Millstone Tea Room. Local. Comfort. Food.

A spring evening at Millstone

millstonelocal — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:01:44 +0000

Peonies

Gnocchi primavera with a farm egg

Braising halibut

Soft blue crabs

Kitchen mise en place

An end of service

Cheese is back!

millstonelocal — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:57:39 +0000

Meadow Creek “Appalachian” cheese is back. With foraged spring greens, Asian pear and hot buttered almonds

millstonelocal — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:40:59 +0000

I’ve had a few questions and comments about this being our website. Yes, this is our new site. If you click on the “About” link on the page, it will direct you to our hours, phone number and directions to the restaurant. I’ve also included a PDF of our most current supper menu which we serve Wednesday through Saturday beginning at 5.30pm. Here it is in this post as well: SUPPER 2013. More pictures, updates and writing will be found here. Plus, it links to our Facebook and Twitter accounts much easier.

Look forward to seeing everyone very soon!

Three nights.

millstonelocal — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 03:41:36 +0000

Valentine’s weekend. We hosted 210 guests for dinner. Three cooks. Three servers. Three dish bussers. Readying for brunch tomorrow. Come see us!

Valentine’s weekend menu

millstonelocal — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:49:09 +0000

We’ll also run our regular menu through Saturday with this special dinner for two.

Another great Valentine’s night at Millstone

millstonelocal — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 03:32:24 +0000

Hello!

millstonelocal — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 19:09:57 +0000

Still here!

So last year, we were a bit lax in keeping this weblog updated and current. Sorry for that. Now we would just like to let everyone who subscribes to this page know that we will at least provide some fresh content monthly with photos and menu items.

We are currently preparing for Valentine’s dinner which falls on a Thursday this year. Only a few spots left. We will run a special couples menu in addition to our regular menu. Don’t wait until the last minute.

Stay tuned for future updates and announcements about the Millstone family this year. It will be exciting!

Chicken of the Woods as food

millstonelocal — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 15:04:15 +0000

Chicken of the Woods, a hardwood fall mushroom/fungus that is foraged. This batch was given by my friends at Soulstice Farm in Bedford. Served over cheddar scallion grits after being gently sautéed in garlic butter.

Chicken of the Woods

millstonelocal — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:03:03 +0000

These little beauties will become a very special dish this weekend. A wild mushroom that “tastes like chicken.”

Braised ham hocks

millstonelocal — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 03:00:10 +0000

Menus entice with words to sell, to comfort or encourage guests to order certain menu items. We always want to be conscientious and honest in our descriptions of our food. When it is local and just picked and isn’t sprayed and ladened with pesticides, we’ll tell you. Sometimes we have such a bounty of great stuff on the menu we just assume, you’ll assume it is just that local and super fresh. When we say everything is made from scratch, in house daily, we mean it. Many restaurants terribly overuse these words and euphemisms in order to make themselves something they’ll never be. Millstone prides itself and its reputation on using real, fresh local ingredients and cooking them in an approachable and comforting way for our guests since 2001.

But, sometimes we just want to sell pig’s feet. Yep. Simply braised trotters are rustic country food in nearly every pork eating culture, including America. But they are a nearly impossible “sell” in the restaurant world. Sure, foodie crusaders eat them in the big cities to do their part of being green; eating all of the animal; wasting nothing. There is even a restaurant in Montreal named after the humble pig part. But a pair of pattes longues, that is, the front pair of trotters with the full shanks yield an array of flavors, textures and menu items. Slowly roasted with tomato paste and simmered in water with aromatic vegetables, they make a mouthwatering stock. Pick the meat from the trotter and make a terrine with game birds. Skin the shank or hock, and wrap the meat in caul fat and braised for an hour to make crepinette of patte longue, which is what we serve on our Oktoberfest pork plate. Oh, and we save the shank skin to season a number of dishes, including our collard greens.

We are completely honest in the fact that we love pig’s feet. The inherent utility of the pig as a food gives us so many different tastes and textures that many other animal foods cannot match. We call them many different names because the idea of eating the meat off of a foot is not very enticing. It is similar to using the word “emulsion” on a menu; not a food friendly word. But pied de cochon is a beautiful sounding food. Patte longue sound pretty too. Perhaps now, you can take comfort in knowing the backstory of the humble pig foot, embrace its value in the economical kitchen and give it try one evening. We did, and we love it.