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 of coffees, chocolates, and teas expand and evolve. Cocoa Cinnamon started out as a bike-based coffee service and opened their storefront with the support of the community through Kickstarter, more proof that Durham is a city that celebrates hard-working folks with a passion for quality ingredients and the know-how to help us appreciate them.

The space is divided into a front room with computer bars for those more inclined toward work than socialization—

Try not to love that mosaic floor.

– a cozy, talk-provoking lounge area also likely to be packed with the laptop-wielding masses—

–and a brand-spanking-new canvas-covered patio full of benches for the outdoors experience.

You can tell that Cocoa Cinnamon’s building is evolving along with its drink list if you compare that picture with the first one on the page taken back in March. Their late hours thrill me. Experimental jazz played one afternoon, and modern sitar was on during the other.

On my first visit, I opted for the al mokha from the chocolate drinking list, which had six choices at the time, all fairly traded and bearing tasting notes to craft your cup. The owners steered me toward an al mokha because I wanted chocolate with my coffee rather than coffee with my chocolate.

All Cocoa Cinnamon’s espresso drinks use triple shots extracted ristretto style, which means a shorter shot pull that results in less volume and caffeine but a richer, bolder flavor. Thus a triple is comparable to a regular double in volume and caffeine. The al mokha’s dark Gran Saman chocolate seduced me with its bitterness and nutty flavors. The mocha was only slightly sweet, which is perfect for me, and a dash of cinnamon helped it all go down. It was on the lukewarm side, but I am not one to complain about that. My tongue has been burned too many times.

On my next trip, I had a Middle Eastern iced coffee, which is made with moka java coffee slow-brewed with rose, cardamom, and vanilla.

It was delicious. The rose swims right in to your taste buds, but the cardamom’s bite stops it from being overwhelmingly floral.

After a few hours working on my fantasy novel, it was time for another boost. I chose the Dr. Durham cappuccino for my second drink.

Dr. Durham is only its nickname. The drink’s actual name is so long customers are provided with a nickname for it, which was handy for me as I did not record that long-ass title. It’s a cappuccino with house-made vanilla syrup, maca powder, ginger, and black lava salt. There is too much milk for my cappuccino preferences, but the occasional hint of salt was fun and the vanilla tasty. I’m not sure I tasted any ginger, but I think the maca powder added some pleasant texture to the drink.

Should you want some substance with your drink, Cocoa Cinnamon offers a variety of baked goods from a variety of local vendors including International Delights and Zen Cat Bakery.

Cocoa Cinnamon is proof of the evolution of the barista as a craftsman, but it doesn’t lose sight of a coffee shop’s primary purpose of being a place to relax and feel welcome and part of a community. I have no doubt they’ll be making this corner of Geer St. their own for a long time to come.

Reviewed in 15 Mar and 3 May 2013.

With a slogan like “the best yam vodka on Earth,” Covington gets out of my gate with a head start. If you are not a pun enthusiast, that may translate to a 10-second penalty. It’s made in North Carolina and thus qualifies as a local spirit for me, one that attracted my attention as soon as word of it hit the social media scene. So I was excited when a foodie friend gave me a sample bottle to taste for the blog. And yes, that is my disclaimer that my alcohol was provided for free for this post. You are such smart readers!

Vodka is a spirit I drank plenty of when I started out in the brave new world of libations, but I haven’t had it often since my tastes grew more … refined, shall we say? Naw, that’d be a lie. I just moved away from vodka-based fruity cocktails and toward the stronger stuff. So I’ve only tasted one or two vodkas for the blog before. I chilled the bottle in the freezer, as the online hive advised me, then poured it into my triple shot glass.

Yes, this is an excuse to show off my triple shot glass.

The coloration is uniformly clear. Its smell is mild and pleasant, nearing toward marshmallow with an earthiness that grounds it. The vodka has much more flavor as I drink it than I expected. That marshmallow impression remains, but that may be because yams make me think of sweet potato casseroles with marshmallow toppings. The alcohol burn is mild. The potatoes add a natural, gentle sweetness that pleases me. As it moves toward room temperature (yes, I’m a slow drinker), the alcohol gets bolder and spice comes out, but not the pie type. They are close to fenugreek or coriander. I’m intrigued by the broadening flavors, but I do think the vodka is better chilled.

Covington Sweet Potato Vodka is quite pleasant, almost like Pinnacle’s whipped cream vodka but so much less artificial in flavor and sweetness. It would make a great martini, but nothing dirty or cheesy would combine well. Perhaps a vermouth wash would work, but I’m hesitant to suggest that either. More creative thinking is needed. Maybe Lillet Blanc as a wash? You don’t want to obscure the subtle sweetness of the yams. Alas, I had only enough vodka to fill that glass, so I’m only dreaming of the possibilities.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

I didn’t find anything by way of blogger reviews. But Covington did win a 2013 Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits competition, so congratulations to them on that!

Reviewed 1 May 2013.

Durham’s Noodles & Company location.

With spring comes new dishes at many restaurants, and that includes Noodles & Company, a chain I’ve sampled a few times before. Well, readers, it’s your and my lucky day, because I was invited to come to their Erwin Rd. location in Durham to try their spring asparagus menu and you get the chance to win a coupon for a free dish of your choice! The first five commenters on this post will win.

All food and drink in this blog were provided free of charge by Noodles & Company.

Interior of the Erwin Rd. store.

About a month ago, the chain restaurant added three asparagus-centered options to their regular menu, and they are likely to be available through early summer. Let’s dine on an appetizer first.

The Asparagus Stack is a large helping of asparagus simply blanched and served with a handful each of bacon and feta cheese. It’s vibrantly presented, and the flavors match. Use the lemon to accentuate each element. I do think a sprinkling of herbs would take the dish to the next level, and it’s not that easy to eat.

The Springtime Flatbread is a more successful starter.

If you’re a mushroom lover, you’ll appreciate how thick the slices are, but as I’m not one, I pulled mine off and gave my husband double the pleasure. The bread is soft and fluffy all around. The dish’s star is the bacon, whose smokiness accentuates the asparagus and soaks into the bread. Though an unusual flatbread choice, the parmesan is perfect for this dish, lending a moderate tang that a softer cheese would not provide.

The Garden Spring Sauté is made with pesto, mushrooms, spinach, red bell peppers, red onion, feta, bacon, pecans, gluten-free fusilli, and of course, asparagus.

The ingredients provide an attractive array of greens, creams, and reds, and the fusilli’s freshness, made in-house throughout the day, is apparent. The pesto is mild, which is good because it might have detracted from the tangy feta or fresh spinach flavors otherwise. I’m not sure why pecans are used rather than pine nuts, which a Genovese pesto typically has ground into the sauce. Pine nuts would make more sense with their oily, buttery flavor than the stronger, earthier pecans do. The bell pepper and onion add a nice crunch. I’d recommend using the lemon to enhance the flavors of this dish as I did with the Asparagus Stack. It’s palatable, light, and you won’t feel guilty for eating it. How often can you say that about Italian food?

For drinks, I was again impressed with Noodles & Co.’s blackberry-jasmine iced green tea.

The flavors are subtle and taste natural rather than from a sugary mix, which lets the tea’s quality come through. Yes, folks, I’ve lived in the South for seven years, and I’m still not a sweet tea convert.

I always think a pretty presentation is worth noting, so enjoy this picture of Ben’s cup of coffee with dessert as well.

What’s that I said? Dessert? Why yes! The tres leches was the first Noodles & Company dessert I’ve tried. It’s a cute, ramekin-sized cake that comes topped with a jumbo-sized sliced strawberry.

The evaporated and sweetened, condensed milk pool is thick and delightful, and the cake is soaked about halfway through. Its texture is somewhere between white cake, angel’s food cake, and a biscuit in texture, both finely ground and dense. The strong vanilla goes great with the strawberry. Tres leches cakes vary drastically in quality and style, and I’d rank this one high on the scale because it’s not slathered in poor quality whipped cream like the last few I’ve had. The texture was somewhat odd, but the milks made it a tasty end to the meal.

So if you’re in the mood for a spring asparagus dish, Noodles & Company has your back! All three special items are worth ordering, though I give the flatbread an edge. And go ahead and spoil yourself with that tres leches cake.

Now for the fun part! First five commenters on this post will get a coupon for a free Noodles & Company dish of your choice. Make sure you include your e-mail address so I can get your physical address to send it out. Comment away!

Reviewed 3 May 13.

We parked in the Corner, which is a typical college town strip of affordable eateries and retail that I’m sure UVA’s students keep busy.

Crossing University Drive brought us to a set of entrance gates and the first appearance of mysterious marks in white paint.

Yep, that’s a double helping of “IMP.” The next mysterious mark was in the building just past the gates, part of the UVA medical center.

Hello, giant “Z”! I imagine it wouldn’t take me long to figure out what all the approved graffiti stands for, but I think I’d prefer to wonder. Across Hospital Drive is a lovely lawn peppered with literary quotes.

Hard to see, but there’s an “IMP” on Brook’s Hall in the distance.

I figured it was the campus’s main lawn, but I discovered how wrong I was as we continued our journey around the side of Brook’s Hall. The Rotunda captured our eye next, as Jefferson designed it to do as the landmark building of the campus.

Yes, that’s another “Z” and “IMP”! Not to mention a lovely sculpture.

A couple of yoga practitioners meditating below a tree in front of the Rotunda seemed picturesque.

The Rotunda is impressive, but I found the nearby University Chapel prettier.

In the midday light, the stained glass was beautifully rosy.

Right behind the chapel is the West Range, part of the large Academical Village that borders the true great lawn of the college. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

The West Range dates to the early 1800s. It is still in use today as grad student housing and contains a gorgeous meeting room used by the Jefferson Society. But what surprised me was stumbling upon Edgar Allen’s Poe’s old room, furnished with period pieces and complete with a “Press Me!” button that gives Poe’s history with UVA.

That’s my reflection, not Poe’s ghost.

If I were a UVA grad student, I would LOVE to live in the Academical Village. Walking past some hidden gardens toward the East Range only made me sadder I never had despite how hot those old brick rooms likely get in summer.

The East Range.

Right in the middle of the Ranges is the proper Lawn, and it’s a beautiful sight. On a warm Saturday afternoon, it bustled with residents, students, tour groups, and visiting families.

