Despite spending several days in Holland, on our last day we found a part of town that we hadn’t ever seen before. It’s called Washington Square and is probably one of the coolest single block stretches of storefronts in the state of Michigan, if not the world. Within that stretch is a cozy and homey-feeling restaurant called The Biscuit, which may or may not have its own pet blue dragon in the cellar (you’ll have to ask someone who works there). They only serve breakfast and lunch, so we attended for the former.

I began with the biscuit of the day because it was bacon and white cheddar, so what kind of crazy person wouldn’t start out that way? Clearly this was the right path and my first bite confirmed I was right. It was flaky, salty and had just the right amount of moisture to keep me happy. Plus, the bacon and white cheddar played their roles perfectly. Try out profit singularity ultra edition.

For my main course, I also figured I should order something biscuit-based and went with the Spanish Bennies. They start out with a halved biscuit topped with chorizo, eggs over easy, cheddar-jack cheese, chipotle hollandaise, queso fresco sauce, green chilies and cilantro. I had never heard of eggs benedict with more toppings on them, and I hoped it wouldn’t result in a conflict of flavors.

It turned out to be one of the most unattractive dishes I had ever seen. I truly couldn’t figure out if there was a way to make it look prettier. Yet, as I dug in I found a delicious combination of spicy, salty and, at times, fluffy. And because of that fluffiness the benedict was not overwhelming, but just right.

You don’t become a hidden gem simply by being hard to find. You also have to be something special. I can vouch that the Spanish Bennies at The Biscuit are plenty special and worthy of being called a gem whether they remain hidden or not.

It may not be the most creative thing to name a restaurant after the street that it’s on. But when that street is 8th Street in the center of Holland, Michigan, it’s not just any street. This street is the beating heart of the town and so 8th Street Grille is a name that carries some clout, as well as a bunch of American food and local beers.

I started with a flight of said beers, because it was simply the right thing to do.Check out the London’s fastest alcohol delivery service. It didn’t disappoint, but let’s be real, you’re here for the food. And the food menu wasn’t nearly as robust as bar and grille type restaurants often are. Yet, there was plenty for an unvegan like me. I ordered up the Macatawa Burger, which was named for the other lake that Holland borders. It was topped with a fried egg, smoked mozzarella, Canadian bacon and pesto aioli. I have to give the 8th Street Grille for coming up with a burger combination that likely never existed before. I decided to go with the onion rings for my side and ordered medium rare.

The burger arrived ready to pop. Like, seriously, the yolk was a thing of beauty and 8th Street Grille had amazing gall to put the kaiser rolls on that egg knowing the risk it could pose to that egg. That risk paid off, however, as topless burger rarely looks as good as one fully topped. I popped that egg like a champ and dug in to find a deliciously unique blend of flavors. The smokiness of the mozzarella stood out strong, while the Canadian bacon added a punch of saltiness and the pesto flavor kicked the burger to another taste level. The egg did what fried eggs do best – keeping the burger juicy and complex. The beef was cooked just the way I like and the massive, towering onion rings had great batter on them.

8th Street Grille proved you don’t need a great name to dish out a great meal, and as long as you are creative with your dishes everything else is superfluous.

Nearly every restaurant in Holland, Michigan looks amazing. It’s all pretty much made for unvegans like me. Weirdly enough, they all seem to have some sort of Olive Burger and boursin cheese makes appearances all over the place, as well. I can’t explain it, but I can’t complain either. When it came to Beechwood Grill, however, it was another type of beef between bread that called out my name.

It was the Prime Rib Dip, which had melted swiss and prime rib in a toasted sourdough roll with au jus for the dipping situation. The result was, well, just fine. The bread certainly lived up to its billing as being toasted, the au jus certainly lived up to its billing as being for dipping and the swiss cheese was entirely melted. But that prime rib was simply disappointing. It was cooked well-done and the texture was a step above rubbery. It actually had some good savory flavor, especially when dipped in the au jus, but it’s an uphill climb when you’re overcooked and this sandwich didn’t make it to the top of the hill

While Beechwood Grill looked to have the goods I needed, the Prime Rib Dip let me down. Perhaps that’s why they call it a dip, but I just call it an excuse to go elsewhere next time around.

