fitchburg – Small Town Tourist

Shocker: Cafe inside gym serves up tasty, healthy food

Going out to eat for me is usually a time to go all out — something I wouldn’t normally eat, something a little more extravagant or something less healthy than my regular routine. But every once in a while I like trying out healthy options that I just don’t know how to make on my own. And that’s exactly what I got to do when I went to Fit Fresh Cuisine with a friend last month.

Fit Fresh is basically inside Hybrid Athletics in Fitchburg. They offer cleanses, meal plans and a regular menu. Their menu has juices, smoothies, acai bowls, breakfast sandwiches and scrambles, sandwich and salads.

I’ve heard about acai bowls but never knew what they really were, so I jumped in with both feet and got the first one on the list. The palisade bowl comes with acai, strawberry, Sugar River vanilla yogurt, whey protein and wheat germ topped with tahini (I know…what?!), chia seeds, pepita and homemade granola. I was expecting to get a bowl of yogurt with acai berries and a bunch of other stuff on top, but I can only describe what I got as breakfast soup. It was good, but it wasn’t what I was expecting!

The yogurt-like mixture is slightly thinner than regular yogurt, but just as tasty. I was worried about the tahini on top, but it added just the right amount of savory flavor to cut the bitterness of the acai. The chia seeds, pepita and granola were the perfect crunchy additions. My bowl also had slices of banana in the yogurt. Even though it was not what I was expecting, I really enjoyed it. My friend got a sandwich and enjoyed it too.

FOOD NOTES: Fit Fresh Cuisine is not very conveniently located, but if you’re in the Fitchburg area looking for a healthy lunch option you should check this place out. My acai bowl was not what I was expecting, but it was pretty tasty. I loved that it was tasty, fresh and filling. Most of the time you get one or two of those…not all three! I’ve had friends try their meal plans and cleanses, and they’ve given it some pretty positive reviews.

Bakery’s lunch just as impressive as sweet treats

Bakeries are great, but bakeries that also serve food are even better. I’ve never eaten lunch at my favorite bakery, Scott’s, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but Rolling Pin Bake Shop‘s lunch impressed me. Based on my first visit with a friend and her daughter, I would totally recommend this place for a casual lunch or some fun baked goodies.

The day we went they had three full bakery cases plus a rack of bread and a spinning case full of treats. They had four different types of quiche on special, plus a homemade soup on top of their regular menu. One case was full of different types of cookies, another one had cakes and cupcakes, and a third had decorated sugar cookies. The spinning case was filled with chocolate-dipped treats and other specialty items.

It took me about 15 minutes to settle on the apple pastry and a molasses cookie. The apple pastry smelled so good I definitely didn’t wait until after my sandwich was even delivered to devour it. The flaky pastry crust was super buttery, and the filling was your basic apple pie filling. I liked that the filling wasn’t too sweet and had a good cinnamon flavor. Since I ate the pastry there, I would have liked it warmed up but I forgot to ask before I finished it off. The molasses cookie (sorry…I ate it before remembering to take a picture) was perfect, but only if you like your molasses cookies soft. Some people like them crispy, but I like them chewy in the middle and just slightly crispy on the edges. Rolling Pin’s version was just that, plus it was topped with granulated sugar that helped cut the slight bitterness of the molasses. It was definitely one of the best (still not better than grandma’s though!) molasses cookies I’ve had.

For lunch I went with what I thought was going to be a simple turkey club sandwich, but the sourdough bread, applewood smoked bacon and other fresh ingredients elevated the sandwich above what I was expecting. The sandwich was also surprisingly large for the price ($8).

FOOD NOTES: Don’t let the strip mall or facade of a bakery fool you — the lunch at Rolling Pin Bake Shop is super good. Don’t get me wrong — they’re baked goods were great (I will totally be back for a molasses cookie), but their lunch is what stood out as surprisingly tasty for a great price. Everyone working and eating there (including a pair of cops on their lunch break — I love it when you can tell they’re regulars!) were super nice. There aren’t a ton of good restaurant options in Fitchburg (there are a decent amount of chains, but not a lot of local places)…so if you’re in Fitchburg and in need a good lunch spot, I recommend Rolling Pin.

New Indian restaurant serves up standard buffet dishes

If you’ve been to one Indian restaurant buffet you’ve been to them all. Most places make a decent chicken tikka masala or spinach paneer. I’ve been to some really bad Indian buffets, but most of them are pretty solid. The draw for most Indian buffets is their location — I usually pick one of the five I enjoy eating at based on where I’ll be before lunch or where I’ll need to go after. There’s one in Middleton, one on the far west side, one by West Towne Mall, one on the near west side, one right downtown and now one just opened up in Fitchburg. Haveli opened up on McKee Road in the same strip mall as Subway and Barriques.

Haveli is on the end of the strip mall so it has a ton of windows, which makes the expansive dining room nice and bright. The signs are very colorful, which grabbed my attention. The buffet is off to the side and is broken off from the rest of the dinning room with dividers, which I really liked.

They had pretty standard offerings on their buffet: chutneys, spinach naan, chicken tikka masala, paneer masala, beef curry and samosa chat. The perfectly firm paneer was great, and the creamy masala sauce had a good depth of spices that went really well with the spinach naan. The spinach naan was standard (I wish buffets could figure out a way to keep their naan crispy and not soggy). The onion chutney was a surprise. It had a good kick of flavor on top of the expected pickle flavor, which went really went on top of the beef curry. Samosa chat is samosas broken into pieces served with chana masala (a chickpea dish), yogurt sauce and chutneys on top. I’ve never seen samosa chat on a buffet. First, I’m glad they put it on the buffet so I could try it…I really liked it! It is a lot of things on an Indian buffet that I like all in one dish. Second, I wish the samosas would have been a lot less mushy, but maybe that’s the only way to serve a samosa on a buffet. The sauces in all of the dishes could have used a little more spice, but none of the buffets I’ve ever been to serve up spicy dishes.

Haveli plate No. 2 — Haveli buffet plate No. 2

FOOD NOTES: Haveli is a very respectable option for Indian food if you’re in the Fitchburg area. I applaud them for putting samosa chat on the buffet, which is not a typical buffet dish. Haveli’s traditional buffet offerings (chicken tikka masala, paneer, naan, beef curry) were decent, but their masala sauce had a deeper layer of flavors than most buffet masala sauces. The onion chutney was also better than normal with an extra spiciness. The other unique thing about Haveli is that their buffet is $8.95, which is a dollar less than all of the other Indian buffets…not a very significant amount, but could still be part of the decision-making process if deciding between two buffets.