Honest Town Eats

If I’m being honest, Phantom Gourmet is all about finding local restaurants serving honest food at an honest price. So, let’s head to Honest Town Eats in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

Honest Town Eats is a cool little spot open for lunch and dinner every day, along with a killer brunch on the weekends. It’s been a local favorite for comfort food and cocktails ever since they opened a couple years ago. And as owner Dan Atella explains, it’s exactly the kind of restaurant this area was looking for.

“Honest Town Eats is sort of an eclectic collection of different varieties of foods from different backgrounds. I think a good phrase for it would be a gastropub with Asian infusion. We have everything from burgers, sandwiches, ramen bowls, rice bowls, salads, everything like that. But we really like to include the ambience and the vibe along with our food.

We think about how we greet our guests, customer service, the presentation of the food. So all of that really builds up to that nice, chill vibe that we're shooting for, for Honest Town Eats.”

Let’s start with some brunch dishes, because weekends are a great time to visit Honest Town Eats. That’s when you can get Raspberry Mascarpone Stuffed French Toast. It’s made with thick cut Texas Toast, very sweet and creamy inside, with some slivered almonds on top for added crunch.

There are super-sized Breakfast Empanadas that are golden and crispy, stuffed with bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and melted cheese. Those are pretty much irresistible.

And believe it or not, they even serve an absolutely mouthwatering Brunch Ramen! This bowl is about those savory, umami kind of flavors. It’s made with a pork broth, along with bacon, sausage, cheddar cheese, and a sunnyside egg. And the noodles pick up a hint of maple flavor, so this is like no other ramen you’ve ever tasted. Between the noodles, the broth, and all the toppings and fillings, it’s like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all packed into one big bowl.

But the best brunch dish of all might be their homemade Cereal Milk Donuts, perfect for dunking in a cup of coffee!

“So the cereal milk donuts are brunch appetizer that we offer, and it's sort of like…a bowl of cereal in the form of a donut. You've got some fruity pebbles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and some cereal milk on top as an icing…It's a really decadent way to start your brunch, for sure.”

If you come into Honest Town Eats for lunch, there are a bunch of tasty sandwiches and burgers.

Just check out the Fried Shrimp sandwich, which is like a cross between a New Orleans style Po Boy and a Vietnamese Banh Mi, packed with spicy shrimp, and pickled vegetables on a crusty baguette.

The burgers here are smashburgers. So you get those crispy, caramelized edges from when it’s literally smashed on the grill. The beef comes from a local farm, and it’s stacked on a brioche bun along with lettuce, American cheese, and their housemade bacon jam.

Or, you can really kick up the flavor with a Pork Belly Reuben.

“So the pork belly Ruben is one of my favorite dishes. It's served with thick sliced pork belly with a little bit of pickled cabbage and over that marble rye. It's just one of my favorite dishes, for sure.

I personally love pork belly. I get that really rich saltiness, and then kind of combined with the Swiss cheese and the gochu Ranch, kind of cuts into that a little bit.  But the combination is just, it's just something special, for sure.”

As for entrees, popular choices include the Banh Mi rice bowl. This features marinated pork, along with jalapenos, a perfectly cooked sunnyside egg, and pickled veggies, and there’s a pile of rice and noodles hidden underneath.

You can get an affordable plate of Steak Frites. The cuts will rotate, but it’s always served with some fresh and garlicky chimichurri sauce. And it comes with a generous side of truffle fries.

And then there’s the Honest Town Mac. This is next level macaroni and cheese, made with Cavatappi pasta, and a three cheese sauce, and it’s sprinkled with some crispy garlic crumbs over the top.

So honestly, we highly recommend heading in for meal at Honest Town Eats in Southbridge.

“We have amazing food, top quality food, unlike anywhere else in the area, you can't really get ramen bowls, rice bowls and smash burgers anywhere else in the area. So those are really popular for our customers. And if you're really looking for a nice, intimate evening or like a date night, we find that a lot of our customers really enjoy our small, intimate location and our friendly staff that really sort of works towards that end to have a nice, a nice, cozy place to come that you can really call your own, and you'll learn everybody's names and they'll learn yours.”