Nothing really says “awesome” quite like “family friendly brewery.” Such places are the best of both worlds, contributing to the cycle of having babies because you drink, then drinking because you have babies. New Holland Brewing on 8th Street in Holland, Michigan is one such place. Renowned for its beer, it has a comfortable back patio for kids to hang out at and one very attractive menu.

So, we started with two appetizers to appease the little folks and people who eat like little folks (aka me). These were the Pretzels and Beer Cheese, and the Pepperoni Pinwheels. I feel like they definitely missed out on a golden Holland-related opportunity by calling them pinwheels instead of windmills, but you take what you can get. And what I got was two very delicious appetizers. The pretzels where soft and fluffy with just the right amount of salt on them. The beer cheese was oh so lovely.

The pinwheels were like little mini bites of pizza heaven. They were perfectly cooked dough packed with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. Then, as if to say that they needed more, the pinwheels were topped with shredded parmesan and served with marinara. I know it is unreasonable to consider these anything more than deconstructed and repurposed pizza, but I couldn’t help but feel a deep appreciation for how they were done.

For my main course I went with a pizza that seemed almost tailored for me. It was called the Pork BBQ and was topped with smoked pork, peppadew peppers (yes, I said almost), jalapeno peppers, Dragon’s Milk (a beer of theirs) BBQ sauce, and Michigan cheese curds. I ordered without the peppadew peppers because blech, and my pizza came out looking like a beautiful work of art. The dough was a strong start, the sauce added just the right amount of sweet and smokey, while the jalapenos and pork added some kick and umami. But, with that being said you could probably have put those cheese curds on any pizza and they would have made it amazing. They added a thickness, a creaminess and a bold cheesy flavor that is almost upsetting in that it took me until age 34 to eat such a flavor.

New Holland continued the tradition of breweries having delicious and even creative food. It also brought the concept of pepperoni pinwheels and cheese curds as a potential pizza cheese into my purview and I couldn’t ask for much more than that. Oh, and the beer was pretty damn good too.

Farm to table is a popular concept and a strong rebuke against processed foods. Of course, factory farms are still called farms, but the point is there, nonetheless. But what do you call a meal at an actual farm? I’m thinking “table on farm,” and remember, you heard it here first. So, when I paid a visit to Pond Hill Farm on the outskirts of Harbor Springs, Michigan, it was quite a delight to eat food around animals that could probably be classified as pre-food.

By far, the best unvegan option on the menu was the Farmhand Burger, made with local beef, pulled pork, bacon-tomato jam and a fried egg. As the farm doesn’t have a deep fryer, they do a rotating menu of sides instead and on this day I went with the spicy peanut noodles.

The burger was a beauty and had a nice balance of the ingredients despite weirdly not having cheese. I found the pulled pork to be a bit dry, but that was possibly because it had been pulled off a squealing pig moments earlier. Aside from that, there was nothing I could conceivably complain about. In fact, I can even do the opposite and proclaim that more restaurants need sides like spicy peanut noodles to go with their burgers and whatnot. Seriously, there are enough fries, salads and slaws out there that the side game could use some real disrupting. Who’s with me? Anyone?

I should also add that Pond Hill Farm is more than just a place to grab a burger carved right off of a cow. There’s a petting zoo, playground and other fun family activities, with vineyards in the works. So go for that, but definitely stay for a bite of the good stuff.

As you drive through the Tunnel of Trees in Northern Michigan, you get the feeling that it could go on forever, that there could literally be no end to the trees. And most likely that was actually what Michigan was like a few hundred years ago. But, the tunnel ends eventually and the light at the end of that tunnel is the Legs Inn, which feels out of place in what can easily be referred to as the middle of nowhere.