Also, painters painting the Rotunda.

Across McCormick Road is a statue I found fascinating because I could picture it so easily as an illustration in science fiction stories.

It’s called the Aviator and was built to honor the first UVA student who died in World War I.

Our stroll finished after wandering a little farther into the university and then up Emmett Road, passing a lovely lake on campus grounds,

and some nice flora while rounding the tennis courts back to University Drive and the Corner.

It wasn’t an informational tour of UVA, but I found myself truly appreciative of the history those amazing buildings likely contain. I think I would have loved the significance of it all if I’d been a UVA student, and it’s definitely worth an afternoon of exploration.

For the complete set of photos from our weekend Charlottesville trip, click here.

Ben at our table at Rapture.

I have blogged about Charlottesville’s downtown mall before, but the brunch that trip was not so memorable, and Charlottesville is a town that brunches, so I needed to fix that. Most places offer brunch until at least 3 pm on the weekend, and that’s a beautiful, beautiful practice for this late riser. I decided we needed to commit to the Charlottesville brunching tradition and pick a spot with seating in the middle of the downtown strip and a more inventive menu than we had before. Quick scans of posted menus as we walked led me to Rapture (303 E. Main Street).

And I am glad I chose it. A random guess would tell me it’s a spot locals probably find overpriced and overhyped, but this food blogger had little to complain about. Being brunch and vacation, I chose a cocktail to start the meal.

The Sage Cup is brandy with pear-sage scrub, a splash of Grand Marnier, and bitters. If you, like me, wondered if this meant a bush was involved in the cocktail creation, you’ll be intrigued to learn that shrub is actually a type of mixer. It combines fruits or vegetables with sugar and aged vinegar. And it explains why I could not get over how tangy every sip of this drink was. The color was attractive, and that bite from the vinegar was tantalizing. The Williams brand may disagree with me, but I’m not sure the pear and brandy combined well in this drink. I think the bitters may have heightened the dissonance, but I enjoyed pondering each sip.

My husband had the eggs benedict with country ham. Biscuits were offered instead of English muffins if you want to change it up a bit.

He ate every last bite, so I have to assume he liked it. As my plate also had the homefries (grits were the other option), I can confirm they were close to heaven. When potatoes are roasted that deeply red and tossed with a salty, spicy blend of seasonings and light flour coating, I am guaranteed to love them. The onion and red bell pepper strips are just bonus.

My dish was scrambled eggs with lump crab, asparagus, and smoked tomato coulis. The asparagus was finely diced, which added a great crunch to a silky breakfast. The crab was sweet and plentiful, and the eggs were soft-scrambled and moist. The coulis was rich and layered when I tasted it on its own, but the scramble subsumed it, so I’d have liked a good amount more of that. But it was a great brunch dish overall.

Finally, the biscuit. I loved that it was toasted on the griddle. However, it was less fluffy, more chewy, so consider your preferences before choosing it over the English muffins. I like my biscuits fluffier.

I can definitely recommend Rapture for brunch on the downtown mall. It was close to ideal, and what wasn’t ideal captured my curiosity regardless.

Reviewed 27 April 13.

Once again, Jujube proves to me that their cocktail list is second to none in the Triangle. Bangkok Fever’s ingredient list is Thai-chili-infused reposado tequila, passion fruit juice, and cinnamon salt. And it’s amazing. The essential cinnamon salt livens up every sip, playing with the spice and sweetness. Don’t be deterred by how thick the rim is—the cinnamon is never overwhelming and it has an earthier role in this than it typically does in a cocktail. I love passion fruit, and you all know I adore heat in my drink. The chili provides a moderate kick, but I’d imagine most folks would find it pretty darn spicy. The tequila’s punch is perfectly balanced with the rest of the ingredients.

More, please.

Reviewed 29 April 13.  

I do mean that last line sarcastically, because despite the plagues and natural disasters, I enjoyed both excursions to this college and foodie town. And now reading about it is your curse as a peruser of this blog, because I know how to treat you with class, too.

A friend in town recommended we spend our dinner meal at Mas (501 Monticello Road), a tapas place in the Belmont neighborhood, and so we made our way to the very popular corner spot around 10 pm.

It is definitely a happening restaurant! Even at 10, we had a short wait. There’s an inviting front patio area, but the night was too chilly for me, so we opted for a seat in the restaurant proper, which is two-level.

Upper level.

Lower level.

Apparently the upper level near the bar is hotter real estate because we were asked whether the lower level was satisfactory and at least one other waiting party turned it down. I saw nothing wrong with the lower level, and I loved the mix of materials, which shouldn’t surprise those of you who read my Chef and the Farmer post. Brick, multiple cuts and types of wood, gray concrete, and smoky glass pleased my eye.

Vibe-wise, it’s jammed with people and the speakers struggle to play Top 40s hits of years gone by loud enough to be heard. I’d call it a place to chill with friends for the evening, as long as you’re okay speaking well above a whisper. Nibble on the complimentary olive bowl, order a bottle of wine to share, and dig into tapas! All plates we had were available in larger portions for twice the price, and Mas’s ingredients are a combination of imports and goods sourced from local farmers.

That’s broccolini sautéed with garlic, olive oil, and Amontillado sherry. It’s a simple dish, but its ingredients, especially the salt sprinkle and amazing oil flavor, were exquisite despite the broccolini being a tad undercooked.

Next out was the Bikini Rosa, a sandwich made with salami, pork loin, smoked piquillo peppers, pickled onion, and fresh mozzarella.

The onion and mozzarella were the stars of this choice. Seriously, that mozzarella was amazing. But otherwise, it was just a sandwich. I’ve had much better of those. I’ve also had better chorizo offerings.

That’s hard Spanish chorizo, which is hard to do wrong, and the extra char on its exterior was great. But for $6, I want a bit more than just sliced up and served with a small crust of bread. The quality of the sausage is unquestionable, however, which was the case with pretty much all our ingredients.

For a fourth choice, we went for the brussel sprouts. Their description on the menu bears repeating: Verdantly vibrant hemispheres roasted for your pleasure with sweet cream, smoked bacon, and Manchego.

I appreciate a fanciful menu description, and Mas had plenty of those. This dish was my favorite of the night. Like the broccolini, the brussel sprouts were a tad undercooked, but overall, the dish was delicious. The mild but memorable Manchego contrasted nicely with the cream sauce, and the bacon bits had a smoky, delightful presence. Or the smokiness was from the roasted sprouts. Who cares which?! Not I.

We opted for one more to finish the night, the queso con miel.

It was griddle-fried and lavender-honey-soaked walnut bread with toasty, soft, sheep’s milk cheese. Once again, the quality of the ingredients was self-evident, and I thought all those elements combined well, especially with the bread’s crunchy outer texture giving the mushier ones something to latch onto. I could eat it by myself and feel pleasantly decadent. The cheese does get mealy when warm, if that turns you off.

By that point, the husband had moved on to a beer, so I was obligated to keep up and ordered a pisco sour.

I have no idea if this was an inventive pisco sour—the drink list was on the blackboard in the bar—but it was certainly a tasty one. The citrus was subdued, the egg froth velvety, and the bitters proportioned well.

I think Mas is a great option for relaxing with friends after a busy workday or week, but it’s probably too popular for a romantic date night. The ingredients were top-notch, and several menu items were impressive, but some veered more toward the conventional. It should be noted that conventional is always a crowd pleaser! It should also be noted that the husband was thoroughly unimpressed, but then, I don’t have any clue what will impress him most days. I swear he loved tapas when we lived in Boston.

Reviewed 26 April 13.

Kahlua Midnight strikes me as the serious older brother of the regular Kahlua we know and love. It’s a mix of rum and black coffee liqueur, and that appeals to me because I don’t take cream or sugar with my coffee, never mind that it still has sugar in there somewhere. In related news, the original Kahlua is also a coffee liqueur, but it doesn’t use the word black in taglines, therefore I am not their intended audience. It’s the little things that win me over, like one word targeted to me from a team of advertisers.

Kahlua Midnight appears a lot darker in the bottle than outside of it. I’d call it melted toffee in the glass, though the darkness comes back depending on your angle. It has moderate legs and smells of…coffee and rum! I’d ascribe almond and hazelnut notes to the smell as well.

I am tasting it at room temperature, although the bottle says it’s best as a chilled shot. It’s pretty darn good like this, smooth and sugary enough to go down easily. The rum and coffee flavors are nicely balanced. Those nutty notes show up again in the aftertaste.

I think this liqueur is pleasing on its own, but I couldn’t help but imagine it over ice with the RumChata in my alcohol cabinet (Note, in the interests of honesty, it’s an alcohol stand. But no image would have come to mind if I said stand, right?). RumChata is also rum based, and it has cream and spices in the mix. In other words, while I take my coffee black, I do not take my cocktails the same way. So I present a coffee cocktail for you …

Note, I had no orange, so no slice.

Café D’olla on a Bender
1.5 shots Kahlua Midnight
0.5 shots RumChata
0.5 shots Grand Marnier
Orange slice

Shake that alcohol up, serve it over crushed ice, and garnish with the orange slice. It’s a treat!

In both sipping and as a cocktail, Kahlua Midnight does well, preserving a cleaner coffee flavor than its more sugary sibling.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

Drink Hacker

In all honesty, Kahlua Midnight — in taste — is not a great departure from its mother, standard-grade Kahlua. The coffee is clear on the nose and the palate. Rum, as with regular Kahlua, is really just hinted at, indistinctly and more on the undercarriage of the nose than in the body, where the strong coffee character is simply overpowering to anything underneath it. It’s got more of a boozy kick in the middle, but the finish is mild, dominated by a clear, fresh-ground coffee character.

Simple Cocktails

The replacement for Kahlua Especial, Midnight is very much a Kahlua product. It has the iconic Kahlua flavor, but with less of the syrupy characteristics you find in standard Kahlua. It’s a stronger drink, too (70 proof), and … less mixable as a result. White Russians were too strong and unbalanced with Midnight, and I realized that Midnight and cream was the best fit here.

Reviewed 25 April 2013.

