There are several things that bring people to Traverse City, MI. I touched on some of them in my post yesterday. Besides the National Cherry Festival in the Summer, there is also a large wine industry in the Traverse City area. Additionally, there is the fact that it sits right on Lake Michigan and is protected by the East and West Traverse Bay.
It also has a relatively close proximity to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Park, and the town of Interlochen which is home to a very well known performing arts school. Just a short drive down the road there is also the Turtle Creek Casino and Hotel. Finally, besides the massive beer scene in the town, it also a haven for foodies.
In our case, the thing that brought us to town for our early anniversary trip was the last one I mentioned, the food and the beer.
We rolled into the state park in Traverse City just a little before 5:00 on Friday after the two hour drive from work. We had planned on doing dinner at our campsite on Friday night, but we were so "hangry" that our plans quickly changed and we decided to go out to eat instead.
A friend that we work with suggested that we try out The Blue Tractor in downtown Traverse City. We pulled up and found a parking spot in a parking garage right across the street from the establishment.
It was far less busy than I expected for a Friday around 5 - 6 PM, that doesn't mean it wasn't busy, it was just less busy. In fact, we got seated next to a relatively large party and my biggest complaint would be that the acoustics were horrible. All you could hear was the loudness of the people next to us. It was hard to concentrate and hard to order.
I got started with the Right Brain Brewing Northern Hawk Owl Amber. It was quite delicious.
@mrsbozz took a diversion from her usual captain morgan and diet coke and got a Tito's vodka and iced tea with a splash of lemonade in it. More commonly referred to as a John Daley, with the exception that she only likes a splash of lemonade, not an equal mixture. It's too sweet otherwise.
We also got an order of the smoked salsa and chips to share since we were so hungry. We figured that would come out relatively fast and at least calm us down a bit! It was absolutely delicious. The smokey flavor of the tomatoes really came through in the salsa and it was delightful to eat.
@mrsbozz got the chipotle chicken bowl for her main dish. She decided it was good, but I think she prefers the ones we make ourselves at home. I went with the BBQ platter and selected brisket and pulled pork as my options. The meat was good and smoked well. The fries were exceptional as they put a bit of their BBQ rub on them to add some flavor.
The coleslaw was pretty mid in my opinion. It wasn't horrible, but I didn't eat more than a couple bites of it because it didn't knock my socks off either. We also got a couple cornbread muffins that were exceptional.
Needless to say we both had leftovers to take back to our trailer for a snack on Saturday or Sunday.
Saturday around 11 AM we headed back to the downtown area, but in a different section from the night before and found a place to park. I have written a post about MiddleCoast Brewing in the past, but I had never visited there with @mrsbozz.
I got started with an Oktoberfest beer and @mrsbozz selected a nice hard seltzer that they also brew on site. The Oktoberfest was good, but I have to admit, I got spoiled by the one I tried at the next place so I really don't remember too much about the one at MiddleCoast. My wife really like the hard seltzer and if it hadn't been fall she might have bought a growler of it to take home.
She was insistent though that with winter right around the corner it was soon not really going to be seltzer weather.
We shared a loaded fries appetizer and I have to admit, this was quite delicious. I hadn't tried the food last time I visited here, so I didn't really know what to expect. The potatoes were cut in a sort of thin wedge form that worked really well with the toppings. It was basically nachos with fries instead of the tortilla chips.
We ate our appetizer, watched some college football and finished our drinks before getting ready to head to our next stop.
Rare Bird Brewpup is just about an 11 minute walk from MiddleCoast on the other side of the Boardman river. It was recommended to me a long time ago by @cryptictruth, so I was glad to finally check it out.
This time @mrsbozz got a beer and she had me choose it for her. I picked a Rose' inspired beer that was infused with some fruit. I tried a sip of it and it wasn't too bad, but I had my eyes set on getting some more Oktoberfest.
Rarebird had two choices for me when it came to Oktoberfest, and I decided to go with the Spaten as opposed to the Erdinger. It was absolutely fantastic. I don't think I have ever had an Oktoberfest beer that was quite this creamy and delicious. I was in absolute heaven! Obviously I am going to submit this as a #beersaturday post sponsored by @detlev.
We sat at a high top table in the corner of the bar area while a group next to us played games at their table. We were watching the Tigers game across the bar and also watching our niece play softball via the streaming service on our phone as you can see in the opening photo.
@mrsbozz thought the information on their menu was very interesting and encouraged me to take a photo of it to share in this post.
After the walk and the beverages, we were still feeling a bit hungry, so we decided to share another appetizer and a couple of tacos. We went with the deep fried cheese curds and the chicken tacos. It worked out perfectly because you get two tacos, so it was one for each of us. The cheese curds were pretty fantastic, breaded in batter made from potato chips supplied by a regional potato chip company.
The tacos were absolutely amazing. The chicken was well grilled and the green salsa they used gave them a ton of flavor. The salsa was good as well, though not as good as the smoked salsa from the night before.
We ordered a second round before eventually wandering back to the parking garage so we could head back to our campsite. We probably could have spent a lot more time in downtown Traverse City, but I had a truckload of wood to burn and comfy camping chair to sit in while tending to the fire and watching college football.
It may have not been Vermont like last year but it was a pretty awesome anniversary trip all the same!
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