The College Cuisiner: Travel: Seneca Lake Part II

For day two of our Seneca Lake getaway we started the day with breakfast at Rainbow Cove, the place my family stayed at most often over the years.

It was a beautiful day and we lucked out with wonderful weather.

What’s better than a wine tour around Seneca Lake? A wine tour with a driver…

Sadly, we seemed to get the worse driver in New York who knew nothing about the wineries but even so we had a good time. During a six hour tour we got lost, saw 6 or 7 wineries, and a delicious meal at the Stonecat Café.

Each tasting only cost $2 or 3 for 5 or 6 wines and each winery had its own unique feel.

We started the wine tour at Castle Griche Winery.

Next we went on the East side of the lake to the Atland Winery, which was definitely my favorite. Their mulled wine was a great treat to go through Autumn and the Holiday season.

At this point it was time for some food. At the last winery’s recommendation we went to the Stonecat Café in Hector, NY during their jazz brunch.

They had a great menu but their daily specials looked so good we ended up only ordering from that.

We started with a roasted organic beets salad over mixed greens, blue moon cheese and golden balsamic vinaigrette. Mom and I split it and it was perfect.

Lisa, my mom, and myself all ordered the creamy chicken soup with apples and coriander. It was a strange but delicious combination.

Aaron of course ordered the Huevos rancheros with eggs over easy with crisp tortillas, black beans, cheddar cheese, smoked tomato, Sriracha, and sour cream, over potatoes.

The restaurant had a great atmosphere and the service was impeccable. I will defintely come back next time we go to Seneca Lake.

Our waitress was so sweet and before we left, she boxed up a complimentary flourless chocolate cake with a strawberry wine puree with walnuts and mint for moi. It was such a treat and made my day.

After lunch we went a couple more wineries including Hazlit, Standing Stones Winery and Wagner.

Hazlit was by far the hippest tasting with 80’s classics on the sound system and lots of laughter.

The wine wasn’t bad either.

Standing Stones had some decent wines but wasn’t as fun as the other tastings. We did try a “Vidal” wine here which is syrupy sweet and just as much a dessert as cake! I ususally don't like sweet wines, but mom and I both thought that since it was "intentionally" sweet you could treat it like a dessert liquor.

Wagner Winery was the most “commercial” of the group but Ryan, our driver insisted we stopped here. (We think he got a commission.)

By the time we got to this tasting I was dragging and Ryan was racing to get back by 5pm.

For dinner we stopped back at Castle Griche who served Swiss and German cuisine. It was a quiet restaurant with a small staff and patronage but the food was very good and the service was great. We loved the simplicity of this place.