May, 9 2016
The sun was finally peaking out for our Mystery Monday tour and we headed north, it was my turn to choose! Our destination for this adventure was Hart’s Location, located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hart’s Location is best known for being the smallest town in New Hampshire and the first town in the country to vote on national elections. It is only a mile and a half wide by eleven miles long with only 43 residents, last we heard. We sneezed and almost missed it 🙂
The drive was awesome, straight up I-93, simple. I chose this location because one family quest we have is to see a moose and we will not be denied. Hart’s Location is smack dab in the middle of moose country and our chances were good seeing as how springtime has them quite active. I figured it would be a nice day for sightseeing and maybe if we got to throw a casual hike in there somewhere we’d be good and hungry for some hearty cuisine that would satisfy Paul Bunyan.
Well, our trip up was scenic, our casual hike was exciting, and our hearty meal was, well… like the moose around here, not to be found. Our plan was to try the Cabin Fever restaurant in Bartlett and as it turns out, they were close. As we discovered, most restaurants in that part of the state don’t open until Memorial Day… who knew?!
We sucked it up, sipped on some water and nibbled some old bottom of the pocketbook Laffy Taffy and came up with an alternate plan. Instead of eating bark and bugs in the woods, we decided to backtrack and find a cozy place on the way back. We found what we were looking for and it turned out to be the Woodstock Inn, Station & Brewery (http://www.woodstockinnnh.com) in Woodstock, NH.
The Woodstock Station turned out to be a real cozy, lodge like restaurant serving up a complete menu of comfort foods. Being a local brewery (what can go wrong here) we figured we’d fill our bellies and wet our whistles like a couple of lumberjacks and mosey on back home when we were done.
We dove into a couple of beers while we decided on what we were going to eat and we settled on the Weasel Wheat and the Maple Porter. They were very accommodating in sampling which was perfect since we had to be sure we could trust someone who would put maple syrup in a beer!
As usual, we had a couple of appetizers and we had their award winning chili, in a crock, and a chicken enchilada soup and both were very good. The chicken enchilada soup was spicy enough, had plenty of black bean, and of course plenty of chicken. The chili was worthy of the award they have, it was very thick and meaty and sat under a heavy cover of cheese. The only critique we had was that the chicken enchilada soup could have come with cheese on top and the chili could have had a bit more liquid. All in all, a good couple of starters we would have again.
For our dinner we decided on two dishes that are quite different from each other but fit nicely with our palettes. I had the salmon dinner and Ralph had the chicken walnut salad melt. Along with the appetizers, both servings were plentiful. The salmon was done perfectly and a baked potato was the perfect compliment. Very tasty and filling. The chicken salad was delicious, some of the best Ralph has had but he would have rather had it on a closed sandwich with thinner bread and with American cheese instead of the Swiss it came with. It was a little hard to handle and that made the bread somewhat useless.
Overall, the Woodstock Station was a great choice for us considering it was our plan B and a little unexpected. I imagine the coziness of all the wood and the comfort food are just what the doctor ordered during ski season, but it really hit the spot for us as well.
bostonandcameron.com 
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