Rocky Hill's "Hidden" Gem

My biker buddy Maria and I had just done about 100 miles on the last nice riding day before everybody started building their own Ark. It was time for a stretch, a lunch and a beer or two, so we wound our way through the horse and farm country off 524 near Allentown, passed through Hightstown, got to Kingston and came out in Rocky Hill.

It's a quaint little town hard by the Delaware-Raritan Canal, and it's the home of an excellent pub called the Rocky Hill Inn, which, unless you're looking for it (or a regular), you might bypass completely. Actually an old house/inn converted into a pub, you can get lost in its labyrinthine passageways and multiple rooms, but, for The PubScout's money, the real action is down at the bar.

That's where Master Chef Evan Blomgren who also serves as the Inn's official historian and unofficial cicerone, always has at least twenty rotating beers at the ready. And if you're lucky, you may get the high-energy J.P. as your bartender. He's at once knowledgeable, affable and gregarious, and chatting with him is an adventure in itself.

But the real payoff is in the beers and the food. We sat at the corner of the bar--I was actually occupying "The Farmer's dedicated seat, and there's quite a story about his legend--and ordered a Lord Hobo Virtuoso. It's a DIPA/Imperial IPA that clocks in at 8.8%, and, as Lady Maria will attest, it's simply phenomenal.

I coupled it with an RHI Pub Burger, and--no lie--it was the best burger I've had anywhere in many miles. Maria paired hers with a Blackened Shrimp Spinach Salad, which she said was equally praiseworthy. Apparently, Chef Evan, in his role as General Factotum, knows his way around the scullery, too.

But just as rewarding was our kibitzing with regulars Jeff, Gary and Judy, wrapped around the bar near us. A half-hour's chat with them made us realize that the RHI is a very good place to be a regular at (pardon the grammatical anomaly). When none other than Winston Churchill was reprimanded by a blue-nose lady for ending a sentence with a preposition, his response was, "That's the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put."

People have been coming to this place longer than I've been alive--and that's saying something. It was founded in 1745, for God's sake. And that's long before America was born. There is some evidence that General George Washington himself, who established a residence right around the corner in Rockingham, knew the guy who built the inn, a Mr. Harrison. And it is highly likely that the father of our country visited the place, and quaffed and dined there.