elm street bakery and cafe

i've been enjoying the wonderful things being done at the elmstreetbakery for quite a while and i've been sharing them with you as well. months ago, i explained my family's love affair with the bakery and its great breads, pastries and baked goods. then, when they started a dinner service not long ago, my wife and i had to check it out in its first week and we were very impressed.

it's not surprising that elmstreetbakery has become a go-to for us any time of the day. this past weekend, my wife and i had a chance to enjoy a great meal on a date night there.

a few weekends ago, we braved the elements and trekked an hour southwest to east aurora, ny for a much anticipated date night at elmstreetbakery; long have we heard of the pastries, the pizza, and the bread. i will say this – popular opinion ruined us for the evening. it’s so tricky when your expectations have been set so high, it almost seems unfair to hold a spot to that standard. even so, elmstreetbakery is absolutely worth the trip.

as many of you know, i’ve been a big fan and proponent of elmstreetbakery for several years now. i’ve been particularly impressed with the dinner service chef brad rowell and his team have been putting out night after night for the last year and a half. so when we learned that brad would be leaving the bakery at the end of the year, we made sure to get in there at least one last time to enjoy his food at elm street. as with our last stop, the food and service was excellent.

i think everyone knows how much we love elmstreetbakery. they were one of our top five meals of 2014. a couple weeks ago we visited elmstreetwith some friends to check out their #secretbrunch menu. the menu isn’t very large, on our visit they had three options available, but the items coming out of the brick oven are delicious. we tried the the kimchi fried rice with pork belly, the dutch baby and duck scrapple. the pork belly with fried rice was my personal favorite, the belly and rice were nice and crunchy from the oven. the scrapple was the table favorite, the meat was moist and tender and topped with a fresh farm egg. if you really needed another reason to drive to east aurora and visit elmstreetbakery, this would be it.

i love when my favorite restaurants change their menus frequently. sure, having your favorite dishes on the menu year after year can be comforting, but without some turnover, even your favorite spots can become boring. i really love places that change their menus a lot (much more than just seasonally) and continue to bring the same quality with each and every menu and meal. one of these places, as you've heard me mention on more than one occasion (including yesterday), is elmstreetbakery. over the weekend, my wife and i stopped by the bakery and had another great supper.

i've been seeing the pictures and speaking with people about the "secret brunch" that elmstreetbakery has been running on sundays for the past few weeks. it's not a well kept secret by design and it's building a nice little buzz for the new features the bakery is offering on sunday mornings. after stopping in for dinner on saturday and speaking with chefs brad rowell and rj marvin, we knew we had to bring the whole family to check it out. everyone of us, from my wife & i, all the way to our two-year-old twins, loved the great dishes that are available only during the "secret brunch".

our favorite spot.. my wife and i moved here recently from maryland. elmstreetwas recommended for a quick lunch. it was love at first bite. we have been back many times for lunch, dinner on the patio, and many selections of baked goods. when we have visitors this is our go-to spot for excellent quality gourmet selections. we especially appreciate the support of local sustainable farms and sources for meat and veggies etc. its a great vibe and highly recommended in my book. keep up the good work guys!

another incredibly successful dinner at elmstreetbakery. i'll obviously be back and share those experiences with you, but you should get down there. get the chicken - or the fideo - or a pizza - or anything else. it's worth the trip from wherever you are for one of the best dining experiences in western new york.

so when i heard a few weeks ago that elmstreetbakery had hired chef brad rowell, former sous chef at the park country club, to create an all new dinner service to go along with the amazing things chef luci levere had already been doing there, i couldn't wait to try it. this past weekend, my wife and i got to experience chef rowell's new dinner service and it was fantastic!

elmstreethas quite a few appetizing pies to choose from. starting to regret my limitations on toppings, i made a mental note to come back and try the steak & bleu pizza. damn, that sounds good.

very good. i eat lunch here at least once a week and have been doing so since elmstreetbakery was open. i have never eaten dinner here, nor have i gotten breakfast here.

as far as lunch goes, most of the time they have excellent and very tasty soups. particularly the curry or fennel type soups - or the butternut squash which is great. i will usually supplement a soup with a sandwich or salad, which is almost always excellent. the jambon sandwich, ham, butter on french bread is also consistently good. the appeal to me is the local and organic ingredients.

the two downsides are that the food is more expensive and that most of the lunch menu changes day by day. by the time i'm done lunch is usually $15. for some this might be way too expensive, but i'm happy to support local farms and dairies, and the food is definitely fresh. because the lunch menu changes there have been times when i was not interested in anything they decided to put on the lunch menu.

i love the elmstreetbakery!!!

there are lot of great local restaurants in the southtowns. we live very close to east aurora and we frequent the town for all different types of places to eat. once place we stop at several times a month is the elmstreetbakery...

alli and i really really love east aurora….there i said it. as city residents there's an unnecessary shame in admitting that you really like the suburbs, or at least certain aspects of the suburbs. no, were not planning on settling down and having 2.5 kids, but the small village of east aurora is incredibly cozy with several restaurants and shops that we really enjoy, add bars within walking distance and we're sold. this last saturday was our second visit to elmstreetbakery , the first was an impromptu visit based on curiosity after hearing all the buzz about the place. unfortunately, we had dinner plans later in the day, so we limited our first trip to just two slices of their wood fire pizza but promised that we'd return the following week. after we finished our second meal there this weekend, alli and i realized we have found a new favorite place to eat. for starters, the inside of the building has been beautifully remodeled. while keeping the look of an log cabin/barn, the insi