As many of you may know, I am moving to Connecticut. The reason being that my mother has accepted the position as the General Council at the Barnes Group. My family and I will be moving around the 4th of June. In honor of that fact, today I have decided to write a post about Connecticut, especially the Farmington Valley area. On top of being less than two hours from New York and Boston, and three hours from Maine. It is also beautiful and surprisingly entertaining to be there. I hope you enjoy my opinion of my new home!
Connecticut, given it is in the middle of everything mentioned above has an appreciation for food, is beautiful, and is just a fun place to be. In the Hartford area a great thing to do for a couple hours is to go to the Mark Twain House. In case you don’t remember who Mark Twain is off the top of your head, he wrote my favorite Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Life on the Mississippi among others. Tours guides are very knowledgeable and give great tours of the house. The Twain family occupied the house from 1874-1891. Another attraction is Bushnell Park where you can take a scenic walk or jog through the park. If you have kids there is a carousal from 1914 that is operational most of the time in the warmer months. These two attractions are both in Hartford so you should expect a few minutes of driving from the hotel I will be recommending.
The hotel I am recommending is The Simsbury Inn.It is a classic New England Inn with beautiful antiques. This is just north of the area I will be moving to. If you are looking for a fun place to spend a day, West Hartford Center, and Blue Back Square are good places. There is great food, a movie theater, coffee, and places to just walk around. As for restaurants, there are a lot more than other attractions. The Max’s restaurants are amazing and offer great food, service, and a large variety of food. From the Max’s Oyster Bar to the 100% american cuisine of Max Burger. Whatever you want these places have it. Southern Italian, yep, raw oysters, yep, burgers, yep. You probably get my point by now. The oyster bar can get expensive if you don’t pace yourself though. Outside of the Max’s restaurants I still have plenty of suggestions. If you are in the mood for great Northern Italian food, I suggest Bricco. It can be challenging to get a table with them as they don’t reserve under ten people, but the food is worth the thirty minute to an hour wait. I hope it will be the next restaurant I get cook in. The spinach mushroom lasagna and tiramisu are amazing. Everything there is real Italian food. It is like the north end of Boston, or LA. Salami isn’t thick and dry, artichoke hearts are tart and flavorful, and olives taste real. For pizza I recommend Harry’s Pizza. The pizzas are large and a bit pricy, but it is well worth it. I think most people would agree on that.
So thats sums up todays post. I hope you check back next week for some great recipes!
Sam
Great blog, glad to get the insights about Hartford. We are looking to have the Orazems nearby, and to future blogs!