This is a kittenish, narrow space with mustard-colored walls and little green shutters built onto them. For some reason, there are at least four waitresses, all friendly women of a certain age, where it looks as if two would do. By the back register, there is a shelf that contains a number of products from New England, such as maple cream, which is boiled syrup thickened with xanthan gum, and real maple syrup, all for sale.
Before my friends arrived, I got the jump on them by ordering the Belgian waffle, Yankee pot roast, fish and chips and a Monte Cristo sandwich—French toast stuffed with meat and cheese. They were not thrilled. I should mention that my friends are foodies from abroad, Argentina and Austria, and even though both have been here half their lives, they are still unused to such all-American excess.
I think The Maple Tree makes the best waffle in the city. They found it dense and unappealing. Yankee pot roast, adrift in a sea of thick brown gravy, wasn't as tender as, say, Austrian boiled beef, but the meat was properly beefy and the gravy delicious. They both liked the fish and chips, though, and the Vermont apple pie for dessert, which would have been better without the slurry of whipped cream on top. "Is that real cream?" one of them asked, when the pie arrived. "That's what it says on the can," came the reply.
Having grown up in New England, I'm used to this type of dry humor, and that goes double for real maple syrup, without which I will eat no pancake. Pancakes are terrific in here, yeasty, springy and light, served in stacks of three, with pure Vermont maple syrup and fresh whipped butter. Ditto the waffle, a good 3 inches high. A quarter of one will feed a normal person.
I'd come back anytime for the gargantuan breakfasts. Biscuits and gravy rival any I've had around here: a platter of thick country gravy laced with bits of sausage and nicely hot biscuits redolent of baking powder. The dish comes with two eggs any style, diced potato and a choice of bacon or sausage. Have the sausage.
There are creative choices for breakfast as well. One is the New England Benny, crab cakes, instead of Canadian bacon, on poached eggs, a nice innovation. There is a Reuben omelet, too, filled with sliced corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese, and served with a choice of a maple muffin or New England-style brown bread. Have the muffin.
Regarding the lunch dishes, restraint may be called for. Many come with a choice of soup or salad, and I'd recommend one of the homemade soups, a nice turkey rice, for instance, or my favorite, cheesy potato and bacon, so thick a spoon stands up in it. In addition to the pot roast, there is a nice herb-roasted chicken, a maple-glazed, bone-in ham steak and baby back ribs, served with fries and maple-baked beans, naturally.
The fish in the fish and chips is beer-battered cod, and even though ours was overfried, it was still good, thanks to Samuel Adams, another New England product, in the batter. I can't say I was overly impressed with the fries, though. They are the battered type, which for me is the very definition of overkill.
Sandwiches hit the mark nicely, too. For some reason, the meat in the beef dip, sliced brisket on a hoagie roll, was softer than the pot roast. You can have Yankee pot roast in a sandwich here, as well, with lettuce, red onion, tomato and spiced mayo. But I'd go for a maple Swiss burger, ground meat smothered with maple-caramelized onions and cheese. As one wag said of Wagner's music, it's better than it sounds.
For dessert, have them leave the whipped cream off the pie, which has a nice crust, or have a maple frappe, a maple-flavored milkshake in which the whipped cream serves as a reminder that we are all mere mortals, and even more so if you plan to finish this thing.