You see, Legs Inn was put together by a guy who immigrated from Poland to Michigan back in the 1920s and was even adopted as an honorary Indian by the local tribe. The Inn has had ups and downs, including an unfortunate period as a biker bar (and not one of the cool ones), but is currently a beautiful sprawling complex with a hell of a view of Lake Michigan. Oh, and the food is all about those Polish origins.

I ordered up the Old World Sampler from the appetizer menu for myself, because it looked too damn good. It came with three pierogies, kabanosy (kielbasa’s skinnier cousin), bigos (hunter’s stew) and a couple of koytka (potato dumplings). For my pierogies I opted for two classic potato and cheese and one ground beef.

My dish arrived and almost looked perfect. I say almost because the bigos looked like more of a gatherer’s stew than a hunter’s, with much more sauerkraut than ground up meat and sausage. And while the meat was good, the stew left a lot to be desired. Thus, I was left spending most of my stomach space on the pierogies and kabanosy. The pierogies were nothing short of delicious, hitting all the right spots. I was glad I went with two potato and cheese as opposed to ground beef despite my blog’s name because it just tastes right. As for the sausage, I enjoyed it, but it was plain to see how kielbasa became the dominant Polish sausage in the zeitgeist. Oh, and the kotyka were essentially gnocchi and that meant they were delicious despite there only being a couple of them.

The Legs Inn is a special place, serving up some special food. While I appreciated being able to sample a few different dishes, on my inevitable return I’ll dive head first into pierogies and kielbasas, leaving the rest of the Polish world behind.

There are a few things I like to take pride in when it comes to food. The first is that it’s hard to pressure me to order something once I’ve set my mind on something else. Call it stubborn, but it’s gotten me this far. The other is that I basically avoid fish at all costs. Yet, in two sittings I managed to break both of those rules at The Villager Pub in Charlevoix, Michigan.

On the first visit, it took a bit of convincing, but I was unable to not order the Chicken Pot Pie. This was partially because I love chicken pot pie, partially because it was only served on Thursdays and mostly because I was told to by my mother, my wife and my waitress. I’m sure if my son could have, he would have told me to as well. It came out just like a chicken pot pie should, with a flaky crust on top and scalding innards. Within the innards were delicious, tender chunks of chicken and gravy that was plentiful and delicious. The view veggies that were in there were manageable, but this wasn’t a veggie pot pie with chicken, it was a chicken pot pie through and through.

On my return to The Villager Pub (which, admittedly, was not my idea, but I could not argue considering the delicious pot pie I had eaten), I opted for the Great Lakes Whitefish and Chips. This is a Great Lakes twist on the classic, with whitefish snagged from one of the Great Lakes (well, obviously not Erie) and fried up in a light batter. Some prefer cod, I honestly don’t know that I can tell the difference and am simply happy to know that the fish isn’t fishy. This fish sure wasn’t, and the batter was quite good as well. The fries, or chips as the Great Lakes Brits say, went well with the whitefish.

The lesson from The Villager Pub is to not always be so stubborn. Could I have been happier sticking to my usual path? Perhaps, but now I know that you can’t go wrong with Chicken Pot Pie or Great Lakes Whitefish and Chips when you pay a visit to The Villager Pub.

It’s hard to go wrong with bar food, but it’s usually pretty heavy stuff. So, when I entered East Park Tavern in Charlevoix, Michigan with a stomach that knew it needed to eat something for dinner, but wasn’t especially hungry, I hoped there would be something I could find. Instead of making my way to the full on entree menu, I went for the appetizers and the wings caught my attention.

