We thought we’d start this new year off with a post to inspire you to travel!  During this past fall we took some weekends to go out to Long Island and sample some of the region’s many wineries, and during that time we also decided to explore what kind of food was on offer.  If you happen to be unfamiliar with Long Island, let us give you a little tutorial – you can think of the island as being shaped like a whale, with the head at the western end representing Brooklyn and Queens, and eastern side split into two forks like a whale’s tale.  The South Fork has nice beaches and some really expensive areas (like the Hamptons) while the North Fork has a ton of wineries.  And luckily, if you’re like the majority of New Yorkers and don’t have a car, you can still get out to the North Fork by taking either the Long Island Railroad or the Hampton Jitney and bringing along your bicycle so you can pedal from one winery to the other.  Taking the train is cheaper, especially because they let you bring your bike onboard for free, but the service is limited because the train only makes one stop out near where the wineries are, in the town of Mattituck, and it also runs very infrequently in fall and winter.  The Hampton Jitney is more expensive and changes you extra for taking along your bike, but it stops in almost every town along the North Fork and runs throughout the day.  We traveled out on the combination of both train and Jitney and made it work, and now we’ll show you what we ate on our day trip adventures!  (But as a warning, there are some images of meat here).

Mattituck, where the train drops you, is the largest town out in the North Fork, so it’s where many of the local restaurants are.  We tried a bunch of different things in Mattituck, like these donuts from North Fork Donut Company, which is just a block from the train station.  Here’s the chocolate peppermint donut …

… and here is a gingerbread donut, stuffed with a vanilla cream.

Just a few steps away from the donut shop is Love Lane Kitchen, where we had dinner one night.  Since it was a chilly day, we both started our meal with their soup of the day, which was a spiced carrot and butternut squash.

Then Miriam had the risotto, made with more butternut squash plus three types of mushrooms.

And Cyril had the duck tagine, with pearled couscous and peppers and onions on the side.

A little farther into Mattituck there are some other cool places – for example, there’s Mattitaco, where you can get … well, you can probably guess.  Here’s their Bang Bang cauliflower taco, made with fried cauliflower and a mango salsa.

And here’s one of their specials on the day we went – two birria tacos.

On a different day in Mattituck we got dinner at another spot – an Italian restaurant called aMano.  We started our meal there by splitting the bianco pizza, topped with mozzarella, ricotta, and broccoli rabe.

Miriam tried the ravioli, stuffed with burrata and covered in a cherry tomato sauce.

While Cyril got the rigatoni with Sunday sauce, which is made from tomatoes, sausage, meatballs, and pork, all topped with a dollop of ricotta.

Now if you venture beyond Mattituck and out into the areas with all the wineries, you’ll come across some other interesting places to get food.  One day we stopped at Hallock’s Cider Mill in the town of Laurel, just west of Mattituck.  They’re know for their key lime pie, so we got a handheld version of one …

… plus a chocolate-dipped mini key lime pie on a stick.

We also found the Catered Fork food truck, which sets up at various spots along the North Fork and was at Jamesport Farm Brewery on the Saturday that we visited Riverhead, two towns west of Mattituck.  We decided to get a snack from the truck:  these truffle Parmesan fries.

And finally, our wine tasting one day took us east of Mattituck into the town of Cutchogue, so we decided to visit Red Rooster Bistro while we were there.  We shared an appetizer of their burrata caprese, with pesto on top.

And Miriam had the penne alla vodka …

… while Cyril tried the ribeye steak au poivre, served with a green peppercorn sauce.

We’re glad we got to explore all these unique places to eat on the North Fork – we got donuts, tacos, key lime pies, truffle fries from a food truck, and dinner from three different local restaurants.  These were all delicious things to eat in between sampling wines, and we were able to get to everything – all these places plus the wineries we visited – by combining train or bus travel with bicycling.  The North Fork is in its slow season right now, with many places closed for winter, but once warmer weather arrives we hope this gives you the urge to visit the area and try some wine and some food.