242 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 865-0226

It's been almost two years since 99 Asian Market added "Eatery" to its name, set up some simple seating and expanded its menu beyond made-to-order banh mi and a hot bar.

I've eaten there plenty of times since, but for some reason, I've never shared the love on this blog. Perhaps I wanted to keep the secret to myself.

I usually order the same thing; the grilled pork bun (noodle salad) and an order of egg rolls are all I need. But while those are both excellent, they're not what make 99 special.

34 State St., Montpelier, no phone

Some restaurateurs try to make an impact with the size of their menus. Others are confident enough to know that it's the motion in the kitchen that counts.

With only two items on its menu, Wilaiwan's Kitchen is one of the latter. When I visited the tiny Montpelier storefront last week, the line snaked out the door. With only a few tables inside and out, several diners brought plastic containers or plates from home to take some food and get out of the way.

Wilaiwan's had made a name for itself over the years as a street cart, and it was clear that Montpelierites liked it just as much as a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, even if the two choices didn't include a vegetarian option. Perhaps the restaurant's abbreviated hours also contributed to the rush I encountered. Wilaiwan's is open only from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The feel of the small space on that hot day conjured a small café in Thailand. Co-owner Wilaiwan Phonjan-Azarian prepared a green papaya salad, called som tam, in a large mortar as a fan whirred behind her. It barely cut the humid heat. 

But the crowd was justified: The gai yang was worth it. The pair of marinated chicken legs were ultra-crispy, though a little dry. The lime dressing on the crispy, refreshing som tam added flavor, too. However, a pair of sauces on the side were the intended pairings.

Dark, slightly sticky tamarind sauce was dotted with chile seeds and provided sweet heat. I preferred the pungent and tangy garlic sauce.

Lob moo, a salad of ground pork that some might know as larb, sizzled with the taste of fried basil leaves. Fresh mint added élan. Cilantro leaves and lime juice further brightened the flavor, but bird's-eye chiles added a shot of heat. In places the spice was merely warm and pleasant. Other bites made the cooling cucumbers on the side completely necessary.

Both dishes came with a side of Thai sticky rice, steamed (not boiled) in the bamboo receptacle pictured at right. Co-owner Tim Azarian, who was working the counter, explained that the relatively long-grain rice was meant to be used almost as a utensil.

My dining companion and I were instructed to ball up the rice and mash it into a glutinous mini pancake. Then, we used it to pick up the lob moo and soak up its basil-and-lime-flavored juices.

The uncommon treat added to the feeling that we weren't on State Street anymore. But when the meal was over, I was back in Montpelier — no flight necessary.

 Alice Eats is a weekly blog feature devoted to reviewing restaurants where diners can get a meal for two for less than $35. Got a restaurant you'd love to see featured? Send it to alice@sevendaysvt.com.

For one of the healthiest cities in America, Burlington suffers from a curious lack of soft-serve frozen yogurt. There's Dakin Farm in Ferrisburgh, with its heavenly frozen maple yogurt, but I can't think of another place nearby to grab a swirl of the light stuff.

So the late June opening of SoYo on Pine Street is a big deal. The owners, Sabrina Gibson and Hans Manske, committed to using local cream, maple and berries for their suite of flavors, which they based on recipes purchased from GoBerry, the bustling, minimalist yogurt place in Northhampton, Mass. 

A yogurt-head, I've visited GoBerry a lot, though I initially walked out when told that vanilla yogurt doth not flow into my cup. What the hell was a frozen yogurt place without vanilla? That was archaic and rigid froyo thinking, it turns out. GoBerry is all about fresh, local and imaginative (think green tea and strawberry-basil yogurt) with a minimum of flavor choice but a surfeit of toppings. Now I hit GoBerry whenever I drive through the Pioneer Valley.

So on a muggy day early this week, I was eager to visit SoYo for a comparative taste. I slipped in through the back hallway (painted magenta) into a Euro-style space — both neon and spare — with cinder-block walls, polished cement floors, lime green counters and a corrugated metal ceiling. Giant photos of raspberries and kiwis adorn the back wall; an enormous mural of a blue cow fills another. Bubblegum electronica played over the speakers. A pair of high tables and a long metal counter were filled with others trying to cool down.

21 Essex Way, Essex, 878-1100

When I moved here from Connecticut in 1998, baked goods from the Essex were a definitive part of my Vermont experience. The chocolate-banana-mousse birthday cakes, the raspberry Charlottes — they were key parts of the taste of my adopted state.

