Yesterday evening, this restless spring season felt at peace. Which meant it was time for me to get a little restless and go enjoy the patio weather.
It was also time for dinner, so a friend and I headed to Munchies, an East Rock hole-in-the-wall with a few tables outside. I ordered the Garden BAE sandwich ($14.99), whose house-made seitan, the heart of the sub, was beautifully finessed: structured yet supple, eating like tender morsels of sausage or meatball. A big garlic dill sauce had me at first bite; a disc of jalapeño, extra spicy, slugged me on the second. Tamer than both, a barbecue sauce and caramelized onions painted a backdrop of sweetness, while a splatter of dill pickle quarter-rounds brightened things up with vinegar, salt and a juicy crunch.
The patio at Munchies, shaded in part for dinner by a well-placed tree, was a pleasant place to dine and to consider our next patio. We landed on Elena’s, an upper Orange Street dessert shop whose soft-serve often attracts lines stretching partway down the block. We were pleased, when we arrived at about 7 p.m., to find a patio that still had one open table, and a line that still ended inside the door. The person in front of me ordered the Graham Cracker ($9), a limited-edition s’mores sundae finished with a tempting heap of “freshly toasted” marshmallow fluff. We went instead with a simple standby: Elena’s flagship “proprietary” Chocolate Soft Serve ($4.50 small, $6 large), though we embellished it two ways: one dish with Strawberry Sauce, the other with Amarena Sour Cherries ($1.25 each).
A little sign promised that our swirls of soft serve would taste like a Fudgsicle, and that promise came true, delivering the same flavor profile as—but also a lighter, more consistent body than—the dense, rich, sometimes overfrozen childhood treat I remember. The strawberry sauce was high-key and summery, and the cured cherries, collected at the base of one of the chocolate peaks, were funky and more adult and had coated their mountain with an almost invisibly thin curing syrup. Both toppings paired well with the chocolate, and by the time we finished eating it all, the line of customers had grown: through the door, across the patio, onto the sidewalk and down the block.
We’d had dinner and dessert, so it was time for coffee and tea. Staying in East Rock, we slid down Orange Street to Atticus Market, where at first the patio was almost as busy as Elena’s. The air had cooled a little after the sun dipped below the tree line, so our party of two went hot, not iced, with our lattes: the Chai ($5.50/$6.25), a menu mainstay, and the French Toast ($6.25/$6.85), a current special. Both were made with oat milk, in the latter case by Atticus’s design, and both offered big notes of cinnamon. But where the vanilla, maple syrup and roast in the Toast combined for a strong, viscous, burnt caramel flavor that lasted and lasted, the Chai stayed silky and soft, its spices effervescent. I enjoyed them both and would eagerly return for either.
In fact, I feel that way about the entire meal, along with the three patios where we enjoyed it.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