Hey folks, I posted this review of Bar Lusconi over at Carpe Durham last week, and I didn’t get the chance to report here until now! So here you go:

Bar Lusconi is a downtown beer and wine bar that soft-opened this week, so don’t expect perfection or a wide food selection just yet. However, I was very happy with everything we tried last night and can report no kinks in the service. There’s a great article in the Herald-Sun that covers the details of the bar opening. It’s owned by Timothy Neill and Jesse Gerstle, who opened Peccadillo last year, which is a somewhat secretive cocktail bar in downtown Carrboro. Bar Lusconi is at a readily accessible streetfront location, but right now, the main sign there’s anything going on behind the butcher-paper-covered windows is the sound of an animated crowd when you walk by. Eventually, those windows will be covered with curtains, but it’s one thing at a time for this bar. So far, that’s been renovating the space, keeping the beer and wine list stocked and the bartenders well versed in its particulars, and working on a selection of small plates from Chef Eric Akbari that will hopefully be expanded soon, once logistics of their tiny kitchen space are worked out and more dishes make their way through the bartender-approved quality assurance method.

The space is narrow, loud, and lively, and it feels bright although the lighting was mostly a warm glow from candlelight and a few overhead ceiling fans. It was packed until late last night with a crowd of mostly 30-to-40 somethings.

Owner Timothy and Dean James, one of the super friendly and knowledgeable bartenders you must make friends with, gushed about the distressed walls and white tin ceiling. We particularly liked the wood bar that lines one wall and was made from reclaimed wood found on the property. Tim is especially excited to open the small beer garden space in the back once the weather cooperates and allows him to finish renovations for it.

The beer and wine list has been chosen with care, though it is on the pricey side.

Local is not the emphasis here, but have no fear, the staff will not steer you wrong in selecting the import that’s right for you and whatever you may be munching. Beer prices vary widely depending on the size of the bottle, and the wine is available by the glass at $10 or by the bottle as well. I was entertained by the beaker used to decant our Buil & Giné 2008 Baboix Spanish red blend.

The beaker is a nod to Peccadillo’s lab-coated bartenders in Carrboro. The Manoir de Montreuil Pays d-Auge was an absolutely delicious French cider, but we did not try any beer this evening.

We did try a charcuterie and cheese plate compliments of the bar.

It was quality fare, especially the soft cheese that Dean recommended with the cider. We were also surprised with a pot du crème and some delicious dark chocolate toffee.

The pot de crème had the perfect amount of salt sprinkled on top to bring out its richness, and that toffee is to die for.

Bar Lusconi has great potential for stellar beer and wine choices without pretension. It buzzes like a NYC neighborhood bar and the passionate staff will impress you with their friendliness and skill. I’d say it’s best for starting or finishing a lively night downtown with a small group of friends who don’t mind getting cozy enough to hear each other over the din and want someone knowledgeable to guide them toward some great food and drink discoveries.

Reviewed 24 April 2013.

Spanish Wine Dinner with Laurence Vuelta at Jujube! 4/30, 7 pm, $47. Jujube’s wine dinners are my favorite in the area, and they are usually pretty affordable, which is always a plus for a food blogger like me. Charlie Deal, Jujube and Dos Perros’s chef/owner, hit some highlights of the wines and menu, describing it thusly, “When we sat down and started tasting through them [the wines], I thought it might be fun to put together a Spanish-inspired menu using Asian touches, which should be really fun for me to make and really tasty for you to eat. If I had to pick a star in the line-up, it would be the refined and effusive Terras Gauda Albarino. … Minerally, briny, but so lush and supple, all at once.  In honor of its Basque origin, we thought we’d serve it with a few pintxos, just like they might in Donastia. Well, they might if someone was working out of an Asian cupboard .Bookending the meal are a bright and lovely Cava from Gran Bach (paired with what I think is going to be an exquisite croqueta of local ham) and a friendly, yet regal Priorat, paired, as I think it should be with roasted lamb.”

Here’s the dinner menu:

JohnstonCounty country ham croqueta with Asian pear coulis
-Gran Bach Cava Brut NV

Pintxos platter of friend anchovy with almond-chile sauce
and radicchio-mizuna “ramo” with Chinese olive aioli
-Terras Gauda Albarino Abadia de San Campio 2012

Grilled quail with peanut sauce and cucumber salad
-Raimat Tempranillo 2008

Shiitakes a la Plancha
-Vina Zaca Rioja 2008

Roasted lamb with grilled onion-mixed grain salad, and yogurt sauce
-Scala dei Negre Priorat 2011

Reservations can be made at 919.960.0555.

Taste Carolina Tours Artisan Series! Next one is 4/30, 6 pm, $45. Taste Carolina is in the midst of a series of events focusing on local food producers, farmers, and chefs, and the next one is coming up on Tuesday! The series is intended as a package deal, but two events have already passed us by. The good news is that there are four more coming, and you can still buy package deals for the remaining ones if you’d like. Single event tickets go on sale the week of the event. This time around it’s Cackalacky Hot Sauce, Fullsteam Brewery, Pie Pushers, American Meltdown, and The Parlour: An Amalgamation. The event is described as follows, “Beer, hot sauce, food trucks, and ice cream? Perfect! Learn about these five local companies while enjoying food and drink. The evening will begin with a tour of Fullsteam’s Brewery and a beer tasting. Over dinner prepared by Pie Pushers, American Meltdown, and the Parlour (with off-the-menu items) and featuring Cackalacky products, we’ll talk with owners and operators of the businesses collaborating on this event. Arrive at Fullsteam at 6pm sharp. Dinner will take place inside the brewery.”

Upcoming events will focus on TOPO Distillery and the Crunkleton, several of Durham’s taquerias, and Two Chicks Farms and Panciuto. For tickets or more information, head here

Derby Day at Washington Duke! 5/4, 11:30 am to 12:00 am. Washington Duke is hosting a variety of events to celebrate the Kentucky Derby this Saturday. They are having special brunch, tea, and dinner menus, and you can watch the race over three courses if you’d like. Most intriguing to me are the special cocktails of the day: Kentucky Derby: Mint Juleps, Belmont Stakes: Black-eyed Susan, and the Preakness Stakes: White Carnation. There’s also a Derby Day hat contest! Click on the image for the complete details. As the brochure describes it, “Join us for Derby Day at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club’s Fairview Dining Room and Bull Durham Bar while watching the early show coverage, race and post show coverage on the big screens with winning Derby Day cocktail and food specials.”

Straw Valley Cafe’s Farmers’ Market! Thursdays, 4 pm to 6:30 pm. Last week, Straw Valley Cafe started hosting a farmer’s market in the parking lot in front of their cafe and Once and Again. That means you should actually be able to see it from 15-501, which is helpful for this notoriously hard to find, but amazing once you get there, cafe. Who doesn’t want another option for fresh produce in the area? Straw Valley says, “Come by to help support your local businesses and farmers and grab a snack or drink from the cafe or bar!” Their Facebook page is the best place to get more info.

I tasted this wine before purchasing it at Trader Joe’s, and I’m glad the sample convinced me to get a bottle. Its rich, medium-bodied boysenberry digs into me and won’t let go. The nose has a fleeting burst of fig newton, but is otherwise lackluster. That’s fine because the wine’s taste more than makes up for it. It’s sweet and tart in complementary proportions. Cocoa gives it depth, though that may be the chocolate-dipped apple I just ate. The texture is velvety smooth. Its tartness reminds me of aloe vera, and it’s just enough to give the wine some verve.

I will call this a gateway wine, one with no dryness so the uninitiated will think only of those bright boysenberries and how delicious it is. Could it be more complex? Of course, but I’m smiling as I drink it.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

The Vino Duo

I was surprisingly impressed with this smooth red. The nose was light as expected, consisting mostly of berries and some oak. The value of this bottle is truly in the rich, fruity flavor. The medium body featured no spice and was velvety and enjoyable. The soft, buttery finish was a perfect complement and made for a great bottle. . . . This bottle has a complex and elegant taste with fruit forward notes of cherry and blackberry. The perfect tannins and nice medium legs round out this bottle as a great buy!

Christine Ashworth on the 2010 vintage

I liked this wine. . . . It’s fruity, juicy, easy to drink yet holds up to food very well. My guess is this one will attain Slut status once it’s a little bit older. My Rating: Very Drinkable. And even though it’s over $10, I’ll buy it again!

TJ’s Wine Community on the 2010 vintage

A really spectacular Pinot Noir in my opinion. It is strong in the berry flavors and bright notes peculiar to PN, well balanced in acidity and sugars, this wine also carries a weight and full mouthfeel that may remind you of a traditionally bigger grape like a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, or Grenache.

Reviewed 29 Jan 13.

Here’s what I posted to explain the anthology in February:

Published by Stupefying Stories, the 2013 Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology is now available for free — that’s right, free! — for anyone interested in perusing the works of authors eligible for Campbell award nominations this year. What’s that? As M. David Blake, editor of Stupefying Stories explained,

Named for John W. Campbell, Jr., whose 34 years at the helm of Astounding Science Fiction (later renamed Analog) defined the “Golden Age” of the genre and launched the careers of dozens of famous writers, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer is presented annually at WorldCon to an outstanding author whose first professional work of science fiction or fantasy was published within the previous two years.

What does this have to do with me? Well, with my sale of “Bother” to Bull Spec nearing on two years ago now, I became eligible for the Campbell Award. I have absolutely no expectations of being nominated, especially because I haven’t had other speculative fiction published since then — I’ve been working on my first fantasy novel instead of sending out my short stories. But “Bother” has been reprinted in the anthology, and now’s your chance to read it for free along with other worthy works by a large list of fantastic speculative fiction authors. All for free until the Hugo nominees, including for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, are announced at the end of April.

To take advantage of this amazing access to these stories, just click here and chose the e-format you prefer at the end of the publication announcement post. And if you do read “Bother,” please let me know what you thought! Us writers do thrive on feedback.

Sweet hostess. Only dessert was sweeter.

