Pinnacle Mountain Lodge

We were driving back to Anchorage on the Glenn Highway after a sunny weekend of not catching fish on the Klutina River when we decided to stop and walk Goatboy for a bit. We were in a caravan with my mom's RV so we needed to find a place that is relatively easy to pull on and off of but that would still be interesting. We pulled into the Pinnacle Mountain Lodge mostly because they had a long, linear driveway and a collection of what I guess might be called tractor art.


The lodge is located about 20 miles east of Palmer, in a townsite called Chickaloon. Once part of the Mat-Su agricultural region, not much happens in Chickaloon nowadays and that is sort of the case with this lodge. It's quiet, out of the way, and easily overlooked but I think the owners prefer that.


Besides the tractor art, there was also all sorts of animals walking around: goats, alpacas, llamas, ducks, and geese. Inside, on the specials board, was an announcement that today one of the specials was a goat burger. Goat is a common meat in most parts of the world, but I rarely see it outside of some specific neighborhoods in Honolulu and the Southwest. I asked the lodge owner where her goat was from and she pointed out the window. It turns out this lodge produces much of the food they sell, including the goat, pork and bacon, poultry, and eggs. They also buy all their seasonal produce from people who live up the road from the lodge.


The burger was really good, and the bacon was definitly not mass-produced. They also bake excellent pies (we tried the key lime), and if you get there early they sell both chicken and duck eggs by the dozen, but they sell out quick. Everything far exceeded my expectations and I always like to frequent local food sources, and these folks seemed well connected and deliberate about what they are doing.


If you are heading out the Glenn Highway be sure to stop here. Next time I'm going to order breakfast; their biggest sellers is a hashbrown scramble called "The Valley Trash".

Thai Village

For some reason (I have my theories) Fairbanks has a disproportionate number of Thai restaurants for its size, and they are by and large good places to eat. Thai food is one of the areas in which Anchorage falls short.

We've been to several Thai places and all have their relative strengths and weaknesses. This past week we dined at a Thai restaurant in the the low rent neighborhood of Muldoon.


Housed, like so many ethnic restaurants in Alaska, in a former fastfood restaurant (likely a Pizza Hut in the pipeline days), Thai Village does a couple things really well, and some others just acceptably.


The service was great in the way a true family run restaurant can be; multi-generational, joking, and very slow. I like that, though.


The larb (beef salad) was average. It had a tang to it and crisp lettuce to wrap it with, but it wasn't dusted with rice flour the way I like. I would order it again, though. The pad thai was hot, which was a first in Anchorage, but it was also too sweet for my preferences. Where Thai Village scored was with the panang curry. It was the best I've had in a while, and makes Thai Village worth a stop if you want Thai food on the east side of town.