Whenever I go to a major city, I always try to find a farm to table (also called a farm to fork) restaurant to eat at. Back in November, my husband and I visited Founding Farmers in Washington DC, and we had one of the best breakfasts out we've ever had (see picture at left).Farm to table is a term that is used to describe "a restaurant where the ingredients are sourced as locally as possible, which means that they tend to be very fresh, and they have been through a minimal series of middlemen, if any, literally going directly from the farm to the table. The farm-to-table restaurant trend is part of a larger movement to eat as locally as possible, taking advantage of seasonally available fruits and vegetables and focusing on the environmental and cultural impacts of farming." (source:Wisegeek)
Why do I make it a point to eat at farm to table restaurants? I believe in supporting local economy - both the food and business economy. By choosing a local farm to table restaurant when traveling, I'm not only supporting local food, I'm also supporting local business in general. Plus, you're always in for the unexpected at a farm to table restaurant. At Founding Farmers, I was able to order vanilla bean cream for my coffee - cream that was heated up with vanilla beans to order. No fake vanilla creamer. It was delicious. I've never seen that anywhere else.
I'll be heading to Boston in a few weeks, and I'm having trouble locating a farm to table restaurant in that city. If anyone knows of any, let me know.
3 comments:
How do you find the restaurants? Is there a website? Or do you just look in the Yellow Pages?
Any tips for South Jersey restaurants?
Allison - the best resource I've found is Localharvest.org. They don't have a complete list though. Usually I just google terms like Washington D.C. organic restaurant or farm to table restaurant.
I don't know of any farm to table restaurants in SJ. The White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia uses lots of local foods and is really good. There may be some restaurants in North Jersey, but they aren't exactly convenient to us. That's one of the reasons I started SJ locavore. To start to put together all the SJ info in one central place.
Sometime in late summer lots of there is usually farm to fork week at several restaurants. That week the restaurants prepare meals with local foods.
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