Squid Eats: Onion City Chicken & Oyster

The first time we visited Onion City Chicken & Oyster in Winooski, Vermont, my wife said, "Wow, it's like someone asked you what food you would want and built a restaurant around it."

I can't deny that I'm a sucker for both raw oysters and fried chicken.  A restaurant specializing in both is pretty darn exciting.  Beyond the main features, there's a lot of what I would call up-scale comfort food on the menu: hot dogs, tater tots, fish & chips and so on.  There's plenty of up-scale for up-scale's sake, too, notably caviar and lobster rolls.

We have been several times now and I don't think I've ever ordered exactly the same thing twice: a good thing, by my reckoning.  I've never been disappointed either.  This most recent trip, we went all in on the bi-valves: a dozen oysters - 3 each of 4 different varieties - followed by PEI mussels.  All were excellent.  Dessert was nice, too: chocolate mousse for me and a root beer float for my wife.  The mousse was thicker than what I'm used to - not a bad thing.  My wife's a root beer float connoisseur and she was pleased.

From previous visits, I can report that the fried chicken is excellent.  And one can order it in a bucket, KFC-style.  Thankfully, the chicken is much better than KFC's.  Service is top notch.  We always seem to be seated near the front of the restaurant which is nice, especially when there's still natural light.  One drawback: the front door closes very loudly.  I always try to close it gently when we leave.