Normally, I jump right into a review, leaving any musings on my experience for the end. This one requires more set up because Flights is in a transition period and it shows. So you should understand before I go on what we learned from the manager: Flights’ executive chef had been promoted about a month before we dined there to a regional position with Marriot Hotels. Which means the current executive chef is new to the position, so the cuisine is not as refined as it may grow to be with time. And I sincerely believe the front-house staff must also be in transition, because I have no other explanation for why we’d have a server in a fine dining restaurant mess up the sheer number of times that ours did. It was pretty ridiculous: providing a substitute glass of wine with no explanation that the requested glass was unavailable, asking for a new dinner entrée selection for an 86ed course after appetizers had already been served, sharing that the seasonal fruit selection for a dessert didn’t ever change … I could go on but that’s enough to paint a picture. When the timid, nervous man explained at the end of the meal, after confirming who ordered what for at least the third time, that it was his first night on his own, we merely nodded, having figured that out within minutes of ordering. I’m still rather surprised management allowed someone that unprepared to be a server. The poor man was really, really not ready for the dinner shift. Hopefully, by now, that’s changed, but it definitely made a difference in our impressions of dinner at Flights, which had been portrayed to me as a hidden gem of fine dining in the Triangle.

Flights could be considered a hidden gem because it’s a hotel restaurant. The entrance is in the back of the North Hills Renaissance hotel lobby. And Flights is a hotel restaurant in every sense of the word. A mixture of unobtrusive, pastel, geometric patterns on the fabrics combined with uncomfortable booths with high backs and difficult to navigate table legs, and the ubiquitous Muzak set an atmosphere that did little to remove us from the feeling of being in a hotel.

Let me also take a moment to point out I don’t get the appeal of passing around wine lists on iPads. At all. I’ve seen it in a number of restaurants, and usually, those screens look greasy and scream of germs, which was the case at Flights as well. I know paper menus are likely just as germ covered, but at least they don’t look dirty! I promise I’ll still think you’re hip without them, restaurants. Speaking of the menu, Flights offers a small selection of appetizers, salads, and entrees on their normal dinner menu, featuring a mix of Southern and Italian options, and a larger, changing small plates menu.

The small plates are affordable and plenty of food, in my experience, so I’d recommend ordering from it. But before we ordered at all, we were given amuse bouches of crab and shrimp on parmesan crostini with raspberry coulis and pesto.

They were well executed with some lively fruit to whet our appetites and the seafood kept simple. The French bread served before the meal was warm, packed with herbs, and had a great crunchy crust. So after our poor waiter’s initial awkwardness, I was hopeful the food would salvage the experience. Onward appetizers!

Friend #1 had a cup of NC sweet potato bisque with boiled peanuts and salted caramel.

She thought it was very nice and stopped short of being too creamy. More peanuts were all she’d request. Friends #2 and #3 had the café tequila pork belly with beer-battered onions, fried green tomato, and chipotle ranch.

The onion presentation was impressive, but my companions thought it made the dish difficult to eat all in one bite, and the pork belly did not go well with the greasy tomatoes. The sauce was indistinctive as well, with the chipotle flavor fading fast.

I went with a small plate offering to begin, the very creative Southern sushi.

Those pretty rolls are made up of cheddar risotto and Anson Mill grits, wild boar, a cabbage salad, apples, and bacon with barbecue sauce, sriracha, and pickled jalapeno on the side. Despite being dry, the novelty of the dish won me over. It tasted primarily of pimento cheese and bacon, and when all the elements were tasted together, it was intriguing and flavorful. Again, I was struck with the chef’s potential, and hoped the entrees would continue that good luck. Aspects of them assuredly did. Friend #1 thought her maple-brined pork chop with spice jus, cornbread pudding, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and apples was good though definitely on the sweet and syrupy side.

She would have liked the pork to be tenderer as well.

Friend #2 had the seared scallops with bacon, butter-roasted cauliflower, apple, and a cider emulsion.

It was a lovely presentation—Flights has no challenges there. The scallops were expertly done with delicious cauliflower, but the dish puzzled her overall. Not only did it get cold fast, but the different ingredients weren’t integrated at all. They all just existed on the same plate with little thought put into combining them into a dish. Friend #3 and my opinions of our Sunburst Farms’ trout with pistachio, beet risotto, field peas, and brown butter was much the same.

Parts of it were excellent, especially the buttery, crisp trout skin, but otherwise, I have no idea what the pistachios were doing on the plate or what the pretty pink but flavorless, tapioca-like, beet risotto contributed at all. There was also caviar, I assume trout, on the plate that we didn’t expect at all.  Friend #3 was particularly disappointed in the paltry offering of trout meat, which didn’t bother me because I fixated on the skin’s deliciousness. We were both surprised the field peas were actually black-eyed peas, which neither of us are fans of. Much like the scallop dish, this had some great individual elements, but none of them combined in a manner we could make out.

Dessert, however, was at a higher standard. Well, I would rank all three desserts we ordered high, but my friends didn’t quite agree.

Friend #3 had the apple spice cobbler with butter pecan gelato, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but she thought was too strong on the spice side. Being as I can eat cinnamon plain, I’d trust her opinion over mine. It was also overloaded with nuts, possibly more of those than apples.

Friend #1 had a banana cake with Myers dark rum and white chocolate that was dense with great Myers and banana flavors for me but not enough POW! for my friend.

We all agreed, however, that the hot cheesecake Friend #2 and I ordered was to die for…and I have no picture of it! This is a travesty I’m not sure I can reconcile, but my camera insists I never took a shot of it. (I now have a picture of it! Friend #1 went back and took this shot:)

All credit due to Friend #1, Laura Poole.

I must have been distracted by the giant square of cheesecake that was topped with meringue and then broiled together. It’s an impressive sight, and the warm, extra-lemony cheesecake was delicious in combination with the caramelized, crusty, bubbly meringue. I thought the sugar and spices in the graham cracker crust were also a nice touch.

The hot cheesecake was definitely the note Flights needed to go out on after the underwhelming service we received and the food that showed great possibility but not yet the follow-through to match it. For now, I can only recommend stopping at the bar for a small plate and dessert before a movie rather than taking on a full Flights dinner. Hopefully, that will change as both the front and back of this restaurant’s staff gain more experience through this transition period.

Reviewed 28 Mar 13.     

Let’s be real — Meadow of Love is a very hippie name for a spirit. And let me be realer — hippie names speak my language. I went to college in Santa Cruz, people. I’m not an ideal hippie myself, but the culture is part of my lifeblood. Meadow of Love is made in a pot still with grand wormwood, anise, florence fennel, roman wormwood, hyssop, lemon balm, and violet. I haven’t even uncorked the bottle and I’m already wishing I had patchouli lip balm on and was lazing among the wildflowers, enjoying a Pacific Ocean sunset from the sun-drenched Oakes Lawn at UCSC.

The absinthe’s color pre-louche is a lovely pastel yellow with a halo of mint green at the edges. Soft legs indicate the presence of sugar but not in large volumes. The nose of a straight shot borders on nail polish with sweet violet, anise, and mint, though the mint is likely a tingle from the lemon balm that my tongue misconstrues. It has the melting, airy texture of Laffy Taffy. Sugar dominates at first sip, but alcohol takes over with bitter floral notes and evergreen. Its potential is obvious, but a louche is definitely needed to mellow this absinthe out.

Following the bottle’s instructions, this absinthe should be louched with 3 to 5 parts water, leaving out the customary sugar cube. After my first post-louche sip, I’d agree. It has a natural sweetness, and more sugar would take away from the multiple herbal layers.

The color post-louche is nearly completely milky, preserving only a hint of yellow-green. While I do like a vivid imbiber, I appreciate the lack of chemicals in this spirit. Stick closer to a 3:1 ratio for water to absinthe; at 4:1, the flavors aren’t prominent enough. At 3:1, the alcohol is tamed and the natural sugar tantalizes, making the fennel and violet notes float down almost too easily. The texture is velvety. Grassy floral notes and licorice rise up after the sugar takes a backseat, and they beckon for a second sip, and a third … and a fourth.

Meadow of Love is perhaps a tad too at one with itself, bordering on a blend that makes those layers nearly indistinguishable. But it’s groovy, man, groovy.

Other bloggers’ thoughts:

La Fée Verte

This is a wonderful, flowery (this is the 4th time I’ve mentioned a floral characteristic for good reason), feminine absinthe. This gal is soft, clean, and wonderfully balanced, but she has plenty of flavor power. I think this absinthe can be equally appreciated by newcomers (possibly even the anise adverse) and experienced absintheurs. 90/100.

The Hooch Life

This light and dry absinthe is particularly floral with a pronounced violet flavor.

Absinthe FM The Blog

Upon opening the bottle one experiences a nice, yet not overpowering herbal aroma. It has a lovely golden-green color also. The louche forms rather quickly and is very thick and the taste has a very pleasant herbal bill, but was a bit too mild for my taste. On my second sampling I poured a bit more into the glass than I usually use, and the result was near perfection. It has a most pleasing herbal flavor with no one herb being overpowering. And it has very creamy mouth-feel also.

Reviewed 31 Mar 13.

Rise is the newest venture by Durham Catering Co. chef and owner Tom Ferguson, who you may know for that little food truck and brick and mortar store called Only Burger of which he is a part-owner. Only Burger has earned a lot of cred in the local food scene for being an essential player in the explosion of food trucks, often organizing the earliest food truck rodeos in addition to maintaining a fantastic hamburger shop and truck. The community has been paying Tom back by swamping Rise to get their hands on the handmade biscuits and cake donuts available at the shop. The creative configurations of both, think red velvet donuts and sloppy joe biscuits, change on a daily basis. You can usually find a list at their Facebook page. They also have donut seeds instead of donut holes—don’t ask me what the difference is.

I’d heard several tales of long lines at Rise, so I went with a pair of friends on a weekday rather than brave the weekend crowds. There’s not much seating, just a long counter on the side and a few patio tables, so food is taken to go.

Counter seating on the left.

Grab a number on the way in and expect a ten-minute or so wait after ordering food. The interior is kid friendly with chalkboards and an assortment of toys.

Whimsical artwork, a line of t-shirts, and bright orange walls keep the atmosphere lively. The display case is drool worthy all on its own and will keep you happy while you wait.

Pineapple-basil glaze donuts on the top. Maple bacon on the bottom.

Peanut buttercup donuts.

Chocolate chocolate cake donuts.

Bean Traders coffee is offered, which makes me happy as I’m a huge Bean Traders fan. Milk, OJ, tea, and water are also available.

My friends and I all tried a biscuit treat and a donut, because that makes life more fun. Or maybe we don’t know how to say no to anything we haven’t tried before—you decide. Biscuits are $1 to start, and there is a range of add-ons you can get for them including eggs, meat, honey, et cetera, for $0.25 to $4.00 depending on what you want. If you want more than a couple toppings, take a look at the specials menu because you might get more for your money. I opted for the huevos rancheros biscuit sandwich that came with a fried egg (I substituted scrambled), tomato salsa, white cheddar, salsa, avocado, and black bean dip (I asked them to leave that off) for $4.50.

