Good News Cafe -- Woodbury, CT

Good News Cafe
694 Main Street South
Woodbury, CT
www.good-news-cafe.com

Carole Peck’s café is both out of our price range, and out of the way on our drive from East Haddam to Brookfield, but it was more than worth the exception.

I discovered this restaurant through a most unlikely source: I had seen a news item that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban were vacationing in the Litchfield Hills, and ate here for dinner. I have no interest in celebrity gossip, but it always amuses me when I hear about people “vacationing” in Connecticut, particularly Litchfield County, which I grew up thinking was the most boring place on earth. Once I read the online menu, though, I decided I had to try it.

Bill and I ate there for the first time last year, and we were in love. I had an amazing appetizer of cherry and pecan encrusted oysters, and Bill’s entrée of “adult macaroni and cheese” (made with provolone, lobster, and truffle oil) was unbelievably rich.

This was our second visit. I started with the lobster soup, which is my new favorite thing I have eaten there. This topped the excellent lobster bisques and stews I had in Maine, with just the right amount of sherry, and lobster flavor throughout the broth, not just in the tender chunks of meat.

Bill was pleased with his stuffed poblano pepper. (I didn’t try it; spicy and I don’t get along.)

My entrée was the seafood wontons, and I’m surprised to say I was a little disappointed. The mussels and scallops in the broth were impeccably fresh, but the broth itself was overwhelmed with soy sauce, and thus so salty I was gulping down glass after glass of water. The wontons themselves – stuffed with a creamy seafood medley – were too good for me to stop eating, though. Bill’s seared scallops in Thai coconut broth were marvelous, on the other hand.

Both times we’ve eaten here, we were entranced by the dessert menu, but we had eaten so richly that all we could order was the fruit cup. It is probably the simplest item on the menu, but still a delight with fresh, in-season fruits that glisten like jewels.