The Gourmez

Beyu Caffé 335 West Main Street Downtown Durham Website Breakfast, Lunch: $4–$10 Dinner: $8–$18 Desserts: $2–$5 Cocktails: $5.75–$9 Coffee: $1.60–$4.50 This review comes from three separate trips to Beyu Caffé (pronounced Be You); one for dessert and coffee, one for dessert and cocktails, and one for breakfast and coffee. There have been mixed reviews on [...]

Tozai Snow Maiden Kyoto, Japan Snow Maiden is a junmai nigori sake; in other words, it’s sake made with no added alcohol, only pure rice water with yeast, and is unfiltered. I’ve enjoyed unfiltered sake before, so figured why not try a more creamy one?  I think that was a mistake for me. You, of [...]

Trader Joe’s Reserve Growers Petite Sirah 2008 California Nice raspberry and leather nose with plenty of clove. The wine is surprisingly thin before the spices fill in the gaps. Clove is indeed one of those spices, and anise is, too. The fruit is there, but it’s second fiddle to the spice. In addition to the [...]

North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Mason Farm Road UNC Campus, Chapel Hill I checked out the NC Botanical Garden for the first time a few weeks ago, when I was in the mood for a hike. It’s run by UNC Chapel Hill and includes the Piedmont Nature Trails and the Display Garden, which features herb, [...]

Hello lovely readers, I’m going to be migrating all of my posts done previously to using WordPress software into the WordPress system over the next few days (hopefully, that’s all it will take). I’m going to try and figure out if I can stop the RSS from updating for each of these since there’ll be [...]

JJ’s Fish and Chicken 1403 South Miami Boulevard East Durham Sandwiches: $3.89–$5.50 Chicken and Seafood Dinners: $5.99–$10.99 The management asked me not to take pictures at this establishment, so I’ll just try and describe the place for you. It’s a pretty nice, clean, order-at-the-counter restaurant with some country clutter in the form of wood barrels [...]

Kiuchi Yuzu Wine Japan Yuzu is a citrus fruit native to Japan. I’ve never tried yuzu wine before, or even yuzu for that matter, so this glass will be my first impressions of both. The color is a pleasant gold with some peach highlights. The nose is strong, sweet, and reminds me of peach again. [...]

The Looking Glass 601 West Main Street Carrboro French Press Coffee: $2.50–$5.00 Bagel Panini: $4–$5.50 Burritos: $6 The Looking Glass is a newer coffee shop in Carrboro that I think is pretty fantastic. It’s not nearly as popular as Open Eye—which is great if you are looking for more assured laptop and outlet real estate. [...]

Pomegranate Lychee Martini Revolution (Downtown Durham) Website $10 This attractive drink is made with vodka, pomegranate molasses, and lychee juice. The whole lychee garnish is a great touch. The flavor is very light but nice, with the lychee taking the lead role. Other than a flash of pomegranate, the molasses mainly adds texture to the [...]

Jujube’s Semler Wine Dinner There are few things I like more than wine dinners at Jujube. For $42 per person with four courses and four glasses of wine, they really aren’t a bad deal at all. Tuesday night, I went to one with my husband and a pair of foodie friends that was hosted by [...]