the lookout for anything edible that catches your senses’ attention. Don’t depend exclusively on scouring the internet, following the Yelp and Tripadvisor lists for all your meals. At least, not if you want to find the really interesting stuff. Continue reading

The brawny, crusty loaves of Utica Bread can be found at the Saturday market.

Oneida County Public Market, Utica NY

July 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

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The USDA has classified a portion of downtown Utica as a food desert, which means the residents have low access to fresh food. The Oneida County Public Market was established, in part, to help address that situation. Located outside the historic 1914 Union Station (and inside the station during the cold months), OCPM is a year-round, Saturday morning operation. Continue reading

Vanilla pusty

Florentine Pastry Shop, Utica NY

May 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments

REVIEW

Pusties, riggies, and hats: if those words mean nothing to you, you’re not a Utica native, in which case you should make a point of visiting Upstate NY to sample some classic regional Italian-American food. Riggies refer to the Utica fave chicken riggies, aka rigatoni. Hats are the pasta known elsewhere as orecchiette, often served baked in tomato sauce. Pusties are the subject at hand. Continue reading

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