I recently spent the weekend up in Great Valley, New York visiting with family. Great Valley is a small town in Cattaraugus County precisely five miles from Salamanca, NY—Neilbert's boyhood home, which is also a small town, but under the technicalities of official municipality designations is just large enough to classify as a "city." Great Valley is also five miles, in the opposite direction, from Ellicottville, NY, the resort town at the foot of Holiday Valley ski resort. Given Neilbert's fervent love of both skiing and family, is it any wonder he and Saundra chose Great Valley as the locale in which to buy a vacation home? So, a few years back, when Neilbert found himself itching for a ski chalet, my parents secured a lot for themselves in a new development in Great Valley.

Neilbert's and Saundra's Trailer

To be fair, though, it would be a tad inaccurate to call their vacation home a "chalet"—or even a "cottage." The housing development in which they secured their lot is a modular home park, and they consequently bought a modular home to fill their space. It's comfy, homey, roomy and well-decorated in typical Saundra-style—but come on, look at the picture, who are we kidding? It's a trailer.

We did not, however, truly need a trailer—or a chalet or a cottage—to make this corner of New York State a second home. Salamanca is kind of my secondary hometown since we went up to visit my dad's family every month or so when I was a kid, and frankly that's the best of both worlds—I get to enjoy the small town perks and ambiance when I'm there, but nobody really knows who I am or any of my business. Because I go up to the trailer, now, rather frequently, expect to see reviews of Salamanca and Ellicottville hot spots in my blog from time to time.

Ellicottville Brewing

The last time we were at the trailer, Neilbert, Saundra and I went to Ellicottville Brewing for dinner. Like the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, Ellicottville Brewing is a restaurant and pub which brews a selection of regular house beers and seasonal offerings on site. I have been meaning to go there for dinner for some time now, because the couple times I've stopped in for a beer, their food just smelled amazing. Still and all, it is a brew house, so Neilbert and I started out with draft beers, Saundra opting for iced tea. Neilbert got one of the usual house brews, the Toasted Lager and I got the seasonal Bourbon Barrel Stout, a smooth and creamy stout with notes of vanilla. For dinner, to start off, I got a bowl of the Spicy African Peanut Soup, a cream soup with a peanut roux base. It was nicely spicy (I can always take spicier, but calling it spicy was certainly not untruth in advertising) and overall quite delicious. A must-try if you end up at this restaurant. Saundra got a salad as her first course, and it is important to note that it was served with good green lettuce, not hideous iceberg. On to the main course—I selected the EBC Goat Cheese salad (which also came with good lettuce; romaine to be exact), an entrée salad which comes with a choice of taking as is, or adding on grilled chicken or roasted duck. I got the duck, of course, and it was heavenly. Tender and succulent, and as a nice touch, they served it all together to one side of the salad so there was no digging through to make sure all the duck pieces had been eaten. And I love goat cheese, which was why I ordered the salad in the first place. It was generously crumbled and a good complement to the nuts and apples which constituted the rest of the fixin's on this salad. Neilbert got the Chicken in the Grass, a chicken breast dish served over pasta in a champagne roasted red pepper cream sauce with crab mixed in to boot—and Neilbert cleaned his plate. Saundra got a steak, which she ordered medium, but which was so amazingly thick that I could not fathom how, in consideration of the laws of physics, that it could be prepared as anything but rare. It was so thick, that if ordered well-done, the outside would have to be burnt to the stage of being inedible just to get the center done. So, Saundra had some rare steak and enjoyed it. Good for her.

Myers Steakhouse and Inn

Later that night, my cousin Jennifer picked me up at the trailer and took me to Myers Steakhouse in Salamanca for drinks. Myers Steakhouse and residence inn is a long-time Salamanca landmark that was recently taken over by Jennifer's fiancé Trevor and his mother Wendy O'Neil. The bar has a rustic but whimsical feel as Trevor and his mom dress up the hunting paraphernalia and taxidermied deer with accessories according to the season. Drinking in small towns (and Sharpsburg) is great for city folk because bar prices are so much cheaper. I ordered a glass of the house cabernet, the going rate for which—Trevor informed me—is $3 a glass. Not too shabby; house wine is so ludicrously priced at most places in Pittsburgh, usually running upwards of $5 or $6. Jennifer went instead for a string of rum & cokes and electric lemonades. Whew... what the young can drink!

The bar at Myers

Trevor and Wendy also provided us with their new desert menu for perusal, and Trevor gave us two samples, a vanilla-nuanced version of the classic New York cheesecake, and a not-so-classic hot fudge sundae cheesecake. Both were soft and silky. The hot fudge sundae cheesecake was my favorite with just the right balance of mild cheesiness and chocolate gooiness. It should also be noted that I've also had dinner at Myers since the O'Neils took over, and though I remember some scrumptious scallops, it would be irresponsible of me to do a full review based on sketches of memory. Perhaps next time on the Trailer Chronicles...