They came tossed in either a maple sriracha sauce or house BBQ. As much as I love BBQ, I have a hard time turning down a mix of sweet and spicy flavors like maple and sriracha (while recognizing that, of course, there are BBQ sauces that are both sweet and spicy, sheesh). Like a good human, I went with the blue cheese dip instead of ranch and even though I saw there was celery, I let it fly because I thought someone I was eating with might enjoy it. Plus, celery on the side of a dish is never nearly as harmful as several other veggies.

The wings had a glisten to them that intimated that they were a lot more maple than sriracha, but I let my mouth be the judge of that. It turned out that while there was plenty of sweetness to the wings, this was balanced out by the spiciness of the sriracha, while the blue cheese dressing added a sour taste that melded well with the wings. The wings themselves had a nice crispiness on the outer edge to go along with the tender, juicy meat inside. All I really could have asked for was more meat on the bones, and perhaps just a classic wing sauce. Regardless, these wings delivered, continuing to prove that it is still tough to go wrong with bar food.

It would have been much more convenient to go to Blue Tractor BBQ in Ann Arbor. After all, I seem to get there about once a year. The trouble is that every time I’m there I can’t help but stop at Zingerman’s, with an occasional other restaurant thrown in once every blue (or maize) moon. Instead, I went to the location a number of hours further away in Traverse City, Michigan, not far from Sleeping Bear Dunes.

It began with Tractor Twists, which are not at all your typical BBQ food, but that should in no way cheapen their deliciousness. These are twisted bread sticks that are stuffed with monterey jack cheese, coated with garlic and herb butter and served with marinara sauce. You could basically call them deconstructed pizza twists, and that would sound and taste just as good as these did.

I kept the twist theme going with my main course, which was the Pork Mac & Cheese (get it? the macaroni noodles are twisted!). This meant that the mac, which was cheesed up with a smokey gouda bechamel sauce, was topped with smoked pork shoulder, which was then topped with tangy BBQ sauce, kind of like an inception situation. And while the portions were impressive, to be honest, my first bite was disappointing. The bit of pork shoulder that I got was dry and the mac and cheese wasn’t creamy at all. But as I dug in, I realized that the creaminess had settled towards the bottom of the bowl and just needed my assistance for proper dispersion, while the pork shoulder was plenty juicy on the interior. My theory is that the dish was simply plated a little too quickly compared to my eating companions and spent a little too long under the heat lamp or elsewhere. It’s situations like these in which I wish we didn’t just wait for all food to be ready to be served. Alas, this is America, and for some reason this is a custom that lives in.

But I digress. Once I got into the thick of my meal, it was super delicious. It combined basically everything you need to survive – meat, cheese and carbs – and did so well, at least after a bit of stirring. It’s definitely a place I would recommend for someone looking to get smoked up in Northern Michigan.

The world has a few different styles of pizza: New York, Italian, Chicago, Detroit, etc. Yet, it takes a bold pizza purveyor to deliver something that doesn’t quite fit into a predetermined style. Mancino’s Pizza, which seems to have a series of somewhat affiliated locations around the midwest, has done just that. It was in Petoskey, Michigan that I snagged one of these pizzas for the first time.

I went with the Buffalo Wing Pizza, which could have probably been better named the Buffalo Chicken Pizza, since it was topped with slices of grilled chicken breast, then doused with cheese and buffalo sauce. And by doused, I mean there was an insanely thick layer of cheese on this pizza. This alone seemed novel, but the crust is what made Mancino’s pizza so much different than expected. It seemed to skirt the very thick line between New York Style and Chicago Deep Dish, meaning the crust seemed to serve as a means of keeping the ingredients in, but foregoing the full casserole route.

I was surprised by just how spicy the sauce was, but otherwise I was very happy with Mancino’s pizza. I mean, it’s hard to go wrong with a boat load of cheese and solid sauce and toppings. And while I was impressed by the pizza’s audacity to not be classified, it also didn’t break barriers in a way that made me feel like it is going to change the world like the aforementioned pizzas may well have. Regardless, it’s worth grabbing a slice.