It was a great lunch sandwich for me, the perfect size to fill me up without leaving me wanting more. The biscuits were outstanding: golden-brown, flaky, and with a satisfying crust. The salsa had an excellent melding of tomato, onion, and cilantro flavors. The cheddar really stood out, though I prefer my cheese more melted.

No picture, but I have reports from Friend #1 that the roasted butternut squash biscuit with arugula and roasted pepper relish was very delicious and packed with veggies. The pig in a blanket looked quite scrumptious as well.

It was a Farmhand Foods sausage link rolled up in biscuit dough along with sweet potato chunks and cheddar and was reportedly delicious. The chicken biscuit was also a unanimous hit at Friend #1′s workplace later that week.

The donuts earned slightly lower marks, though I award points for ingenuity. None of us tried it this day, but I’ve heard from a few friends that the pineapple donut with basil glaze and pistachios is a little too strange of a combination to make a good donut. The peanut buttercup—

–was pretty tasty according to Friend #1′s husband, but the filling was somewhat sour, which was unexpected. The maple bacon bar was declared yummy and faithful to what most people would consider an old-fashioned donut.

Friend #2 thought it was hilarious that the bacon part was just that slab of bacon on top.

My donut, however, got much higher marks than the rest, in part because I’m not usually a donut fan.

It was a banana pudding donut, and I quite loved it, from the banana chips and wafer crumbs in vanilla frosting on top to the delicious banana pudding inside. On first bite I was a bit worried because it tasted strongly of fryer grease, but that creamy pudding dominated the donut and made all my concerns go away. I was thrilled with it.

Rise is assuredly a great spot to pick up a biscuit with whatever you’d like on it, and as I’m a sucker for biscuit, egg, and cheese sandwiches, I suspect I’ll be back for plenty of those. The donuts aren’t perfect, but when the toppings and fillings hit it just right, they are quite delicious. I’m also a sucker for inventiveness, so Rise gets my highest marks even with a few imperfections.

Reviewed 3.27.13.

But enough of my behind-the-scenes issues. Here’s a teaser of my review of Sarah’s Empanadas:

Durham, N.C. — Sarah’s Empanadas is one of those lunch locations the RTP crowd keeps close to their vests. I’ve spied it many times when heading to dinner at Papa Mojo’s or Thai Lanna, but it’s only open at midday, so getting there during operating hours was a challenge—a challenge now conquered!

The Company: A pair of women whom I meet up with every month to try a new-to-us lunch location, which was quite convenient for this purpose.

The Location: A nondescript strip mall exterior hides a cozy restaurant. Inside, Sarah’s Empanadas is adorned with tropical bird decorations, creamy mint walls, and a giant, colorful mural. It’s also likely to be packed with diners and a long line of patrons paying at the register. Never fear, the cashier is speedy and has amazing credit-card-sliding reflexes….

Want to know more about the Bolivian empanada wonderland? Read on here or head to Carpe Durham for a slightly different version.  And I wouldn’t leave you without some food porn. Here’s the chicken and cheese empanada.

The nose of this white wine is subdued. Honeydew and the tickle of tannins are all I get from it. On tasting, it initially reminds me of Southern white wines with a lot of sweetness. Luckily, a healthy dose of acidity counteracts that. It’s bright and buttery, and lime, green apple, and mellow honeydew notes give way to lots of rich vanilla custard.

LaCheteau Vouvray 2011 is a good, solid, by-the-book white wine. Ultimately, though, it’s not my cup of tea wine.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

The Wannabe Sommelier

LaCheteau Vouvray is a very tasty, crisp wine. The minute I tasted it I wanted to be outside on a cool summer evening.  Maybe somewhere I would be looking at the ocean or something. This wine is perfectly priced, which made it taste even better! It tasted like green apples, sugar, pineapple, pears, and honey. It is a light yellow/gold with a hint of green. Serve at an ice-cold temp, because that makes it taste even better!

Welcome to the Wine Nook on the 2010 vintage

This Vouvray is a pretty wine, feminine, soft, slightly off dry, refreshing with a hint of orange, green apple, apricots, honeysuckle, and a nice smooth finish. First sip was slightly sweet, which makes it a very good food wine.

Reviewed 31 Jan 13.

Outside the Chef and the Farmer.

This is the third and final installment on our recent day trip to Kinston, NC. Blog 1 covered the various ways we amused ourselves by the Neuse riverfront last month. Blog 2 was on Mother Earth Brewing, which we were delighted to discover is based in downtown Kinston — oh happy Providence! This one is devoted to Chef and the Farmer, the farm-to-fork restaurant of Chef Vivian Howard, a James Beard semifinalist, and her husband, Ben Knight, an artist and the front house and beverage manager. Located just around the corner from Mother Earth Brewing at 120 W. Gordon St., it’s ideally located for a final destination on a day spent downtown.

The restaurant felt lively without feeling pretentious.

Ben deserves accolades for the interior design of the restaurant. I loved all the different textures and colors used to create a refined yet playful dining room full of odd angles. There was brick, tile, paneling, wood, and stone in a palette of dark brown, yellow, and sage green. Even the bathroom had its own bevy of materials with cork, slate, and vanilla coloring. The menu features a hodge-podge of dishes as well, with a few each in small plates, specialty grits, pizzas, salads, and entrees. The menu was heavy on grains the evening we were there.

I love that it’s printed daily and an 86ed stamp signifies any options they’ve run out of. The bread service set the stage for the meal that followed.

It was so good with rosemary, sweet potato, and caramelized onion bits. The crust was crunchy, but the centers were soft and delicious, and its fragrance was divine.

The husband and I split a salad, small plate, entrée, and dessert.

The mixed lettuce salad came with spiced pecans and some orange and grapefruit slices from Florida. It all tasted perfect with the sweet and tangy vinaigrette, and the pecans added an essential element in both texture and contrasting flavor. It’s a prime example of how good a simple salad can be if there’s enough interplay between the ingredients.

The star of the meal was definitely the creamed Carolina Gold rice with charred scallion, mullet roe, poached egg, and salsa verde. If any dish sounds similar when you go, get it. The rice, roe, and poached egg were all mushy ingredients, which is potentially off-putting but the charred flavor, green pepper chunks that tasted similar to mild Anaheims, and tang of the salsa verde did wonders to keep it interesting bite after bite.

Our entrée was hand-torn pasta with pork shoulder, ricotta, and turnip salad.

The pasta was torn into large, manageable chunks that tasted great. I didn’t expect the turnip salad, made with tangy stems and leaves from the plant, to be incorporated into the sauce, and it made the dish bitterer than I’d prefer. The pork tasted fine, but I think ground rather than pulled would work better for this dish to reduce its tendency to clump together. It was a good but didn’t live up to the expectations the rest of the meal raised. Dessert, however, did.

That was billed as pecan pie with dark chocolate/bourbon ice cream and citrus. I love, love that they rolled the pie slice in ground pecans rather than opting for a classic presentation. It tasted like no pecan pie I’ve had. Rather, the texture and flavor reminded me of yellow cake mix …which I consider a magical ingredient that makes everything taste better, so that’s a win for me. The bourbon flavor of the ice cream was great, though it wasn’t as chocolaty as I expected.

I had an espresso with dessert and my husband had a glass of port.

I have no thoughts to share on them, but not sharing the pictures would be a waste! I suppose I do have one thought: even the coffee had a pretty, thoughtful presentation.

I can recommend Chef and the Farmer without reservations — though you should probably make some of those. My complaints are confined to the entrée, and it was a good dish despite a few qualms. The rest of the food was beyond impressive and well worth a day trip to Kinston.

Reviewed 9 Mar 13.    

The Fairview Dining Room’s cheddar biscuits. Love that china!

Another spring, another media lunch preview of the new menus at the Washington Duke Inn! This was the third time I’d been invited, and getting these views into Chef Jason Cunningham’s dishes is always quite fun and delicious. In addition to a free lunch, we were gifted with whisks from Best Manufacturers, who are apparently the only company that makes whisks in America.

Whisk with the place settings.

Who knew I’d learn that little detail this afternoon? Not me, but I was certain a good meal was in store. Let’s dig in!

Each course was named after a different spring flower, and the first was Daffodil, presenting a panna cotta of Goat Lady Dairy black truffle chevre with crispy sunchoke slices, a niçoise olive, a sorrel butter crouton, and sweet dill gherkins cured in house.

All the crunch in combination with the soft cheese made for a fun dish texturally. The flavor of the sunchoke when fried was remarkable. The toast and the gherkin could have both been crisper, and I’d lose the olive, though that’s no fault of the kitchen. I’m always in favor of losing the olives.

Course Dogwood came next with a duo of appetizers: house-cured bacon wrapped around NC shrimp and served over a scallop soufflé, micro celery, and roasted yellow pepper puree and a salad of Cottle Farms kale with cannellini beans, roasted fennel, red cabbage, and lemon dressing.

I think the omnipresence of kale salads is proof us Americans have embraced tougher, bitterer greens. This is a pretty good option for the new kale lovers out there. Those were the most unique kale leaves I’ve seen served, and they were very approachable due to being young and tender. The beans’ creamy quality balanced the strong kale, fennel, and cabbage flavors. If the dressing had more lemon, and therefore more presence, it would have been a fabulous salad.

The shrimp and scallop soufflé dish definitely won this duo, however. The bacon’s flavor came through in every bite without overwhelming the softer seafood presence. I was especially impressed with the delicate richness of the souffléd scallop — I’m guessing it was dipped in an egg batter then seared to create that wonderful texture. The bell pepper sauce kept the dish vibrant.

The Magnolia course highlighted a pair of entrees. I’ll first discuss the Alaskan halibut stuffed with crab and served over smoked Carr Valley cheddar risotto, asparagus, and roasted tomato and lemongrass au jus.

The strong cheese flavor of the risotto clashed with the exquisite roasted tomato and lemongrass au jus for me. I’d enjoy the cheddar risotto in another dish, but I think this one would be better without it. The crab stuffing was dry, but that’s typical for this sort of preparation. The fish was succulent, and with the sauce and asparagus, it was delicious.

