Notchland Inn

John's birthday is on Tues this year and we both decided that we would go low key/inexpensive since last year we both did huge things for our 30th. (John's- Vegas, mine- Puerto Rico)
As always I was stumped about what to do the only thing John wants that he doesn't buy himself is expensive car/stereo equipment which I will never purchase because I know nothing about those things. So I started looking early this year in hopes that I would find a hotel deal close to a skiing area. John loves to ski but has bummed that this years weather wasn't really conducive to skiing.
After lots of groupon and living social searching I found a great deal for a 2 night stay at Notchland Inn in the White Mountains. Which included $25 off of dinner at the Inn, breakfast every morning, a split of champagne, trail mix, bottled water, trail maps and a few other various items. I was excited to tell John about his gift and had planned to tell  him about it a week prior to going, this way we could make plans for which mountain we would ski on. But then last week came and it was in the 80's all week! Which was nice but totally ruined the skiing plan. Instead we did some internet research and came up with some other things we could do.

Sunday afternoon we packed up the car and headed up to the White Mountains on the way we passed the Mt Washington hotel, it was so pretty even in the drab spring landscape.

When we arrived Notchland Inn was a huge historic house.

I was a little worried because I have never stayed in a bread and breakfast type place before and they have no TV which made me concern. John is a little restless and needs something to keep him busy at all times.

Walking in the house everything was decorated with the warm cozy feeling of a mountain lodge every room had a fire place, perfect place for a winter getaway in the mountains.

We had the Jefferson room, which was the old billiard room, when the original owner had the house built in the 1800's I think.

The room was really nice, it had a little sitting area with a fireplace a huge bed and we had our own sink and bathroom. After unpacking we had about an 1/2 hour to kill before dinner so we explored the room a little and read about the history of the house.
The house was built by a guy getting away from the Boston city life way back in the day. He was a famous dentist even before they had dental schools. He was also apparently quite an odd fellow always taking things apart and putting them back together with odd parts. Each room had their own journals where past guests wrote about their experiences.

Before we knew it it was time for dinner and guess who we saw on the way down!!!

I was keeping my eyes peeled for them since we arrived. The inn keepers have 2 Bernese Mountain Dogs or BMD as we in the biz call them. (I work doing cancer research for dogs for those of you that are new to my blog) This is Crawford in the picture he was a big boy almost as big as me (even though it doesn't look like it from the picture)!

Walking into the dining area it was really nicely set up. They had individual tables for couples or families to sit at and a ton of windows so you get a great view of the mountains and yard while your eating.

John and I of course picked a table right next to the windows and  we had the warm fireplace to our right.

It was really quite romantical.

half of my handsome dates head, not sure what happen

 

 We had a waiter for the evening who was really great!  We both started off with cocktails, a champagne one for her and whiskey one for him.

The first course of the evening was soups I choose the corn chowder and John had the chicken something or other.

Holy Goodness, my soup was amazing! So creamy, it had small chunks of corn and potatoes perfect soup for a perfect setting. Next up was an appetizer I had the shrimp tempura over some type of apple compote and John the tomato mozzarella salad. 

Again both were really amazing, I had to fight with John to try the apple compote because he thought I was feeding him the shrimp (he hates shrimp). He promptly apologized when he finally gave in because it was so good!
For the entree I had the chicken picatta and John had the lamb. My chicken picatta was perfect, cooked perfectly, the sauce and flavor were great and perfect portion size. I am usually not a fan of lamb but I tried John's and it was also pretty darn good, so good in fact he kept raving about it all night. Each came with a side of green beans and roasted potatoes.

The best of of any meal dessert and it did not disappoint! I had the blueberry cobbler and John ordered the cheesecake.

After dinner they came around and offered us seconds on dessert, now who wouldn't like a place that does that. Sadly we did not get seconds because we were so stuffed!

After dinner we retired to our room to play games and enjoy a bottle of wine by the fire place. I even let John win since it was his birthday ;)