Saturday in Newburyport

The past few weekends have been quite busy! First, we were in Ireland for two weekends in a row, then traveled to Stowe, and this past Saturday, we made the short trip to Newburyport, expecting one of our favorite New England towns to be decked out for Christmas.

I love visiting Newburyport year-round. We enjoy drinks at The Black Cow in the summer, overlooking the bustling harbor, and absolutely adore 10 Center any time of year. On this visit we decided to visit Ceia Kitchen + Bar after I received some information about the restaurant from their PR agency.

We arrived in Newburyport pretty hungry and decided to head straight to Ceia to warm up and fill up.

I loved the wine bar ambiance. It reminded me of a wine bar in Europe, and I really wish there were more places like this to leisurely sip wine in Boston.

Since we were having a date day before the rush of the holidays, I decided to start with a glass of Henriot Champagne while my husband went for the Tempranillo. I absolutely loved Ceia’s stemware.  Check out this pretty glass.

We were also offered water, tap or bottled, and went for tap as it’s usually just fine.

Here’s where there was a little problem. Our water tasted like it was rainwater collected from a basement floor. You could smell the dank, mildew-like odor from a few inches away. Why we decided to take a sip is beyond me, but I had to spit it back into my glass. It was bad.

We politely asked for another bottle of water, and our server informed us that Newburyport water is just really bad. I’ve had tap water in Newburyport before at four or five other restaurants, and it was never anything like this. I wish she had smelled or tasted it herself because it had to be worse than usual.  If the water is indeed that bad at Ceia, they might want to put a disclaimer on it. We could literally still taste it hours later and did not feel well.

We moved on from the foul water to order lunch, a BLT for him and a salad for me. Served on soft, warm focaccia, the BLT was delicious. I loved the thin sweet potato chips that came alongside the sandwich. It was on the small side but definitely included quality ingredients.

My salad: Beet- Arugula, Pear Tomato, Cabrales Blue, Truffle Vinaigrette

Where are the beets?   It turns out that they were under the arugula, three very thin slices of beet that definitely did not even make up a whole beet. I didn’t taste any truffle vinaigrette either. The Cabrales Blue was salty, nutty, and flavored the arugula and tomatoes well, but overall I was a little disappointed. Beet salads are usually enough to fill me up, and I left lunch hungry.

Ceia has won a ton of awards, and I would give it another shot based on that and the fact that we only had lunch. I would be sure to order more food next time as portions are small, even for a small portion eater like me. I would definitely come back to have a glass of wine from their great wine list at the wine bar.

Our wanderings around Newburyport brought us to the cute kitchen store and café, Soufflés. Being as chilly as we were, we decided to share a large gingerbread latte for a bit of dessert.

It was just the thing as we wandered toward the chilly waterfront. What a gorgeous sky!

We wandered a little more, taking in the holiday decorations in this adorable town before seeking out our final stop.

Though I am not a huge sweets lover, since my marathon training started, I have been craving cupcakes and cookies. I knew Newburyport had quite a few bakeries, but I confirmed with Megan that Eat Cake! was the place to be when it came to cupcakes. My husband initially thought he put the address of Eat Cake! into the GPS. It turns out, the GPS was sending us to the location we were at, so we walked around the same block a few times before realizing the bakery was a few weeks over. Oops.

It turned out the website did not have the accurate listing of cupcakes of the day, so there were no cupcakes with lemon curd buttercream as I had hoped. Instead we got a raspberry-filled cupcake with white chocolate buttercream (I think?) and one with a coffee/Bailey’s buttercream. I proclaimed the rest of the day the                   Pop! Marketing Communications holiday party for two.

The raspberry-filled cupcake was amazing, soft, moist, with a perfect buttercream. The other cupcake, which we saved to eat second, was sadly VERY dry and dense. The flavors were good, but the texture made it seem a few days old. My cupcake craving lives on. . .

Newburyport is always a great place to visit with a number of restaurants, cafes, and bakeries to satisfy just about every taste. We visit about every two months, and it is always nice to be there during the holiday season!

Stay tuned this week for a post on holiday bubbly, a recap of the Pop! Marketing Communications tapas dinner, some Boston restaurant posts, and more.

What did you do this weekend? Eat anything delicious?