The Gourmez

Cocoa Cinnamon 420 W. Geer Street Central Park District Website M – Th, 7:30 am – 10:00 pm Fri – Sat, 7:30 am – Midnight Sun, 9:00 am – 9:00 pm I’ve been to Cocoa Cinnamon twice now, and I already wish I lived closer so I could watch as their amazing, thoughtful drink lists [...]

Hummingbird Bakery 771 Broad Street Old West Durham, Durham Website Lunch: $6.50 — $9.00 Hummingbird Bakery is Amy Tornquist’s, chef of Watt’s Grocery, newest venture. Watt’s is one of my go-to recommendations for dining in Durham. As a lover of all things dessert, coffee, and Watt’s Grocery, I was looking forward to trying out Hummingbird. [...]

This is the second travelogue on my adventures in Washington State in October 2012. The first covered my suggestions for a great day trip in Yakima, and this one is in the same vein. So spend a day with me in Ellensburg, located smack dab in the middle of the state. But first, we must [...]

In October, I spent 2 weeks visiting my mother and stepfather in the hills of Tieton, WA. We spent a lot of time in nearby Yakima, took car rides through the mountain passes, walked the vineyard- and orchard-lined streets of Tieton, and checked out Ellensburg. This central region of Washington is absolutely gorgeous, and I [...]

Coffee Cupping at Larry’s Beans 1507 Gavin Street, Raleigh When I accepted an invitation to check out the first coffee cupping at the Larry’s Beans roastery, I had no idea that the roastery is literally a Willy Wonka house in the middle of an industrial block of downtown Raleigh. No really, that’s Larry of Larry’s [...]

Time for more on the TerraVITA 2012 Media Farm Tour! After taking a fast, furious, and intriguing tour of the redesigned Southern Season, our group of food-loving media members hustled into our complimentary shuttle, provided by Performance Subaru, to make the journey out into the wilderness for our next stop. Okay, the wilderness was a [...]

Hello fellow food and travel lovers, I’m back! It’s been a few weeks without updates on the Gourmez, but I’m sure you managed to entertain yourselves with all those other awesome food bloggers in the Triangle or elsewhere on the Interwebs. I had a good trip to Washington, and I do have some photo blogs [...]

Jubala Village Coffee 8450 Honeycutt Road Lafayette Village, Raleigh Website $2.50 — $7.50 I have heard endless praise for Jubala since it opened in the beautiful Lafayette Village in North Raleigh about a year and a half ago. Much of that praise has centered on the coffee artistry of its baristas and on the Belgian [...]

Respite Cafe 115A South Duke Street Brightleaf, Durham Website Respite opened about six months ago around the corner from Brightleaf Square. It relies on a simple white and sky-blue color scheme and is full of light from its wall of window. In addition to the large, open main room with couches, tables, and bar tables, [...]

Our most recent weekend getaway was to Charlottesville, a college town in Virginia that also happens to be a prime tourist destination due to its central location for visiting wineries and the Blue Ridge mountains. I’d also heard that it has an impressive food scene, and I’m always game for investigating such claims. So we [...]