Egg Harbor Lodge News

We ate at the English Inn again last week and it is definitely one of my new favorites.  There are tons of really great restaurants in Door County so I decided to make a list of my favorites. So, in no particular order here goes…

For breakfast, the old standbys are always a favorite- White Gull Inn, Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant- (you can’t beat their Swedish Pancakes and sausage AND they have goats on the roof!) Village Cafe, The Bistro at Liberty Square. I also like to go to Weisgerber’s in Baileys Harbor… cheap, fast and very good… they also have an excellent fish fry on Wednesdays and Fridays. For lunch, my family likes Casey’s Smokehouse for a Ruby Special… grilled cheeseburger with french fries and a pop for $6.25. Fred & Fuzzy’s with its outdoor dining on the water is also excellent.  Don’t forget to order a cherry margarita.  The Coyote Roadhouse in Baileys Harbor has great lunches as does the Harbor Landing in Egg Harbor (I love the Chicago-style hot dog and their panini sandwiches). Mike’s Port Pub in Jacksonport is of course one of the favorites.  One of the cheapest and best bets is to get a homemade sub or panini with a cup of homemade soup from Main Street Market and enjoy it on your balcony or the terrace at Egg Harbor Lodge… sorry, guests only!

For dinner… Donny’s Glidden Lodge, The English Inn, The Mill Supper Club (Don is probably the best bartender in the county) they have excellent chicken and Don and Shelly the owners, are our good friends.  Sister Bay has a few great restaurants as well… my favorite JJ’s/LaPuerta- very casual and excellent Mexican and a big local hangout, The Waterfront and Inn at Kristofer’s are both really good. In Ellison Bay T. Ashwell’s  in an old house complete with gazebo and The Shoreline in Gills Rock. Mark and I are both huge fans of Mr. G’s Logan Creek Grill (also good friends of ours and has a local feel- great for steaks and fish). Always good is Trio in Egg Harbor. For a Fish Boil I would go with The Square Rigger Galley on Lake Michigan in Jacksonport, Pelletiers or White Gull both in Fish Creek.  The Old Post Office fish boils are excellent if you don’t want or need to have beer or wine with your meal.  (Ephraim is a dry village).

I can’t leave out best bars… The Top Deck at Gordon Lodge has a really nice bar overlooking the water… We like to stop at Shipwrecked and eat at the bar, Bayside and Husby’s are also great haunts. We like to stop at Mojo Rosa’s in Egg Harbor or Birmingham’s on County B (the shore drive to Sturgeon Bay).

It sounds like we are out a lot but it is part of my job to check things out… Right?  I’ll go with that.

Mark and I and our friends Kerana and Avram checked out The Log Den on Sunday night.  Besides the fact that the restaurant is really unique, our food was excellent.  The restaurant was built by our neighbors on Division Rd., Wayne and Dianne Lautenbach and their kids, Frank, Wayne and Kim.  The logs are all hand scribed and there are huge carvings of wildlife throughout the restaurant.  The bar looks like it could seat 50 people and has a few large flat screen TVs.  There is a big fireplace in the bar area also.  Our waitress Bridget, is a local and Mark and I have known she and her husband for a number of years.  Anyway, Kerana and I loved our Chilean Sea Bass which was topped with crab, shrimp, lobster and a saffron cream sauce.  Av had had the walleye which looked really good, but he didn’t rave about it. Mark liked his salmon which surprised me because I make a prize-winning version of salmon and I’m not bragging… that’s a fact.  The food was great and we headed off to the the Peg Egan pavillion  in downtown Egg Harbor to watch the Sunday night concert.  The folk group Sons of the Never Wrong were the performers for the evening.  It probably wasn’t a group I would have planned to check out (3 part harmony… um, no thanks) but they really were delightful.  It is probably a good thing for me to do things that aren’t the norm.  Anyway, Avram liked the group so much, that it really made it worth going… It was one of the nicer evenings Mark and I have had in a long time.  Kerana and Av head back to Highland Park on Saturday, and we always hate to see them leave.

 Jon and Cindy, long time guests at Egg Harbor Lodge are here now with a group of classmates.  More than once they decided on breakfast at The Bistro at Liberty Square and raved about it.  They particularly liked the stuffed French toast. There was also an early bird “Fill me up breakfast” for only 4.95.  We have eaten dinner there and the blackened salmon wrap was really good. The interior is adorable and there is outdoor seating too, which of course I love.  Liberty Square also has a gourmet food store, women’s apparel and The Board Room which has entertainment every afternoon.  The guys can hang out and have a beer or glass of wine in there why the women shop.  Or in my case, hang out there anyway because I hate to shop.  Liberty Square has really been a nice addition to our little town.

 Last night Mark and I decided to go out for dinner after work.  We like to head down to the the Hof Restaurant in the summer, they have great food.  The dining room has a beautiful view of the water and is one of the few restaurant in the county with a view. On our way into the bar, we noticed they expanded the outside seating and will be offering a limited menu outside this summer… how fun.  The dining room is spacious and well decorated with huge windows that over look Egg Harbor.  Mark ordered the salmon and I had the walleye and then we split it.  The walleye was panfried which is Mark’s favorite.  The salmon was cooked perfectly, not overdone which is my pet peeve.  Both were equally delicious. Alpine itself is amazing to see.  It’s like the movie “Dirty Dancing”… remember?  Almost always, all the members of the Bertschinger family are there hard at work.  Emily Bertschinger Pitchford and I are good friends and in the summer about the only time we get to hang out is if we head down there for dinner.  The Hof doesn’t seem to get the free publicity some of the other DC restaurants do and it is a shame… it is a first-class restaurant.  Next time you are in Egg Harbor, check them out.  See you there..

 As long as I have been dishing about Door County Restaurants, I can’t forget Mike’s Port Pub in Jacksonport.  Mike’s is owned by Mark’s sister Barbie and her husband Mike Lautenbach.  They operate it along with their kids Casey (Kelly), Megan and Leila.  My dad bought the Egg Harbor Lodge from Mike’s dad in 1976.  In Door County, EVERYBODY is either related or has a connection.  Mike has great pub style food, with specials from tenderloin to complete chicken dinners.  Mike’s is a really casual and fun place… They have great Bloody Mary’s and do fun things for Packer Games (free jello shots…) and other sporting events.  It is usually packed on Friday and Saturday nights but the service is really good, so there usually isn’t too long of a wait.  Plus, their bartender Joy, makes phenomenal Old-Fashioneds. They just put in a flat screen, so we can watch the away Packer games.  Barbie and Mike have 4 season tickets and Mark and I are lucky enough to get two for each home game.  Mike’s is definitely a place to check out.