At Swag you pick your dinner and lunch selections at the beginning of the day. Breakfast is ordered when you go. There are also snacks during the cocktail hour before dinner, which is at 7:00, snacks in your room, cookies in the afternoon and ice cream in the freezer outside all day. You won’t go hungry. They have changing Experts in Residence and these folks are there to visit or dine with you and bring expertise in everything from nature, wildlife, plants, photography, to painting. Some lead hikes and others on the staff offer classes in wine, cooking, cocktails, etc. – all included in your stay. When you arrive you stop at the welcome house where they greet you with a beverage, for us champagne, and give you details about your upcoming stay. They park your car and take your bags to your room while you are driven to your cabin. Everyone is super friendly and willing to help. The Chef hosts a picnic lunch twice a week and other days lunches can be packed as a picnic. The food is not cutting edge but made with good ingredients and care for a nice finished product.
Breakfast Nov. 6
Breakfast is served from 8:00 – 10:00 and 11:00 on Sunday. It is served in the dining areas of the main house and on Sunday it is a buffet. You can mix and match and they have made-to-order omelettes, coffee selections and freshly squeezed juices.
They start you off with a pastry and beverage. Today’s pastry was almond and wonderful. I didn’t care for the juice.
My husband got the Mexican scramble which was made with local chorizo, queso cotija, charred tomato salsa, avocado crema and tortillas. He had a side of House Hash Browns. The scramble was very moist with tons of sauce which had a slightly spicy tomato flavor. The rectangle of hashbrowns was quite crisp on the exterior with grated potato inside.
Cinnamon Vanilla French toast was made with thick slices of baguette bread. It was dusted with powdered sugar and came with a good maple syrup but the toast could have been moister in the center. However when you drenched the toast with the syrup the end result was just fine. The bacon was okay.
Lunch Nov. 6
Chef’s picnic lunch is held atop Gooseberry Knob and you can hike there or they will drive you. They offer cast-iron fried chicken, bison burgers and have salad and vegetable dishes often made from produce picked on the mountain and finally a fabulous array of desserts. They have a bar at the site and lots of chairs with tables between them to sit and eat at while you enjoy the view. They also have a couple real bathrooms (not port-a-potty) on site. You got your burger or sausage from the chef and the rest was buffet. It was all good.
Breakfast Nov. 7
The beginning pastry today was a coffee cake and an apple based drink. The cake was divine but the drink was way too sweet.
My husband had the Country Breakfast which included eggs any style (over-easy), choice of grits or roasted potatoes (potatoes), bacon or sausage (bacon) and choice of toast (sourdough) and jam. It was all fine with the potatoes being particularly nice.
The Breakfast Bowl contained potatoes, greens, red onion, house smoked carnitas and was topped with a fried egg. A garnish were some wonderful onion strings that added a lot of crunch and flavor. The carnitas was more a slab of smoked pork that was tender and smoky but only good by me. The eggs sat on top of the warm pork so only one was over-easy.
The Cinnamon roll I ordered was a side and it was fabulous. Moist, doughy and loaded with cinnamon then iced – I should have just had a couple of these for breakfast.
Cheddar scallion biscuit with and without gravy were sides that we ordered as the pastry chef had talked about her biscuits during the cooking class. They were too heavy in my opinion and the gravy was dull.
Lunch Nov 7
The day we left they packed us a lunch with a wrap and traditional sandwich, chips, salad and some sweet bars. Then they loaded the car with waters and granola bar snacks. It was a good looking lunch but we were very full still from breakfast but I know the rental car people enjoyed all the treats.
