The Daily Planet

When looking for a restaurant for dinner in Burlington, Vermont I wanted to find a down-to-earth place serving the fresh organic produce of the New England sustainable agriculturists, which has a strong presence in the "crunchy granola-outdoorsy" town. What I found was the gourmet produce-filled menu, but not exactly the down-to-earth ...

The Daily Planet restaurant is a hush eatery, funky bar and chic solarium rolled into one. Tucked away on a non-descript sidestreet right off the main pedestrian walkway and commercial strip in downtown Burlington, The Daily Planet has a great atmosphere with "celestial surroundings and orb lamps" to pepper the trendy art deco decor and create a comfortable atmosphere for its diners.


The colorful alleyway eatery has an ever-evolving seasonal menu that the owners describe as "out of this world," and it's pretty tasty indeed. We began with a cheese tasting course (after all, when in ... Vermont):

From left: Vermont brie, "gor-dawn-zola" blue cheese, cellar-aged goat cheese and a bonne bouche hand-crafted cheese.

The brie was too acidic for our taste - overripe brie has an ammoniac aroma and bitter flavor, likely the culprit of this displeasing taste. (Underripe brie, in contrast, is chalky and flavorless; the perfect brie is creamy with a velvety "bloom.") The blue cheese was a surprisingly hard cheese compared to the softer Italian cow's milk cheese, while still retaining such blue mold veins that flavor this pungent cheese type. The aged goat cheese is a relatively recent venture for American agriculturists, compared to the French who mastered it centuries ago, no doubt why it lacked the perfection of depth of flavor that a French chevre attains. The bonne bouche, an ash-ripened cheese, was the favorite of the sampler, a true tasty morsel!

The rotating seasonal menu featured some classic fall favorites, including applewood smoked shrimp with apple butter and gouda, lamb rack with sweet potatoes and swiss chard and walnut-crusted salmon. The "Northern Lights" menu reflects that it really is where the locals dine, with grilled tofu - seitan crackling, honey crisp apple, and baby turnip greens - to cater to the herbivore clientele. For those who eat meat I recommend the pistachio-crusted pork schnitzel that we had, a nice thin crunchy crust with a hint of green, with a delightful pear-parsnip mash (with an unexpected hint of horseradish), celeriac remoulade, and topped with fresh cranberries. I ordered the butternut squash gnocchi:


Instead of a plate of gnocchi as one would expect, it was a halved baby butternut squash roasted with maple and nutmeg, topped with royal trumpet mushrooms, crispy sage, cauliflower florets and a balsamic reduction drizzled over top - a few gnocchi scattered amongst the flavorful veggies created for a rich and delightful healthy dish. So The Daily Planet hit the spot, fulfilling my desire to follow a seasonal diet (squash, apples, turnips, pears, parsnips and more throughout their wonderful fall menu) and eat fresh and local!