A favorite tradition that Jack and I have is celebrating our wedding anniversary at B&Bs and country inns in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. We usually go on the weekend closest to Valentine’s Day, because we were married on February 14th. Our friends, Jim and Frankie were married on February 13th, a few years before us, and they have celebrated their anniversay with us since our first one.
This year, we went back to the Rittenhouse Inn in Bayfield, Wisconsin. We hadn’t been there for around 30 years and decided it was time to go back because we have compared it to all the other B&Bs and Inns where we have stayed over many years. It has been our all-time favorite Inn/B&B.
Our room, decorated with antique furniture, had a fireplace and hot tub in it. We built a fire in the fireplace when we arrived and invited Jim and Frankie to join us in our room for a glass of Champagne.
Our dinners on Saturday night were wonderful and I’m going to tell you about some of my favorite courses.
Buttercup Squash Soup: with balsamic syrup and toasted pepitas. The soup was smooth, creamy and very flavorful and the balsamic syrup added a nice tang while the pepitas (toatsted pumpkin seeds, hulls removed) give a nice crunch when you got one on your spoon.
Fresh Baby Greens Salad: fresh mixed greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette, toasted hazelnuts, aged Parmesan cheese and dark Scharffenberger chocolate. The chocolate was barely noticeable but it gave a bittersweet note with every bite.
Bacon Wrapped Lake Trout: served with a horseradish cream sauce and pickled beets. I loved everything on this plate, especially the presentation. The little dark red diamond shapes were the pickled beets. The horseradhish was very mild but I thought that it might also go nice with a beef entrée.
The great advantage of staying at an Inn over a B&B is they serve dinnerv and B&Bs do not. I haven't even told you about our fantastic breakfast yet and will save that for another post!
Can you give me your recommendations for a outstanding B&B or Inn in the Upper Midwest? We will need to find one for the Valentine's Day weekend in 2010 because it is such popular weekend they get booked up by summer!