Buffalo Restaurant week suggestions, Big Big Table fundraiser Oct. 17
If apple cider season is your favorite time of year, you need to know about Cherry Bank Farm Cider Mill.
Since 1948, three generations of the Kelsch family have made cider pressed from neighboring orchards’ bounty in Sanborn. Dale Kelsch is running the show these days. Cherry Bank Farm will be open every day until the first week in December, as the family business makes its money for the year.
Cherry Bank cider is never cloudy. Its flavor rings clear, mouthwatering tartness and clarity. The distinction, the results of Cherry Bank’s cold process, has helped it build generations of fans drawn to Sanborn in the fall like swallows returning to Capistrano.
Inside the century-old barn, a dozen varieties of apples await, plus scratch-made pies of local fruit. Coffee cakes, cookies, cupcakes and muffins are baked every day. There’s pumpkins, squash, gourds, and more from local farms. Honey, maple syrup, and Amish jams, plus a Cherry Bank Farm specialty: apple butter.
Cherry Bank cider is only fresh local apples, picked this season. Not last year’s from emptied-out storage bins, or trucked in from out of state. Ultraviolet sterilization helps it stay cold, unlike pasteurized cider. No preservatives are added.
As a result, Cherry Bank should be drank with a quickness, within three or four days. “You should treat cider better than you would treat milk,” Fran Kelsch told me once.
Which was helpful, because Cherry Bank Farm cider has never lasted that long in my fridge.
Open daily until the first week of December, about a mile north of SUNY Niagara, cider lovers will be flocking to Cherry Bank Farm. Where a gallon jug of ecstasy is still just $7.
Cherry Bank Farm Cider Mill, 5140 Townline Road, Sanborn, cherrybankcidermillfarm.com, 716-731-5749
Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Sunday.
Four Bites wants to know what’s good. Drop me a dime.
REVIEW: “Don’t fill up on the bread” is a standard warning before sitting down to a table covered with amazing handmade pastas. At Inizio, the Elmwood Village fresh pasta palace, hot noods in a chill space is the main attraction. But on my last two visits, my guests simply could not stop talking about that bread. Second order coming right up. (On Thursday, for patrons.)
BIG BIG BASH: Big Big Table Community Café, the unique pay-as-you-can lunchtime restaurant at 272 Hudson St., is back in service.
That means anyone can walk into the Lower West Side space weekdays from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., get a nice farm-to-table lunch, and pay what they want.
You can support its mission at a fundraiser 6 p.m.-8 p.m Oct. 17 at Riff City Social, 166 Chandler St.,
Enjoy appetizers by Riff City Social, artisan Blue Table chocolates, games with prizes, basket raffle, live fusion jazz music performed by Luminous, and the chance to win a football signed by Bills cornerback Christian Benford, No. 47.
Tickets, $60, are available here.
ASK THE CRITIC
If you’re a regular at corporate chain restaurants like Applebees and Olive Garden, try a little local flavor this Buffalo Restaurant Week, Oct. 13-19.
A lineup of locally-owned restaurants offer special menus. Here’s some of my favorites.
If you’ve never tucked into brunch at Gypsy Parlor, the West Side neighborhood tavern at 376 Grant St., now’s the time. Just $20 brings a carafe of mimosas or Bloody Mary plus either Brunch Poutine, Cinnabun Pancakes, or Vegan Sweet Potato Hash.
Casa Azul’s $25 dinner brings an appetizer like esquites, a main like the taco trio on housemade tortillas, and churros.
At Cafe 59, an entree like pork schnitzel with German potato and cucumber salads, soup or salad, and dessert.
More reading from Michael Chelus:
- Andrew is launching the next verision of Four Bites on 10/14 [Four Bites]
- Big Ditch has partnered with the YMCA Buffalo Niagara for the fourth consecutive year to release a beer to celebrate the Buffalo Turkey Trot – Turkey Trotter [Buffalo Beer League]
- A new sandwich shop – Artigiana 716 – opened in Larkinville this week [Buffalo News]
- Brian’s Buffalo Beer Buzz told us about a new release from Buffalo Olde Brewery, the return of Bottle Rocket’s annual Beer Mile and more [Buffalo Beer League]
- Mr. Galarneau told us how Casa Azul is serving Mexican dishes we love, just better [Four Bites]
- Buffalo Restaurant Week returns next week [Buffalo News]
- The owners of Liberty Hound have come up with a concept that will keep the restaurant’s doors open during the winter – Parmed [Buffalo Rising]
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