Nola Oyster Bar Opens in SONO

With very little fanfare, Nola Oyster Bar will open its doors this weekend in SONO in the space formerly occupied by Wasabi Chi on the corner of Main and Washington. As CTbites announced a few weeks ago the menu will primarily focus on seafood from Maine to New Orleans.

The previous open interior has been completely redesigned into three dining areas. The bar area features both a long bar with numerous stools for cocktails and dinner, while the two dining areas occupy the remaining space. The rear dining area is convertible for use as a private dining area.

Chef Dan Kardos is overseeing the kitchen and a sneak peak at his opening menu confirms the seafood focus with variety of options. Included are traditional raw bar selections of oysters and clams plus several crudos. “Small Plates” offer several varieties of cooked seafood including braised mussels, an oyster pan roast and several renditions of oysters. The entrées maintain the seafood focus with poached lobster, shrimp and grits, and other grilled and roasted seafood, but expands into a few non-seafood selections that include hanger steak, fried chicken, a combination bacon-cheeseburger. CTbites was told that the menu will expand rapidly over the first few weeks.

Stay tuned as CTbites revisits Nola Oyster Bar in a few weeks for an in depth review.

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Friday Froth: Face Heater

The holidays are over, football is over, it's still cold, and meteorologists are gesticulating like Kermit the frog introducing the next act. It's time for strong drink.

The boys at Lagunitas Brewing in California screwed up their first try at making a barleywine ("Gnarlywine," natch) in the late 90's, but they were left with an interesting recipe wherein they threw in some brown cane sugar. The resultant brew wasn't what they were going for but... it was pretty good. Pretty damn good. They called it Brown Shugga, and it became a big hit for them when it was released every winter. In the winter of 2010-11 though, they hit a snag. The brewery was expanding, and construction forced the brewers to choose: do we make the time-consuming 'Shugga and cut production on our staple beers, or do we cut 'Shugga, and risk pissing people off? They went with option two.

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Friday Froth: Here and There

Holding my eyeball in my head at an altitude of 36,000 feet was a new experience. I was excited to get out to Utah during ski and Sundance season, yes, but the best part was having finally kicked the cold that had been holding me down like the Hand of the Man since before baby new year started crowning. I was enjoying the novel luxury of breathing through my nose when the plane ascended through 20,000 feet or so and the sea level air pressure trapped in the bone behind my eyebrow went all slumlord and attempted to evict my right eye for the next five hours. I didn't know an ex-cold could turn me into Popeye, but upon landing I did know this: I needed a drink. 

Red Rock Brewery in Salt Lake City is a sort of brewpub which is in many ways along the lines of Southport Brewing Company on our shores. I had never seen one of their beers in a bottle, much less a double IPA, so I ordered one straight away.

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New Haven Meatball House

As a part of our ongoing effort to cover more of the state, we will be publishing more frequent, shorter posts on some of our favorite spots in New Haven, Hartford and beyond. If you have a place you love or would like us to cover, please email us!

New Haven Meatball House

Cuisine: Comfort Food, Late Night Dining, Craft Beer 
Price: Less than $10 (per entrée)
Our Highlights: Chicken meatballs with pesto, beef meatballs with tomato sauce, black garlic mashed potatoes, spiked milkshakes
Hours: Open Daily, Monday - Thursday at 5 pm, Friday - Sunday 11:30 am
Online: Official Website | Facebook 

Four types of meatballs, four types of sauces and three ways to eat them. Do the math and that could keep any comfort food-seeking foodie returning to explore the menu at New Haven's Meatball Shop on Chapel Street. Owner Bob Potter, the man behind New Haven's popular meat mecca, Prime 16, and the East Rock neighborhood tequilar bar, c.o. jones opened New Haven Meatball House in mid-2012.

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Friday Froth: Winter Update

"You shouldn't be scared of spiders," I remember my mother telling me. "You're much bigger than they are." At the time this line of reasoning seemed like neither a straight line, nor particularly reasonable, but I had no adequate retort at eight years old. Spiders were little, misshapen beasts from hell's own imagination then, and they remain so now. Doubly so, since now I know about things like the Brown Recluse, but that's not important. A spider I can hit with a magazine before turning on my heel and shrieking away. I am millions of times larger than a cold virus, and that hasn't stopped it from kicking my ass. So take that, 1987 Mom. All this is to say I haven't been drinking a lot of beer lately, but here are a few tidbits from the scattershot days in which I've been both awake and able to breathe over the past month.

Sixpoint in Brooklyn literally turns out (at least one) new beer every month. See their single-hopped Spice of Life series for just one example. In that vein, I finally had the Pacifica version which came out in November, and can still be found on tap here and there.

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The Great Wall of Stouts Beer Event @ The Ginger Man

Friday Froth: Winter Update

OK, first off: big news yesterday, as Westvleteren 12 hit retail in the United States for the only time ever. This is absolutely one of the world's finest beers (it scores a perfect 100 with over 1,300 reviews on BeerAdvocate), and the only way to get it, apart from this super limited release, is to travel to the St. Sixtus Abbey in Belgium. The sole reason Westvleteren 12 is available at retail (for an eye-popping $85/six pack with two glasses) is because the abbey needed a new roof. You can read all about it here, but Fairfield County residents will have to skip over the border into New York to places like DeCicco’s if they want to experience this ultra-rare elixir. A complete list of retail locations can be found here, so good hunting. 

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Dinosaur BBQ: Two Guys Eat Meat & Drink Beer in Stamford

Jim Morrison believed the ghosts of American Indians jumped into his head as a child and gave him spiritual direction for the rest of his life. I had a not totally dissimilar experience the night of Dinosaur BBQ's soft opening party after I returned home, wherein I undressed and found the ghosts of several pigs, cows and hickory trees inhabiting my shirt. The sign on the window said "Private Party" and there were people checking names at the door, but the attendance must have been close to 200. Owner John Stage seemed to have prepared for twice that number, thus accounting for the volume of aerosolized meat and wood, which, in their previous and more solid forms, were of course what brought Dinosaur to Stamford, the crowd to it. 

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Friday Froth: Ripple

Imagine yourself as the stone. Years of erosion - wind, sand, and tumbling through the water over other rocks - have erased your crags. Once an infinitesimal part within the slowly creeping monolith whole of the sea floor, you've become a matte-smooth egg, now just a few grams in mass, warm and dry in the sun. You are lifted, hefted easily by a child whose other hand is held by an adult. You arc through the air with the throw - in sunlight and shadow as you tumble - to land with a small splash on a wavelet. Ripples spread outward and above you as you flutter down to join the sea floor once again. 

You are the ripple, moving outwards. Behind you nest concentric rings, flowing towards but never catching you as your diameter grows. They wane, but you travel without drag, somehow separate from everyday space, and unslowing. Still just a small ring, but you're growing, and sweep up a canal in Stamford, Connecticut. Your diameter grows, and sweeps over a writer, contemplating a Half Full Rye IPA. 

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Little Pub Opening Second Location in Wilton

It’s true...the murmurs, rumbles and rumors are all true! We recently had the opportunity to chat with Doug Grabe, owner of Little Pub, and they are indeed opening a second location. The new location is slated to open its doors in January 2013. The feel and the cuisine will be much the same of what we all have come to know, love and expect at Little Pub. The new spot, conveniently located at 26 Danbury Road in Wilton, will offer the same fare, and thanks to a much larger kitchen, will also be offering some new items. We're hoping that the Shepherd’s pie will be back on the radar, perfect for a cold winter’s night!

We will bring you more on this exciting new opening as the date gets closer.