In Williamsville, old favorites and new keep tradition alive – Buffalo News

After a fruitless hour of research, I cannot tell you whether the Haudenosaunee operated any sort of kitchen operation where the trail met the creek in the present-day Village of Williamsville. Most of the time since European settlers showed up, though, this stretch has rarely lacked places dedicated to feeding and watering locals and passers-by alike.

Pondering two centuries of good cheer and grub helped ground me after a head-spinning week of trying to imagine how restaurants are supposed to survive at half speed while training their staff as germ warfare combatants.

One bite of Ross Warhols ramp kimchi cheesesteak ($14) at BriteSmith Brewery (5611 Main St., 650-4080) knocked all that right out of my noggin for now. Restaurant types are reassuringly good at figuring things out.

Like how to griddle a pillowy split-top roll in butter lobster-roll style, and fill it with an original composition: sweet sesame-scented bulgogi-ish braised beef short rib chopped with American cheese, crowned with fermented pickle heavy with ramps and wild forest onions. The collision of melty richness and tang made me glad to be alive.

BriteSmith Brewing's ramp kimchi cheesesteak. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

Choices of BriteSmiths wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas ($13-$19) run from margherita to three-meat, with a lobster number ($18) over garlic cream, fontina and chives. Sunday brunch features craggy apple fritters ($6) and chicken with cheddar-chive waffles ($18) and chile-honey butter.

Across the street, Eagle House (5578 Main St., 632-7669) is on the other end of the spectrum. As the area's oldest restaurant approaches 200 years in service, its comfort food-centered menu has never seemed more of the moment.

The rare Welsh rarebit ($11, $14 with bacon) makes its home here. A thick sauce built on beer and extra-sharp Canadian cheddar, further honed with mustard and Tabasco, hits like a hug spooned out onto toast.

Banana pepper chicken ($18 with salad and side) led the entrees. Ordered on aromatic rice pilaf, a chicken breast had been stuffed with spinach, Gorgonzola and more cheeses, crumbed and fried to golden. Served on a mildly rousing pepper cream, with caponata-like tomato compote, its mix-and-match pleasures were diverting.

Simpler satisfactions were in store just a few blocks away at another historic watering hole, Glen Park Tavern (5507 Main St., 626-9333).

Whether from general squeamishness or simple inattention, rare roast beef has of late been an endangered species among beef-on-weck specimens Ive collected.So when the woman who took my order and credit card information asked how I wanted my meat done on the beef on weck ($14.95 large), you could call it a rare thrill.

Eagle House's stuffed pepper chicken. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

Enjoy yourself. When I keep getting reminded Im mortal, this is the sort of beef on weck Im going for: one for the ages. That means a thick mattress of hand-cut tenderness to put me in the pink, a roll stout enough to cope, and fresh enough to notice. On the side, horseradish to get your sinuses activated, and rarest of all, au jus that tasted like beef drippings rather than the usual cheap bouillon, drab as dishwater.

The beef can be ordered as a hot open-faced sandwich with gravy ($13.95), just like Glen Parks other stalwart, roasted turkey. A sandwich piled high with better-than-fair fowl, plus lettuce, tomato, onion and cranberry sauce, would please any fans of the form.

A mile east, at Lloyd Taco Factory (5933 Main St., 863-9781) the leading homegrown practitioner of un-Mexican tacos and master of the sub-$10 meal, has made the contactless restaurant transaction frictionless as well. A simple and effective online ordering system leads to a heads-up text, which leads to bags handed out a delivery window.

Lloyd Taco Factory's carne asada camino bowl. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

Unless you have a real thing for picking up your food, Id suggest the camino bowls, which are deconstructed burritos minus the flour tortilla shell, proteins bedded on your choice of shredded cabbage, rice and black beans.

Crack-ed potatoes ($4.99) are a must, crispy-jacketed spuds duded up in ssamjang sauce and fried garlic, vegan if you hold the mayonnaise. Vegans have a legitimate contender in the Skinny Thai ($8.99), fried tofu with kicky peanut sauce, radishes and more. Grilled citrus-and-chile-marinated steak stars in the carne asada ($9.49) under fresh-cut pico de gallo.

The Big Lloyd ($8.99) has all the flavors of a Big Mac, down to the sesame seeds, except better, because its built on locally raised grass-fed beef. Then theres my guilty go-to, Dirty South ($8.99): fried chicken, waffle crisps, maple syrup and bacon aioli. Thats right, mayonnaise made with bacon fat instead of oil.

Lloyd Taco Factory's Dirty South burrito bowl. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

So when it comes to recovering from our current unpleasantness, I would look to the restaurant people for hope. For hundreds of years, theyve found a way to keep feeding people, and they will again, taking lessons from old and new.

You know what they say: It takes a village.

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In Williamsville, old favorites and new keep tradition alive - Buffalo News