A Tasty Lunch at The Field at Toftrees

I had lunch plans on this day to meet with dear old friends at The Field at Toftrees, a restaurant most of us had never eaten at before. I may not say this often about a new place, but I was absolutely delighted with the experience.

The venue was spacious, airy, full of beautiful light, and had great views out every window. The server was possibly the best I've experienced in this town; as good as I've ever had anywhere, ever, for that matter. Just the right combination of friendly, chatty, helpful, attentive, and fun.

And the food, well the food . . . we all raved about it! A friend sitting next to me, who doesn't usually carry on about food, was chattering on and on in absolute glee about how awesome her burger was.

The set of treats in this photo was my own lunch: a large serving of French onion soup and an order of onion rings with smoky horseradish cream dip. They look small in the picture because of the angle they were photographed at, but do not be fooled by the optical illusion: each crispy, golden onion ring was as big as a bracelet.

And the French onion soup . . . well, I am swooning just thinking about it. It was chock full of melted cheese, and I made a mess trying to eat it. Cheese everywhere! It was among the very best French onion soup I know of in the State College area. And I don't say that lightly.

There were quite a few items on the menu that I wanted to try, but even I couldn't eat them all at once. They have a whole menu of milkshakes and desserts we didn't even get to: for instance, the salted caramel pretzel milkshake. Oh my! Yes, indeed, I will be back!

The server, by the way, mentioned that fries and onion rings are half-price during happy hours each weekday from 4 to 6 p.m. He also recommended lunch as the better time to visit, as it can grow quite crowded at dinner time, with up to a two-hour wait to be seated.  (!!!!)

It might seem kind of strange that I had two onion dishes as my lunch, but it was doubly delightful - and also about twice the amount of food that I could actually eat - so I had several onion rings and about half of my soup left over for later, pity poor me. . . .  ;-)

The song to accompany this delicious posting has to be something about happiness, so here is Blood, Sweat, & Tears, with You Made Me So Very Happy. 

P.S. (Added later.) I forgot to say that my friends and I had a delightful time catching up. Yeah, there were people there with me and we had a good visit, in addition to eating all of this tasty food. . . .