Copper Center Roadhouse

I had to travel to Copper Center for work a couple of weeks ago. The rural road system in Alaska is pretty horrendous, food-wise, so I was pleasantly surprised by the Copper Center Roadhouse.

The lodge has been open for close to 100 years, and it offers the best food choices (by far) in the Glennallen-Copper Center-Tazlina area.

I ate three of my meals there, two dinners and a breakfast, and I would highly recommend it to anyone traveling through the area. Breakfast in particular was outstanding. I ordered cajun chicken fetticuini one evening and it was prepared exactly how I had hoped (I cooked this dish alot when I worked at the Pumphouse in Fairbanks).

Breakfast is where the Copper Center Roadhouse really shined. The breakfasts are huge. The sourdough pancakes are made with 100 year old starter. The bacon and sausage are locally sourced and excellent quality.

I ordered a ‘mini’ Sourdough Breakfast that came with two sourdough pancakes, each the size of a pizza. It came with bacon, eggs, and coffee. Three people could easily split this breakfast. It was a perfect Road breakfast.

I strongly recommend the Copper Center Roadhouse to anybody traveling through the Copper Center area, especially if they are there before 11am.

While the pancakes were worth noting, more significant was the corner convenience mart which also sold pigs by the half, in addition to cheetos and boxes of white zin..

The nearby community of Kenny Lake is the site of one of Alaska’s most established small farm pork producers, and the corner store in Copper Center has the meat available for $3.95/pound when you buy it by the half. It was a bit of an unorthodox souvenir, but I had to buy one and try it out. I was told that the meat from this farm is sometimes available at a game processor located in Palmer, and that they are working on marketing the pork into the mainstream consumer circles in the Anchorage bowl.

The first test was some pork chops which proved to be excellent, and next will be a baked pork leg (the ham before it is ‘hammed’).

Charlie's Bakery

Charlie's Bakery is a small, family owned bakery and Chinese restaurant located in a strip mall in midtown. Both aspects of the location are pluses because if a place can stay busy for years and is able to do so without a high profile or shi-shi ambiance, the food is probably good.

We hit Charlie's about once per month for their Saturday dim sum. The dim sum set up at Charlie's is a not like the dim sum halls I've seen in NYC, San Francisco, Honolulu, or Tucson where waiters push around steamer carts and you pick your items as you go. I really like that style of dim sum, but at Charlie's you go to the counter and order your food and then they bring it to your table. Again, part of what I like about saturday morning dim sum is the carts and kettles of tea and general buzzing about on a busy weekend. However, Charlie's food more than makes up for any loss of sense of fun.

I would rank the food served for Saturday dim sum to be above avaerage when compared to the other places I have eaten. I have had better at a couple places in NYC's Chinatown and at one place in Honolulu, but it beats the rest.

The options are quite varied, flavorful, and well-prepared. As far as I can tell, the majority of the menu items are prepared in house and from scratch. There is a great variety and the prices are good. Two people can have a good meal for $20, and they can get fat for $30.


The baked good are above average, and the breads in particular are good. I haven't tried the filled rolls, but I've been told they are a tasty, cheap breakfast when you are on your way to the Kenai to go fishing.

It is a family business with a half dozen different people from several generations all pitching in, which is something I personally like to see. Also, the kitchen is very open and is well laid out and is spotless.

The Chinese entrees are typically excellent, the best I've seen in Anchorage, and comparable to what I was used to at the better places I frequented in Honolulu.

It may seem counter-intuitive to go to a bakery for the best Chinese food in the city, but there you have it.

Good Food in Anchorage, Alaska

My goal here is to document some of the better food resources in the greater Anchorage area. I am going to start out posting about just the good stuff. I'm going to ignore the for the time being. There are so many bad options out there it would take a long, long time to get through them all.

Instead I want people to be able to use what I post here to never eat a bad meal during their stay in southcentral Alaska.

When I get bored of this I will start to comment on the bad, and basically make a tit of myself.