After the resort broke away from the New England Culinary Institute, desserts seemed to flounder. But this spring,  executive chef Arnd Sievers hired pastry chef Perrin Williams and announced that the Essex Resort & Spa would be opening a bakery — the Essex Bakery & Café — in the former Rustico's space in the Essex Shoppes & Cinema. It gave me hope for a brave, new dessert world.

It's hot. Way too hot to use a stove, and maybe even a grill. So what's for dinner, besides another salad? Ceviche! Even though I just had it for lunch yesterday and will probably have it again tomorrow, and next week.

Think of it as Mexican chirashi. This colorful tangle of fresh fish, citrus juice, peppers and cilantro is a culinary miracle in that it usually requires no heat: By marinating the fish in lemon or lime juice for a few hours, you let the acids firm up and "cook" the fish. The end product is silky, cooling and spiked with the right kind of heat (peppers).

I first had ceviche when I was 14, when an uncle whipped it together with some abalone he had caught that day off the coast of southern California. It was such an unfamiliar jumble of flavors and textures that it took me a while to warm to it. But all grown up, I'm frustrated there isn't more of it here.

161 Church St., Burlington, 881-0642

For some reason, Sky Burgers is one of those places I just don't think of when considering my Burlington dining options. I should. It's a fun concept — creative dinners in burger form.

Sunday, I finally got it together to visit Sky Burgers for the first time since opening day, when I accompanied former Seven Days food editor Suzanne Podhaizer on her First Bite meal there. I was impressed at how the menu had grown, both in scale and innovation. There were far more than house-ground beef patties and chicken breasts. Burger options now range from quinoa to lobster.

However, in the spirit of outdoor dining and the pleasant weather, I ordered exclusively from the summer specials menu. That's where I found the new-and-improved fish taco. It was slaw-covered and soggy when I tried it two and a half years ago, but it's now a darn fine replication of fish-taco flavors in patty form.

The mahi mahi patty was lightly crusted in bread crumbs to approximate the feel of fried chunks of fish. The "slaw" was still there, but much less of it and not at all soggy. In fact, until I rechecked the menu, I thought it was supposed to be plain cabbage. Pico de gallo and crispy tortilla strips added even more crunch, but it was Holy Chipotle aioli that defined the creamy, spicy flavor.

Last week I received an email from Red Hen's buyer, Hannah Conner, that the Middlesex café would soon carry pints of Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream, an Ohio brand that has picked up many accolades. On her website, creator Jeni Britton Bauer extolls the virtues of Ohio cream from grass-grazing cows, as well as her eclectic ice-cream-making crew. She writes, "We create ice creams we fall madly in love with, that we want to bathe in, that make us see million-year-old stars," — in flavors as Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk, Bangkok Peanut, and Wheatgrass Pear, & Vinho Verde. For realz.

That Red Hen would cast their ice cream net way beyond our dairy motherland to Ohio was worth a peek, especially since everything here — coffee, bread, cheese, sausage, wine — is usually spot-on delicious.

So when I stopped in yesterday and lifted the top of the ice cream case, it was a tantalizing surprise to see Jeni's rubbing shoulders with a simply packaged local brand: Stowe Ice Cream. It had just been delivered that morning, the first batch that Red Hen would ever sell, and each flavor was handwritten across the top. 

This may seem like a no-brainer for a die-hard locavore, but not for me. If I couldn't visit Ohio anytime soon, why not taste Ohio in ice cream form? And then compare it to a home-turf hero. It was hot enough, anyway.

6305 Shelburne Rd., Shelburne, 881-8822

It's shaping up to be the year of the pizza. Lately, when I haven't been dreaming of the chewy, charred crust at Pizzeria Verità, I've been trying to find time to try the pie at Folino's Pizzeria. On Sunday, I finally did.

The high-ceilinged Shelburne Road warehouse space that Folino's shares with Fiddlehead Brewing gets unpleasantly hot in the warm weather. But I wasn't staying anyway — the few indoor and outdoor tables were all full. I didn't mind retreating to my air-conditioned dinner table.

I watched as the pizzaioli crafted the pies and threw them in the 800-degree wood-burning oven. Minutes later, they emerged, ready for cutting and boxing. My salad came out of the fridge prepackaged, but my dessert, a special that day, took a little longer.

I didn't have high hopes for the prepackaged salad, but it quickly proved me wrong. The diverse mix made each bite unique. Daikon and parsley, meet cucumber and feta. A maple-balsamic vinaigrette gave the whole thing a lovely sweet-and-sour hit. The veggies were chopped so fine that, by the time I was done, some were practically pickled by the dressing, which lent a whole new taste and texture.

But the goal of the trip was pizza. First stop, Margherita.