But the Carolina duckling fricassee was the assured star of the Magnolia course.

It was served with orange spaetzle, sautéed arugula, celery foam, and black garlic duck jus reduction. All those elements, except for the celery foam that likely dissolved before I realized it was there, worked really well together to make a memorable entrée. The duck was so tender and the intense black garlic flavors of the jus reduction complemented both it and the simpler spaetzle perfectly. Spaetzle has been quite popular lately on menus, and for the most part, it’s failed to impress me as anything more than a bland, spongy side offering. But this spaetzle deserves major points for that light orange flavor and what it added to the dish.

Dessert, the Azalea course, was a trio of goodness. I ate them in order of likeliest to melt.

In the foreground was a brown butter carrot financier with brown butter powder, sugared walnuts, cream cheese pineapple ice cream, and carrot coulis. Someday, I’ll figure out what makes financiers fancier than other cakes, and it’s not that they pay for the other cakes like my dining companion, Mandy of Demandy, tried to convince me. The ice cream was rich and lively; I’d definitely eat that all on its own. The sugared walnuts were nearly subsumed by the cake, ice cream, and fabulous coulis. Taken altogether, the extras livened up the cake, making for an excellent dessert.

To the left was the wildflower honey and verbena Bavarian cream with pistachio dacquoise, vanilla-poached rhubarb, and pistachio powder. I passionately love pistachio in dessert, and its main purpose here was giving it all the sweetness of a sugary breakfast cereal, which I grow up on, so score! The tanginess of the verbena gave the Bavarian cream portion a nice vibrancy, and the rhubarb was delicious.

On the far right was a frozen Limoncello mousse over a polenta pine nut cake with apricot syrup, whipped crème fraiche, and a pine nut cracker. I would liken it to eating a lemon meringue pie in one bite without the meringue but with the same tanginess. The pine nut cracker was a nice ending crunch.

Once again, with full bellies all around, lunch was over. The Washington Duke Inn will be 25 years old in November, and I can’t imagine the cuisine ever failing to live up to that legacy. The duckling fricassee and the souffléd scallop with bacon-wrapped shrimp were especially deserving of it this time around. Head in between 5:30 and 6:30 for a $30 three-course prix-fixe menu! If you get the shrimp, duck, and any of those desserts, you won’t be disappointed.

Dined with pleasure on 21 Mar 13.

This martini doesn’t have a long list of ingredients, but classic martinis never do, subsisting on quality liquor with a personalized touch of what gets the drinker’s juices flowing whether vermouth, blue-cheese-stuffed olives, or cocktail onions. The Double Black Diamond martini is even simpler than that, just Svedka citron vodka infused with fresh pineapple for 21 days and shaken up before pouring into the glass. In fact, you can see that infusion happening in the bar of most Firebird locations, layers of pineapple rings in a glass jug filled with vodka. It’s gorgeous to look at on the bar and in the glass.

This martini is a wonderfully smooth and potent drink. The pineapple coats your throat with some grit, making the lightly citrus vodka a pleasure to sip throughout a meal. If you’re worried straight vodka would be too much for you, see if the Double Black Diamond can’t change your mind.

Reviewed 20 Jan 13.

Bahama Breeze, a chain of island-resort-themed restaurants mainly located on the East Coast with a few Midwest outposts, invited me out to sample a few menu items to promote their new late night appetizer menu. From 9 pm until closing, most of their regular appetizers are now available at half the price, and if you’re a regular reader, you know anything that honors night owls appeals to me. They’ve also added some new drinks to their list of legendary island cocktails, which the press release describes as “10 authentic, custom-made drinks sourced from world-famous island bars and created with the same techniques and ingredients that made them famous.” Everything I’ve reviewed in this column was provided free of charge by Bahama Breeze.

With my husband and a friend in tow, we arrived at the 3309 Wake Forest Road location in Raleigh.

This is the only Bahama Breeze I have been to, and this was only the second time I’ve visited, the first being nearly three years ago when I checked out their White Satin cocktail. The restaurant has been crowded on both occasions, obviously a popular dining spot for this area of Raleigh. I think they do a great job of capturing the atmosphere of large, open-air resorts in the Caribbean minus two important elements: mosquitoes and humidity. I won’t complain about their absence.

Our dining room.

Drinks were first on our agenda, and we ordered from that Legendary Cocktail menu. Friend #1 ordered the zombie, and I admit being charmed by the awesome zombie head stir stick.

I’m pretty easy to win over, folks. The zombie, made with Myer’s dark rum, Barbancourt and Bacardi rums, and DeKuyper peach schnapps had less kick than these potent drinks normally do, which I consider an improvement if you’re familiar with their typically strong rum punch.

I ordered the painkiller on the recommendation of our attentive, pleasing waitress Erica. It’s a mix of Pusser’s dark rum, coconut cream, and pineapple and orange juices with a sprinkle of fresh nutmeg.

The coconut cream mellowed out the rum to more of an approachable undercurrent, and the fruit juices took a backseat to that creamy blend. The nutmeg sprinkle is key to enlivening the drink. It’s a solid concoction most fruit cocktail lovers would enjoy.

We started out with the habanero chicken wings and a warm goat cheese spread with herbed flatbread crisps.

The habanero wings would probably be the high end of spicy for most people, but for my husband and me, they could still go up a few notches. The delightful sweetness of the bbq sauce dominated. I did find its sumptuous reddish-brown coloring quite attractive, but the accompanying dip was nondescript — stirring in more fresh herbs would fix that.

The presentation of goat cheese dip in marinated, roasted red bell pepper cups was lovely. The bubbly flatbread was dusted with herbs and tasty on its own, but I think they were overwhelmed by the very creamy dip. I took managing chef Jaime Martini’s advice and cut up the bell pepper cups to eat with the dip, and wow, is that a brilliant idea! The bell pepper has enough intense, vibrant flavor to stand up to the richness of the goat cheese. The dip had a mild kick, but like the dip with the wings, I think mixing in more herbs would make it a better offering.

Next up were conch fritters with a citrus mustard sauce.

First, Bahama Breeze’s citrus mustard sauce, which occurs often on the menu, didn’t work for me at all, which doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. For me, the mustard’s earthiness was too much of a contrast with the bright apricot-like flavor. But I thought the conch fritters were fantastic, probably my favorite dish of the evening. The conch was chopped up and mixed together into balls with a healthy dose of scallions and red bell peppers for both a colorful presentation and an exciting combination of flavors. Their texture was perfect, and the ratio of batter to filling was balanced well.

We tried the beef empanadas next, served with an apple and mango salsa.

They were very heavy on the cumin, which I think is a good thing. They were also likely the juiciest empanadas I’ve had, and plenty of carrot and potato chunks mixed in with the ground beef. Friend #1 called it “stew in a pocket.” The mango and apple salsa was very nice, especially texturally with the apples’ crunch.

We were nearing our stomachs’ limits on food, but we carried on fearlessly. Friend #1 even ventured on to another cocktail, the Tropical Storm made with Hpnotiq, Malibu rum, and pineapple juice.

That was probably the best drink of the evening, surprising me with how subtle the Hpnotiq presence was in combination with the pineapple and coconut rum flavors. Hpnotiq can be a challenge to combine well in a cocktail, so that deserves accolades.

Unfortunately, our next dish, from the snack and small plates menu, was not impressive.

The fresh-baked bimini twist pretzel did not taste freshly baked at all, by which I mean it was warm and fresh out of the oven, but the dough had to be frozen and did not thaw to create a fluffy, inviting bread. The pretzel was too dense and heavy to be appetizing. Trying it with the accompanying sauces did not help, especially the cheddar and Aruba Red sauce that failed to impress me as anything more than a lukewarm béchamel, no cheese or beer flavor to speak of. Normally, I’d say my foodie taste buds were in overdrive, but my husband is a pretzel lover, and this did nothing for him.

Luckily, our last selection, from the appetizer menu, was better.

We went for the pulled pork sliders, served with a sweet barbecue sauce. NC readers, these didn’t try to mimic the vinegar-tang of your local barbecue, so no need to rise up in arms! The meat was juicy, closer to chopped than pulled in texture, and came on soft, buttery buns. They need the vinegar- and tomato-based sauce to liven them up, and crisper pickles with a strong bite would do wonders to make them more memorable, but it was a nice way to round out the meal.

I would pass on those pretzels, but the rest of the appetizers we tried were good to great, especially the conch fritters and the habanero wings. Frankly, they would all be quite a value during late night happy hour pricing when they’d come in around $4 to $6 each. The Painkiller and Zombie were good riffs on the standard cocktails, and the Tropical Storm was a fabulous, well-considered, original creation. Thanks, Bahama Breeze, for the chance to try them out!

Reviewed 19 Mar 13.

Sola’s First Anniversary, 4/5 & 4/6, all day.

Sola Coffee Cafe is having an exciting anniversary celebration with chances to win donuts for a year! Who could say no to that? Per their press release:

“Sola Coffee Café is celebrating its 1-year mark by donating $1.00 from every sale of a dozen Hot Mini donuts the weekend of April 6^th and giving away a dozen free Hot Mini Donuts a day for a year to two lucky winners.

The promotion runs all day Friday and Saturday. Live music both nights and during the day on Saturday. Counter Culture Coffee guru, Lem Butler, will oversee a “Coffees from Around the World” tasting on Friday afternoon from 1-3pm.”

Cooks & Books Dinner with Nancie McDermott, 4/11, 6 pm at the Granary

The Fearrington House restaurant and McIntyre Books launched a Cooks & Books series of dinners a few years back, pairing visiting cookbook authors with a dinner that highlights their wares. The next one features a Triangle resident cookbook author rather than a touring one,  local favorite and a friend of mine, Nancie McDermott. The theme is a Thai New Year’s Feast, and Chef Bedford has put together this fantastic menu with Nancie’s input:

First Course
Crispy Spring Rolls with Sweet-Hot Garlic Sauce / boh biah tote & nahm jeem gratiem
Savory Minced Pork on Fresh Pineapple / mah haw
Pink Grapefruit Salad with Toasted Coconut and Fresh Mint / yum som oh
Issahn-Style Pork Salad with Toasted Rice and Fresh Mint / lahp moo

Second Course
Son-in-Law Eggs / kai leuk koey

Main Course
Jasmine Rice / kao hohm mali
Panaeng Beef with Wild Lime Leaves and Coconut Cream / panaeng neua
Crispy Rice Noodles with Pork, Shrimp, and Bean Sprouts / mee grop
Chicken Coconut Soup / tome kha gai
Spinach Stir-Fried with Black Pepper and Garlic / pahk boong fai daeng
Tangy Cucumber Salad / taeng kwa dong

Dessert
Coconut & Lemongrass Custard with Mango Sorbet, Pineapple & Tamarind

Four courses with multiple dishes, an autographed copy of Nancie’s Real Thai cookbook, beverage pairings, tax, and gratuity all come to $100, which isn’t bad for dinner with the author and all that! More info here.

