Date Night gets a lot of recommendations for good places to eat. Tonight’s date comes courtesy of Cousin Laura, who lives in…Southern California. She sends us to Woodstock, where her husband Mark Allen has art hanging in the Century House Tavern.

We haven’t been to “downtown” Woodstock for awhile, and in our absence, the area has become a food hotspot. The old train station has been turned into a bar. There’s a J. Christopher’s, a martini bar, and a burger joint in the vicinity. And there is the Century House, an old house that has been converted to an eatery.

The chef, Daniel Porubiansky, is from Bacchanalia. That’s all you need to know. The locals know it, and the place is packed.

We get there early, and by 6PM, they are standing two deep at the bar waiting for tables. It’s an older crowd that is spending a lot of money on whiskey by the glass and wine by the bottle. A tip if you go: don’t get a table near the bar because someones rear end will be right next to you the entire time you are eating. Fortunately, our table is away from the bar.

Mark’s art is hanging near the bar. You can have a piece for $1200. Maybe we can get you a deal.

There are about eight good beers on tap and a few others in bottles. We start the night with some dark ales.

The Ommegang Abbey is a dubbel, served in the proper Belgian chalice. On the right is a very local beer, the Red Hare Sticky Stout from Marietta. The Red Hare has a strong coffee taste. The Ommegang is the better of the two, but both are excellent beers on this cold night.

The menu has a nice cheese and meat section. We order a cheese selection.

The Green Hill Soft Cow cheese is from Thomasville, GA. It’s very brie/camembert-like in taste. It is beautifully presented, with the cutest pickles ever, and a smear of mustard, cranberry and applesauce. It’s a great beginning, although we haven’t challenged the chef yet as he didn’t cook the cheese.

The mussels are cooked, and are delicious.

It’s a big bowl and comes with frites. It’s a good thing that one of us is drinking Belgian beer. The light tomato broth is great for dipping the fries.

Although the mussels come from the “small plates” part of the menu, they are very filling. There are burgers, sandwiches, and “mainstays” on the menu. We split a mainstay, the seasonal vegetable risotto.

The picture is of half an order. You can easily share this if your date wants to. The creamy risotto is topped with root vegetables. Tonight, we get beets, Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, onions atop our Italian rice. It’s gluten free and vegetarian, so it must be good for us!

When we were seated, we were warned that they only had two servings of the dessert special left, the peanut butter chocolate pie. They are out by the time we hit dessert. Perhaps we should have ordered dessert first. We will know the next time. We are too full for dessert and walk out of Century House very satisfied with our meal.

The bottom line on Century House Tavern: Excellent. If this place were inside the perimeter, bloggers and food critics would be gushing about the food and it would be on many “top ten” lists. Take the drive to Woodstock and learn what the locals already know–Century House is serving some really good food.

Date Night Extra: Cupcakelicious
On our way back to the car, we spot a cupcake store across the street from Century House.

Yes, we are too full for dessert, but why not get a cupcake to go and eat it later? We rarely pass by an open cupcake store and we duck into Cupcakelicous.

Thankfully, ordering cupcakes is easier than pronouncing their name. They are down to the last of the cupcakes for the day, but the selection is still pretty good.

Is the person who invented the cupcake container a millionaire? It seems like a lot of plastic waste to the tree hugger in me. Back to the cupcakes, we select an almond cake with green icing.

It’s nicely flavored with almond paste that we can taste in the cupcake. The icing has an almond flavor as well. Our only complaint is the size–this is a small cupcake for $3. The cupcakes we get at Gigi’s and Camicakes are much larger and cost about the same. Cupcakeilicious recently changed ownership and maybe the new regime has larger cupcakes in their business plan.