The Pufferbelly

After a long day's driving, Liz and I pulled into our Bed and Breakfast in Erie, PA.  Erie is almost exactly halfway between Somerville and Madison.  Being that neither of us had really had a proper meal all day, our first order of business was to get nourishment via a local restaurant offering hearty fare in a reasonable proximity to our location.  Liz, being a master planner, had already done the research and we were 99 percent sure of our choice before even hitting the road this morning at 3 AM.  We were going to The Pufferbelly.

The Pufferbelly Restaurant is situated on French Street between E. 4th and E. 5th streets, just out of the city center.  The building housing the restaurant was once the city firehouse, and the decor followed that theme, with pictures of fire chiefs old and new framed on the walls, bronzed helmets in pretty little rows, and even the nozzle of an old fire hose used as the door handle on the great wooden entrance door.  There was also one of those big cloth targets on the wall for people to fall into after jumping from a burning building and old water tanks in the hallways near the water closets.

We walked in and were seated promptly at a booth in the expansive seating area.  For the size of the place, I bet they could turn a hefty profit on a busy night, but I guess that would help offset the relative quietness of the place during the week.  Even the soft jazz in the background seemed loud in that it was not competing with hungry chatter.  The only company we had in the joint was a handful of card carrying AARP members.

Our waitress was courteous and prompt, dealing quickly with her responsibilities and allowing us to enjoy the restaurant.  We started off with cold beverages, Liz choosing lemonade and water, and myself a beer, but what to drink?  I asked for the tap selection, but choosing between Michelob and Yeung Ling is not my idea of tap selection, so I perused the bottles.  There were 42 different beers, and I went with Grolsch, a nice light import for a hot day.

The lemonade, although it appeared to be homemade due to the tell tale lemon seed floating upon the surface, tasted suspect, like a fabricated fountain drink with a tinge of unfiltered city water.  The beer story was different.  Evidentially, the only beer that the restaurant was out of was Grolsch, and so the waitress asked for another choice, and I went with Flying Dog Pale Ale, an IPA that my pal Steve-o turned me on to.  It holds up to a spicier food, and with the entree I was planning on ordering, I might need it.  This beer was served to me with a frosty glass, huge kudos to the bartender.

I ordered the Horseradish Crusted Salmon with a Caesar salad, and Liz ordered the Southwestern Rubbed Delmonico with a house salad.  While we waited, a basket of bread was dropped off at the table, warm and crispy with butter.  Then came the salads.  Liz's salad was a basic chop salad with lettuce, one cherry tomato, sprouts, one olive, one cauliflower, and shredded cheese.  The cheese and lettuce were hand chopped and shredded, which saved the otherwise meager salad.  My Caesar had romaine lettuce, a couple olives, croutons, parmesan cheese sprinkles, crumbled bacon and Caesar dressing, which tasted homemade, but I could not verify that.  The salmon was excellent, crusted with bread crumbs and set on a pool of horseradish sauce, with a lemon wedge, parsley, and puffy sides of whipped sweet potato.  The sweet potato was spiced and sweet like sweet potato pie filling, while the salmon and horseradish combination provided spice, tartness, and a bit of salt.  All together very tasty and a definite must order.  Liz's steak was ordered medium well and arrived much closer to a medium, but there were no complaints.  It provided a complex spice and juicy, buttery steak flavors, and was paired with a weak garlic mash and some steamed summertime veggies.  My one issue with this dish is that the cut of meat had too many chunks of inedible fat.  Had it been trimmed better, it would have been fantastic, but ended up just ok.

All-in-all, this restaurant was called upon to quell a deep hunger, the hunger of a traveling connoisseur and his wife.  It met the task, and in some ways exceeded expectations, and I would recommend this restaurant to anyone traveling through the Erie region.  It was a pleasurable experience.