Starting Fresh, a Durham-based, local food cookbook project

Lastly, I wanted to make sure you were all aware of the seasonal cookbook, Starting Fresh, that Elizabeth Turnbull of Old Havana Sandwich Shop and Ali Rudel of This & That Jam are creating. Elizabeth described its mission as “The cookbook seeks to tell the story of how Durham, a former Tobacco Town, has found redemption in food, while teaching people to cook with local ingredients (of course!).” They’ve been hitting up a bunch of area food leaders, whether in coffee or the kitchen, and are posting progress updates  as they go at the Starting Fresh blog. Make sure to check it out to keep your pulse on the local food scene! The beautiful photography is worth a peek on its own.

There are, of course, a great deal more happenings in the area. In fact, I think I’ll be at Cackalacky Night at the Broad Street Cafe this Saturday to finally give that FullSteam-Cackalacky Ginger Pale Ale a try. Let me know if you go to any tasty events of your own!

Click twice for the largest view!

My husband is a fan of their Weeping Willow Wit, a Belgian-style beer that is often his choice when picking a local draft from a restaurant, so stumbling upon their brewery was especially exciting for us. Stopping in to relax at their taproom for a while was perfect after a day spent traipsing around the riverfront.  The brewery is located at 311 N. Heritage St.

Stepping inside was like entering a new world after the somewhat abandoned, but cute, downtown of Kinston.

Suddenly, we knew where all the people were! I didn’t expect such a modern style of interior design for a brewery. I loved the blue and white color scheme and all the lush drapery on the walls. They also have a fairly swanky beer garden in the back.

Red obviously dominates that area, and boy did those couches look comfy.

Mother Earth has a shifting screen near the back of the bar that lists all the brews presently available, a mix of their flagship beers and limited releases. They also have more detailed descriptions of the beers available at tables and at the bar. Ben, of course, decided on a flight to try as many as possible.

Doesn’t it look pretty with the blue lighting? And that is a lot of beer to try! Prices were darn affordable, too. With tip, four beers, and the flights, I think we made it out of there for about $25. From the flight, I enjoyed the Weeping Willow Wit, which is very floral with stone fruit notes among its grassiness. The Old Neighborhood Porter was also quite good with tantalizing cherry buried in the rich, dark ale. The winner for me, however, was the beer I picked out before trying any of the others.

The Berlack Imperial Schwartz is lighter in body than a Guinness, making for easier drinking for this beer lightweight. It still has that bitterness and warmth I like in stouts along with earthy coffee notes, so I’d choose it over Guinness anytime.

We didn’t take a tour, but those happen on the hour from 9 – 4 pm Tues – Fri and 12 – 7 pm Sat. Taproom hours are 4 – 10 Weds – Fri and 1 – 6 Sat.

My third blog on things to do in Kinston will focus on our dinner at the Chef & the Farmer. Spoiler alert! It lives up to the hype.

Last week, I attended the Country Vintner’s 2013 Trade Show stop at the Cookery, one of a few stops they made in the state to show off their current portfolio of wines to local restaurants and wine purchasers from all over. The Country Vintner is a large wine sales and marketing group that sells to our area and other states in the eastern seaboard.

For me, this was a great chance to try a lot of wines I wouldn’t normally be exposed to. So taste I did! I took no pictures, but the Cookery deserves props for the fine spread of food available to enliven our taste buds after going through wine after wine — your tongue gets dulled rather fast at these sorts of events. Lamb sausage with garlic aioli, chicken salad cups, roasted vegetables with a great garlic dip … this food was a lot better than the customary wafer crackers at a winery, let me assure you.

I thought I’d highlight a few of the wines I discovered. These ones made the strongest impressions on me, and I hope some of our local vendors picked them up so I can try them out properly in the future. As I said, I didn’t use my camera at this event, so nearly all of the images are borrowed from the websites linked for the vineyards and wineries.

The first table I stopped at was one of my favorites, La Giaretta from Valgatara, Italy. Both the I Quadretti Ripasso Valpolicella Classico Superiore 2008

and the Volpare Valpolicella Classico 2011

left lingering impressions. The Quadretti is a fuller wine with plenty of classic raspberry and chocolate notes and an aftertaste of tobacco, but the summery, light Volpare is the one that made me wish for hot summer nights on the deck.

From Avignonesi, a vineyard using organic methods in Montepulciano, the Desiderio Cortona 2008 was especially memorable with a beautiful combination of fruit flavors with a dry body.

The 50 & 50 Toscana Rosso 2007 combination of Merlot from Avignonesi and Sangiovese from Capannelle was intriguing and kept you guessing with the divergent qualities of both wineries’ grapes.

My husband’s friend Nick, wine manager at the Spirited Gourmet in Belmont, MA, and Bartholomew Broadbent, owner of Broadbent Selections and the man who invited me to come, both suggested I try Chateau Musar‘s offerings. It’s in Lebanon, and I think they may have recommended it for me because of its location in the Bekaa Valley (See, my name is Becca so the Bekaa Valley would be…okay, bad punnage. My apologies.). Their Blanc 2004 is that rare white wine I adore.

Photo borrowed from WineWatch.com.

It’s sweeter than I would normally be drawn to, but the whipped cream, kiwi, banana, and strawberry notes reminded me of a dessert my mom made with slices of those fruits stacked together and topped with whipped cream. There couldn’t be a simpler and pleasanter ending to a meal. I was also impressed with the Red 2004 full of berry, tobacco, soil, and gritty seed notes.

Photo borrowed from www.FrazierWine.co.uk

I didn’t try many wines from California this afternoon, but the ones I did really stood out, especially Talley Vineyard‘s Pinot Noir Rincon 2010 from Arroyo Grande Valley, pretty close to where I grew up.

Its berry struck me as a candied jam livened up with licorice notes, an excellent combination. I will absolutely seek that out again.

Thelema Mountain Vineyards, formerly an apple farm in Elgin, South Africa, had a great Mountain Red blend from the Western Cape region, but their Merlot 2009 from Stellenbosch impressed me more.

The nose was delicious and the strawberry, cherry, cumin, and baking spices in the glass are ones that would keep me entertained with liveliness throughout a bottle.

Finally, I tried a few keg wines from the Gotham Project and found their white options quite appealing.

The Elki Sauvignon Blanc had a great smell of vanilla and almonds, and on sipping, green apple came to the forefront of the crisp, hearty white. The Gazerra Pinot Grigio, from a high altitude in Sicily, was lighter and subtler than the Elki but both would be great wines for a casual night at the bar. Part of what makes the Gotham Project succeed at providing great wines in keg form is that they use three regional filling stations so the wines never need travel farther than 500 miles from where the kegs are filled, preserving their freshness. For NC, the filling station is located in New York City.

Thank you, Bartholomew, for the invitation, and I can’t wait to see what our local Triangle restaurants decided to add to their wine lists soon. I’ll keep an eye out for the ones this trade show opened my eyes to!

Neuse River bank.

Occasionally (often), I get a craving to head out of town and end up somewhere I’ve never been before. Some may say that relates to the cabin fever of working at home, but as I’ve always been this way, I attribute it to my wanderlust. I should put together a wanderlusters support group at some point. The only problem is that I don’t want a cure—we’d just travel together.

My most recent day trip was to Kinston, NC, two hours away from Durham, my present hometown. Part of the reason I picked it was because the Chef & the Farmer is located there. It’s garnered some of the best acclaim I’ve heard in NC over the past couple years, and their owner and chef, Vivian Howard, created some of the most memorable dishes from the East Meets West dinner at TerraVITA last fall. But the restaurant will get its own post.

The second reason I chose Kinston was because it has a lot of Ingress portals by the Neuse riverfront, Ingress being a Google game my husband is obsessed with.

Looks, it’s the husband!

He gets to run around hacking into imaginary portals; I get to wander through places I’ve never been and journey through a digestive system.

Yes, you read that right. At the Lenoir Memorial Hospital Health and Science Museum (401 W. Caswell St), located right by the river in the Neuseway Nature Park, is a giant digestive system of fiberglass. Let it be known that children are the primary targets for climbing through it, but I’m not one to let that stop me, not even in a skirt and high-heeled boots with a camera and messenger bag slung around my neck.

Deep in the bowels…

I probably should have let it stop me, because pulling myself through was a challenge! And yet I hurried on to crawl through the giant heart next.

I welcome all challenges.

The rest of the museum contains an assortment of oddities centered around fire safety—

–and the universe, being as a planetarium is also on site.

You can see the planetarium dome here.

Astronaut Becca!

The giant Operation game was especially intriguing and pretty funny to see after crawling through a digestive system.

I mourned for the discarded puppets without a puppet show to put on.

Poor creatures.

There is also a small railroad track in the Neuseway Nature Park that is closed seasonally but makes for intriguing pictures of shy animals nonetheless.

Just down the river, I was surprised to find some birds of prey on display.

They didn’t look like happy raptors, but I’m sure the people of Kinston take good care of them. The birds were probably just as fed up with winter as I was (am). After walking a bit farther down the riverbank, our time at the park was complete.

Only the train rides charge a fee, and there’s a campground on site if you’re interested in staying with the little ones for more fun. The best part of its location is that it’s easy walking distance to downtown Kinston, where we headed for the rest of the afternoon’s adventures. Next stop: the CSS Neuse reproduction vessel at the corner of Gordon and Hermitage.

The CSS Neuse is an ironclad, Confederate gunboat used in the Civil War that ran into a sandbar pretty soon after its maiden voyage. The remains lingered in the river for a century then were brought onshore to attempt restoration, a project that took place over the next fifty years. Its remains are now housed in a museum downtown (2612 W. Vernon Ave.) that is opened on a limited basis presently and should open in full by this summer.

