{"id":1983,"date":"2015-07-07T19:40:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T02:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2015-07-07T19:40:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T02:40:51","slug":"escape-the-ordinary-at-the-laundry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/lifestyle\/1983\/escape-the-ordinary-at-the-laundry","title":{"rendered":"Escape the ordinary at The Laundry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"crust\"<\/a>Wishing to escape the chain restaurant chokehold, I fashioned a fling to Fenton to experience \u2018The Laundry\u201d \u2013 a one-of-a-kind destination restaurant bursting with culinary creativity, color, and whimsy. The bistro-style, casual operation occupies the corner of Shiawassee and Adelaide (smack between I-75 and US 23 an hours\u2019 drive from Lansing). The Laundry\u2019s \u201ccampus\u201d includes indoor and outdoor seating (on delightfully funky mismatched kitchen chairs); a casual craft cocktail bar; the in-house \u201cLynchpin Brewery\u201d with an adjacent outdoor bier garden dubbed \u201cthe \u2018stube;\u201d the pr\u00eat a porter carry-out \u201cside door,\u201d (after all the building was originally a laundry); an on-site, organic\u00a0vegetable and herb garden with a rooftop \u201cBee\u2019s Knees\u201d hive for homemade honey; and a sense of humor (for instance the check arrived in a folder marked \u201cthe damage.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Chef Jody Brunori takes his food seriously, though. The volume of sandwich choices alone had me wishing I\u2019d studied the menus online at www.LunchAndBeyond.com<\/a> before I\u2019d arrived. The Pork n\u2019 Porridge breakfast pairs ham with Vermont cheddar grits under eggs atop a housemade biscuit covered with red-eye gravy. Prefer pancakes? Bacon n\u2019 Brie adds those two items to the fluffy buttermilk mix; while the Fat Elvis layers in peanut butter with \u201c\u2019nannas.\u201d In other words, this ship is hip!<\/p>\n

Owner Mark Hamel\u2019s father Bob, who instilled the entrepreneurial mindset his son has amplified to abundance, used to wake early every morning and drive to Ann Arbor\u2019s famed Zingerman\u2019s to pick up bread. Now instead, two blocks from The Laundry, the Hamels have opened \u201cCrust,\u201d a wholesale and retail artisan baking company from which The Laundry\u2019s 89 exquisite sandwich variations (think flavored cream cheese, raspberry preserves, avocado, hummus, etc as accompaniments to turkey, veggies, bacon and beef) are squeezed between fresh made pretzel buns, Bowery Rye, Henry St. Provincial, Challah, Downtown Brown, City White, 104 Sourdough, and Saskatoon Prairie Seed breads. Like Zimmerman\u2019s, Crust is shipping breads to every state in the nation while its brown sugar and honey-glazed cinnamon rolls are featured in the Williams-Sonoma catalog.<\/p>\n

\"LaundryGarden\"<\/a>

The Laundry’s on-site, organic garden uses only coffee grounds, vegetable scraps and brewery grain to fertilize its vegetables. (photo by Harrison Shiels)<\/p><\/div>\n

What \u201cThe Laundry\u201d dubs \u201cSupple Suppers\u201d begin daily at 4pm and include the likes of Buffalo Chicken Waffles; Duck Breast with Pomegranate Molasses; Seared Scallops with Chorizo and Corn Succotash; Osso Bucco; and The Laundry\u2019s classic French favorite: Coq au vin: boneless chicken thighs braised in rich red wine sauce paired with Boursin mashed potatoes and vegetable du jour.<\/p>\n

For a morning, midday or evening getaway, The Laundry and Crust, with their varied tastes and textures, merit time spent looking, lingering and loitering.<\/p>\n

By the way the Hamel\u2019s next colorful addition to the old-fashioned Downtown Fenton scene is a venture they\u2019re describing as a \u201cbarbershop speakeasy.\u201d Shave and a haircut with a scotch!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at\u00a0<\/em>InviteYourself@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0or via TravelTattler.com\u00a0His talk show can be heard weekday mornings in\u00a0Lansing\u00a0on 92.1 FM and Fox 47 TV<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wishing to escape the chain restaurant chokehold, I fashioned a fling to Fenton to experience \u2018The Laundry\u201d \u2013 a one-of-a-kind… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[998736,4480,2200,998739,998740,2834,980598,1044566,998735],"class_list":["post-1983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-the-laundry","tag-organic","tag-natural","tag-duck-breast","tag-chorizo","tag-michigan","tag-restaurant","tag-lifestyle","tag-fenton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2015\/07\/crust.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2018,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions\/2018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}