Best Bites: Hoagie Hut

Hoagie Hut
Bellwood Shopping Center, Colchester 863-6655
Open 7 Days

by Alice Levitt

Grazing on small plates can be a deeply satisfying, sensually fulfilling experience. But my boyfriend, James, and I would rather sample a bunch of inexpensive large plates. That’s why sometimes only Hoagie Hut will do.

The owner is a former A-Ball player, and sports memorabilia takes its place on the walls alongside a mural depicting toque’d scamps running with a giant hoagie.

The genuine item is almost as big as its picture. On first glance, $8.50 might seem pricy, until a loaf of bread filled with a cow’s-worth of lean and moist, yet surprisingly grease-free steak is plopped onto the counter. I like mine with cheese and fresh sautéed green peppers, but it costs no more to add mushrooms and onions for “The Works”, just beware breakage with the precariously soft bun. A normal person can make three meals out of the thing.

The Hoagie Burger ($6.95) has to be seen to be believed. Imagine a Whopper made with fresh ingredients, including a 1/3 pound patty. Now picture two of them, side-by-side, on one humongous bun. A match between the Whopper and the Hoagie Burger is like Screech and Danny Bonaduce all over again.

My favorite dish at the Hoagie Hut is the shatteringly crisp fried chicken ($6.95). KFC — with its 11 herbs and spices — is always the control in any battered-poultry experiment, but Hoagie Hut’s sweeter version wins out. The honey-stung, ultra-thin, malt-y coating tastes a bit like a Belgian waffle. But I might just like my chicken and waffles sans waffles even better. The meal comes with wrist-thick steak fries, mayonnaise-drenched coleslaw and a roll.

If you want to be like me, get a Welch’s grape soda on the side. And if you order more than one entrée (believe it or not, there’s filet mignon and surf and turf, too!), tell them Alice sent you.

This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2009.

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