New World Tortilla – Relocating to Pine Street (Essex and Burlington)

New World Tortilla - Moving Sign

The above sign is posted in NWT’s Burlington Vermont Location. As seen in the Seven Days article , NWT is moving here on Pine Street. Which is WAY down the road, near the Cumberland Farms. So the new location will be basically out of walking reach for down town Burlington. In addition to the move they’re closing their Burlington and Essex Vermont locations, leaving their UVM location open.

In fact their UVM location may have helped provide the motivation and capital to open the new location:

New World Tortilla made themselves known to students by selling over 62000 burritos from their location during the year

Another factor may be the influx of wrap proveyors. I’m happy for the owners who I always see hard at work, and I look forward to the new menu items. But I’m also sad that this wrap institution is changing and is moving away from down town Burlington.

Subtitle of the article should be: AKA how NWT plans to screw over your lunch plans. In protest, I’ll be eating this month as much as I can at the North Winooski location in a probably-vain attempt to prove this location profitable. This should prove to be a rather tasty protest.

New World Tortilla – New Prices, New Wraps

New World Tortilla – Essex

New world Tortilla now makes their own wraps, I’ve seen them make the wraps with my OWN EYES in the front window of the Burlington shop. It’s a nice distraction while you wrap is prepared. Fresh spinach can now be found in the spinach wrap. Not too much more spinach flavor, but the wrap is significantly more crispy and less gummy /soggy at the end of a Thai chicken wrap. More fresh spinach please!

New World Tortilla – Chicken Salad Special on new Cayenne Wrap

The Cayenne pepper wrap is a home run with the chicken salad wrap, it has the perfect amount of heat to “kick it up a notch”.

Prices have gone up slightly at NWT, likely due to the new in-house wraps; It’s still worth it.

Cafe Mediterano – “Cevapi & Baklava”

Near 5 corners in Essex Vermont is Cafe Mediterano.

 
Cafe Mediterano – Essex Vermont

Cafe Mediterano has great gyros, and a traditional gyro meat roaster. I highly recommend them. This time around I ordered their Friday / Saturday special of cevapi.

Cafe Mediterano – Cevapi

I had no idea what cevapi is, but it’s apparently it’s a type of Balkan sausage. It comes with a side of chopped onions and what may be kaymak which tastes like a salty fresh cream cheese. Vermont does have a decent sized Bosnian population, and I’m guessing cevapi and it’s big brother which is also on the menu “sis cevapi” are popular. Cevapi is served on a large house made roll there are 10 of the cevapis that come on in the sandwich. I kept the foil wrapped around it while I ate, to prevent the meat from spilling out.

It’s cool to eat what I’m picturing as “Bosnian fast food”, but I find the cevapi to be a little bland, compared to the gyros at Cafe Meditero. Also I’m guessing cevapi isn’t terribly healthy and I’d rather eat a gyro if I’m going to eat something unhealthy.

To me “Mediterano” has connotations of Greek food, and they do have many Greek items, I tried their Baklava for desert.

Cafe Mediterano – Baklava

This is the second time I ordered the baklava, the first time there was too my syrup in my piece and was thus too sweet for my taste. This time looking at the baklava tray, I noticed some “dry” baklava (not sitting in a pool of syrup), so I took a chance. This drier baklava was much better, than my previous piece, nice separation of phyllo dough layers, and chunks of nuts. What’s missing is the flavor of honey, a la Sugarsnap’s version, and I would still like the baklava to be a little drier. However Cafe Mediterano does have baklava has on a regular basis, and Sugarsnap’s was just a special of the day.

Cafe Mediterano also has intriguing-looking European food and snacks for purchase.

The cevapi was $7.99 and worth the experience, and the baklava was a little spendy at $2.49 (both pre-tax). Until the summer they’re closed on Mondays.

Ray’s Seafood Market – “Crab-cake sandwich, side of Onions Rings”

I was had a crab-cake sandwich craving the other day, and decided to take a trip to Ray’s Seafood Market in Essex Vermont. Ray’s also has a Burlington location. Their restaurant looks like it belongs along the Maine seashore, pretty neat.

Ray’s Seafood Market – Essex Vermont

Ray’s Seafood Market – Crab-cake sandwich, side of Onions Rings

Plenty of crab-meat in this sandwich, but it was deep-fried (light batter). I much prefer pan-fried for crab-cakes, the texture is a lot different. That being said, it’s hard to find crab-cake sandwiches, that aren’t cut with shrimp around Vermont. I would have also preferred an option of a spicy remoulade sauce, instead of tartar. The tartar sauce was nice, it had some pickle relish in it, but admittedly I don’t really care for tartar sauce.

The onions rings were very good, and appear to be home made.

I believe the sandwich and side of ‘rings came to $8.40 with tax, very reasonable for seafood.

