Since July 4th fell on a Monday this year, we got a three-day weekend at the beginning of the summer and decided to take that opportunity to do a little more traveling.  Our destination this time was Buffalo, clear across the state of New York.  Neither of us had ever spent much time there before, but since it’s our state’s second largest city we thought we’d go check it out.  Buffalo has an interesting history:  in 1950 it had over 500,000 people, and while today it has less than half that population, the past decade has been the first time since the mid-20th century that Buffalo’s numbers have actually grown.  With all that happening, there’s some interesting things going on in the city, so we decided to go check it out – and we’ll show you where we ate while we were there.  As a note, though, we will be featuring some images of meat here.

Of course you’re probably all wondering – did we get any wings?  We surely did, and in fact we got the chance to visit the original location of the Anchor Bar, which claims to have invented Buffalo wings (although more recently that story has been disputed).  They were kind enough to make Miriam an order of fried cauliflower, with their wing sauce in the batter …

… but naturally Cyril had their real wings, doused in their famous wing sauce.

We also visited two pizza places in the city, both of which are highly ranked among pizzas nationwide.  First up was Bocce Club, which lets you order pizzas in whole, half or quarter sizes – and the quarter is perfect for a personal pizza.  Miriam had (on the right) a pizza with hot peppers, and Cyril got one with pepperoni.

And we also headed over to La Nova, which is the official pizzeria of both the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres.  Their pizzas have an interesting feature:  the crust is sprinkled with sesame seeds, giving an interesting crunch that contrasts well with the cheese and toppings.  Here’s the pizza we got, with cherry peppers on top.

But pizza and wings wasn’t all we had in Buffalo – we also decided to check out a few breakfast spots.  One was Paula’s Donuts, which several people told us was a place we had to check out.  Here’s the selection of donuts we tried:  a glazed red velvet cake donut (on the bottom right); a peanut jelly donut, stuffed with raspberry filling and coated on the outside with crushed peanuts (on the bottom left); and a monster donut, with vanilla frosting and a mini chocolate chip cookie in the center.

On another morning we headed over to Five Points Bakery, which is especially known for their toasts – they make their own bread and stuff it with all kinds of ingredients.  Miriam had the extra sharp cheddar toast, which features bread dotted with white cheddar cheese and served with hot sauce, sour cream, pickles, and a blue cheese spread.

Cyril decided on the open-faced egg sandwich toast, which has smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, tomato, onion, capers, and pesto piled onto the same cheddar bread.

One afternoon we headed over to Ballyhoo, a cocktail bar that also serves up a small, vegetarian-friendly menu.  We tried their mushroom-based Reggie Veggie sausage, which comes topped with goat cheese, chimichurri, roasted corn, and avocado and some homemade chips on the side …

… and we also got an order of their mac and cheese.

And here’s where this blog post goes off course a little bit, because we didn’t just stick to Buffalo on this trip.  Since the Canadian border is so close to the city, we also decided to head across to Ontario one day and do a little exploring.  We went over the border in Niagara Falls, and on the Canadian side we saw a long line at a place called BeaverTails.  It turns out that this place is a chain in Canada that serves up one signature item:  a flat, fried piece of dough with toppings, which looks somewhat like a beaver’s tail (or a queue de castor over in Quebec).  We couldn’t resist trying something we can’t find in the U.S., so we got ourselves a Triple Trip beavertail, topped with a chocolate hazelnut spread, Reese’s Pieces, and a peanut butter drizzle.

And we also got to visit Puddicombe Estate Winery on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario.  In addition to a selection of their own wine and ciders, they also have a food stand that serves up a small variety of things to eat.  We got a sampling of a little bit of everything:  some mac and cheese, the winery’s home-grown strawberries, a maple tart, a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie, and a Canadian pizza, which is apparently a combination that’s popular in the country – it’s got pepperoni, bacon, and mushrooms on top.

We came home from this trip feeling like we got a good sampling of things in Buffalo and neighboring Ontario – we got to indulge in our passion for trying local pizzas, but we also had some good breakfast, some iconic Buffalo food, some pub grub, and a little sampling of things from across the border.  We really enjoyed our time in Buffalo and the Niagara Falls area, and we hope as well to inspire you to travel and check out the parts of New York beyond the reaches of New York City.