Martone’s Market and Cafe – “Billy” Sandwich

Martone’s is a little deli, “market and cafe” at the 5 corners in Essex Vermont.

Martone’s Market and Cafe – Essex Vermont

Besides subs, Martone’s also has a nice selection of steaks; I think I’ll be picking some up once the snow melts to throw on the grill.

Martone’s – Billy Sandwich – (half, front)

I like egg salad, something that I don’t bother to make for myself for some reason. Anyway, someone named “Billy” has similar taste to me, I ordered his namesake sandwich Egg salad and bacon, it kind of like being indecisive if you want breakfast or lunch, so you settle for a sandwich with breakfast elements. The egg salad yummy, green onions, and chunks of egg. The bacon is SO crispy, a nice contrast to the smooth egg salad. Finally I added sprouts and tomato to the freshly baked wheat bread. 

Take note:  If this is your first time at Martone’s I would recommend ordering a small sandwich, unless you would like some leftovers. Martone’s is notorious for their piled-high sandwiches. Here is the back side of my half sandwich:

Martone’s – Billy Sandwich – (half, back)

The half Billy was $7.25 with tax, I’ll be back to when I need my egg-salad fix.

Bagel Market, “TBLT on Garlic Bagel”

I had a bagel craving today, and the Bagel Market in Essex Vermont has some of the best bagels I’ve ever had. Similar to pizza crust, bagels are good when they’re chewy and crispy (emphasis on chewy for bagels); Bagel Market bagels succeed on both counts. Crispy isn’t even the proper word to describe these bagels, it’s almost more of a “crackle”. Additional, these bagels are extremely fresh, even at lunch time. According to this nice write up in local paper Seven Days, proprietor Ron Goldberg has a long history of New-York-style bagels.

 
Half of the bagel selection at the Bagel Market, and nice black-granite counters. The counter running perpendicular has a coffee bar.

The Bagel Market, TBLT special on Garlic Bagel – romaine lettuce, fresh tomato, sun-dried tomato pesto, Havarti cheese, bacon, turkey breast.

This sandwich is really just an excuse to eat a bagel for lunch. The turkey was good quality, the sun-dried tomato pesto was a nice addition, and the choice of cheeses are nice (Havarti worked well with the TBLT).  Something else I liked about the sandwich is that is wasn’t unwieldy, too many times I’ve eaten sandwich’s (especially on bagels) that are super sloppy, this was very manageable. I would have liked a little more lettuce and bacon on my sandwich, but this is still a great bagel sandwich on the best bagel.

The Turkey BLT (TBLT) was $6.65 with tax.

New World Tortilla “Thai Chicken” Wrap

The Thai Chicken Wrap is currently my favorite thing to eat for lunch. I order mine with extra scallions (no charge). Speaking of charge, bring cash, as New World Tortilla is cash-only.

As mentioned in my chicken salad wrap post, The classic New World toasted tortilla. This tortilla is spinach, which doesn’t impart too much flavor, but is nice visually.

Strips of grilled Chicken breast, toasted spinach tortilla, (fresh) ginger slaw, scallions, spicy peanut sauce (with Thai red pepper flakes), and finally jasmine rice (from a rice cooker).

This wrap is tremendous, it hits all “5 tastes”, you want to keep eating it to get the balance of all of the flavors and textures. This wrap made me realize that I love jasmine rice, and confirmed my love of peanut butter. It’s also tremendously large, and eating the whole thing may result in feelings of accomplishment, or possibly slight food-coma. The only slight unavoidable issue with this wrap, it that the very bottom of it starts to get a little soggy, meaning the end of the wrap can be a little messy. So good, and a great value!

New World Tortilla’s Chicken Salad Wrap

New World Tortilla is one of my favorite lunch spots, they now have 3 locations. Original Burlington Vermont location, UVM, and now Essex Vermont. As the name implies “New World” has great wraps.

Pictured here is the Wrap, notice the large size, quarter for reference.

This is the wrap, unwrapped. Something that is classic New World Tortilla (or New World for short) is the toasted wrap, and the little wax bag to hold the bottom of the wrap.

The Wrap after a few bites.

The toasted wrap means that it’s easier to bite into and you’re assured that you won’t get that gummy texture that sometimes comes from a cold warp. The chicken salad contains grilled chicken breast that is chopped and combined with fresh dill, halved red grapes, mayo and typically shredded romaine lettuce. This wrap has great texture, and great flavor. I like the fresh dill and sweet grape combination. The fact that the wrap is made with chicken breast means that it has different texture, than if the rest of the chicken were used. At one point this wrap was served with mesclun greens, which while they don’t have the same satisfying crunch of romaine, the slight bitterness of the greens was a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the grapes. I may request a romaine / mesclun mix next time if possible.

Pictured above is a little fun with the recyclable foil, standing the wrap up while I get something to drink. At under six dollars this wrap is a steal, but only on Thursdays!