Personally, I was happy looking at the patterns on the reproduction.

Then Ben led us through downtown in search of his portals, and I snapped at any buildings that intrigued me along the way.

Love decorative columns on storefronts.

This burnt-out building was especially beautiful. I’m not being sarcastic.

Pretty historic home.

On a Saturday afternoon, downtown was mostly abandoned, but there’s a food scene that livens up as night falls.

And as the sun set, we made our way to Mother Earth Brewing to pass some time before our Chef & the Farmer reservations.

Click twice for the largest view!

It was a pleasant surprise to realize Mother Earth is located in Kinston, too! But more on that in the next Kinston blog…if you’d like more pictures from our afternoon stroll, click here.

This dessert wine is made with Muscat grapes, which are often used to produce sweet wines and fortified wines. Its color is light amber with rose tinges, and its nose is nectarine with subtle floral qualities including that rose again.

It tastes wonderful. Certainly sweet, as expected for a dessert wine, but it’s not syrupy and the alcohol burn is gentle. The taste is predominately nectarine with maple and light butterscotch notes.

I love it! You may be surprised that loving a dessert wine is more my exception than my rule.

Other Bloggers Thoughts:

SourMashed

The Ipsus Passito di Pantelleria is a gorgeous honey color that reminded me in its tone and thickness of some of the Chardonnay ice wine I have enjoyed. Once I sampled the Ipsus Passito di Pantelleria, I found that comparison to be even more accurate. This Moscato was very thick and sweet with a lot of honey and orange. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Ipsus Passito di Pantelleria Moscato. My expectations were mixed, but by the end of the bottle they had been thoroughly exceeded.

Odd Bacchus

Sweet but balanced, with flavors of caramelized peach, orange zest, and honey. A-.

Reviewed 25 January 2013.

Maximillian’s Grill, not to be confused with Maximillian’s Pizza Kitchen next door though I’m going out on a limb and saying they’re related, appeared this year on Greg Cox’s annual list of top 20 Triangle restaurants. It always flies under my radar; I keep forgetting people have recommended it, but the placement on Cox’s list stuck it firmly in mind this time.

The menu is manic, reaching into Asian, Mexican, Southern, and Nouveau American cuisines, sometimes all in the same dish. Spiciness in many forms is its main unifier. Usually the spice is conveyed through sauces with names like hellfire, demon, and voodoo. As a lover of all things fiery and kitsch, that is not a problem for me. Our waitress deserves bonus points for remembering the details of 2 appetizer specials, 6 entrée specials, and 2 dessert specials. This is not a restaurant that dreams small.

With that sort of menu, I expected a bolder atmosphere, but Maximillian’s sticks with a cigar room and steakhouse feel. It’s pretty dark (standard apologies for the photos), and walnut wood paneled the walls. It’s also rather cold early evening, likely due to the floor-length windows and stone-tiled floor. But the place warmed up well enough when more people came in. By 7 pm, it was hopping. Contemporary pop played from hidden speakers.

The wine list underwhelmed, mainly because the cheapest glasses are $10. The cocktails are similarly priced, so I chose one of those instead, the Blood and Sand.

It took an imaginative route toward a manhattan’s flavors by combining salty caramel vodka, Dewar’s scotch, vermouth, an orange twist, and a maraschino cherry. Pretty in the glass, and I was surprised by how the caramel’s sweetness imparted bourbon characteristics to the Scotch, thus invoking my impression of it as a roundabout manhattan. The caramel note lingered pleasantly.

Friend #1 ordered us Max’s Bread Plate, a very fresh loaf of rosemary bread with balsamic, olive oil, and what is dubbed a “slurry” of fresh herbs for dipping. Chefs, I love creativity in menu writing, so I’m all over terms like slurry. Shaved asiago came on the side.

The bread was yeasty, doughy, and topped with a little melted mozzarella and herbs. Most of the table loved it, but I was on the fence. I like my bread more baked, though the rosemary flavor was unquestionably great. Watch out for the balsamic! It was potent, but its herbal qualities make it delicious in small portions.

We all had first courses, and Friends #1 and #2 opted for the lobster and shrimp bisque on special for theirs. They thought the soup was excellent, especially appreciating the chunks of shrimp. It had a mild kick. The packet of oyster crackers, however, was surprising for an establishment of this caliber. They make plenty of bread in-house — why not a slice of that instead?

Friend #3 and I had the crab and shrimp cakes. They came with a Vietnamese-style carrot and cucumber slaw and nam pla and ginger-palm sugar sauces. Cilantro was tossed over everything.

I enjoyed this dish quite a lot, especially the delicate combination of the nam pla’s fishiness with the sweetness of the ginger-palm sauce. The vegetables were raw, crunchy, and good with the sauces, but I was left thinking the dish wasn’t quite finished yet, like there was a way to better combine that salad with the crab-and-shrimp cakes. Those were tasty, and the addition of shrimp livened up an old standard. It could have used a stronger binding agent to give it more texture. Overall, the dish did not come together, but the different parts of it were good on their own.

Friend #3 and I were twins this meal, because we both ordered the pollo el magnifico as well, a cornmeal-crusted chicken breast served over a chile rellano stuffed with rice, black beans, chorizo, and corn. Guacamole was also advertised in the description.

Why yes, Maximillian’s is an appreciator of the high-pile presentation style. Why do you ask? Ignore my cheekiness because I genuinely appreciate the high pile. It always has an impressive effect. Additionally, Maximillian’s follows the school of huge entrée portions. Each one was easily two meals, and they were all served with four slices of deliciously charred zucchini. I loved the unusual chile rellano filling; usually, a rellano is chockfull of cheese with or without meat. This time, the cheese was absent, present only in the creaminess of the demon sauce. Having that potentially, but probably not in reality, healthier filling made me feel better about eating it. However, my pepper was crunchy and burnt on the bottom. The demon sauce was made of creamy white cheese and … chile oil? Whatever demon’s in it, the sauce was good. It also smothered the dish, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I think all the cornmeal batter just melted away into it. The end result was a plate full of saucy delishness (I’m sure that’s a real word somewhere) that satisfies rather than an entrée with an insightful combination of ingredients. For $19, I expect the latter, but that doesn’t mean the former isn’t tasty.

But we must talk about the guacamole. You know me, readers. You know an avocado is my second-highest rating option. Then you can understand how disappointing it was to me for a description to advertise guacamole and then end up with less than a tablespoon of it on the top of the dish. Even sadder was that the smidgeon of guacamole tasted overwhelmingly of lime. I will never recover from that grave disappointment. Friend #3 had no quality control problems with her rellano, though she was perhaps more distraught than I over the state of the guacamole.

Friend #1 had a stuffed pork entrée with spinach and polenta that she was very happy with. She called the pork robust, the fillings nice, and the fried sweet potato strips on top a definite plus. Friend #3 went for one of the many specials, an on-the-bone veal dish served over mushroom ravioli and asparagus.

I had to take a picture of that one despite the lighting — it was massive. She thought it was pretty good, though the veal a shade rarer than she prefers. It was difficult to eat the meat as presented, but the mushrooms and ravioli were delicious. The asparagus, to my palate, was slightly undercooked.

Our fabulous waitress boxed up the second halves of our dishes, which is always a nice service. Then we turned our sites to dessert. When considering their dinner menu, it’s surprising how firmly Southern the dessert offerings were:  coconut cake, bourbon pecan pie, bread pudding, and the like. We all agreed the raisin bread pudding deserved high marks for its custard qualities and great flavor. Friend #3 thought four layers of frosting and cake was overdoing it for her carrot cake, but she is not a big frosting fan. Friend #2 enjoyed the bourbon and chocolate pecan pie, but she felt the chocolate took away from the pecan pie filling.

I had the fudge brownie meltdown, which is just a brownie sundae.

What made it memorable was having it served with the gelato du jour, a rum and caramel flavor. The chocolate and walnut brownies soaked those flavors right up, making for a satisfying end to the meal. Be careful if you’re not a big fan of rum, however. It packed a punch!

My meal at Maximillian’s left me happy and satiated, but I found the restaurant lacking in terms of sophistication for the prices. The cocktail list is exempt from that conclusion, but the rest of the food, while good, was not quite there in terms of execution for a $20 to $30 a plate restaurant. I love chefs who experiment with different cuisines and styles, but I think Maximillian’s ingredients aren’t as well-paired in the final dish as they have the potential to be.

Reviewed 20 Feb 13.

Firebirds is one of the best spots to get a drink before catching a movie at Southpoint. The drinks are pricey, but aren’t they at most spots I frequent? I know what I like and that’s quality liquor and bartending, both of which chain restaurants often fail at spectacularly. Firebirds is an exception. The CocoNUT Margarita, made with 1800 coconut tequila and sweet and sour mix made in-house, is more proof of that. What makes it good is that the 1800 coconut tequila is no gimmick. It’s infused with coconut water rather than being one of those plasticky, super sugary, novelty flavors of liquor. The coconut comes through clearly and smoothly and combines with the mix to make a delicious margarita variation. You know that toasted coconut rim just makes it better.

Reviewed 20 Jan 13.

To my disappointment, Alley 26, Durham’s newest upscale bar, is not located in an alley. It takes up actual streetfront property, though I’m sure the alley beside it will be used in nicer weather than we had when I tried it in February. I was pleasantly surprised to find the bar had more than a handful of patrons at 8 pm, mostly young professionals. That’s a good sign for me because I like mid-evening drinking but I hate feeling like the only person in a joint.

The bartenders dress in today’s snazzy bar wear, namely nice vests over black pants and button-up shirts. Jazz plays over the stereo system, but none of that elevator music. Instead, a beautiful jazz lyricist sang loud and clear on the recordings. The vibe is somewhere between an antique saloon and a speakeasy with tables built of medium-colored wood and a row of benches covered by peach cushions that aren’t very comfortable but are somehow perfect because they make you feel like you’re at your cool, alcoholic great-aunt’s house. You know, Aunt Maude’s place.

(Insert standard apology for bad low-lighting pictures here. If anyone wants to be my 2.8 f/s or wider lens fairy godmother, you knock yourself out, okay?)

The Corpse Reviver No. Twenty Six, the bar’s take on the standard concoction, is made with a North Carolinian apple brandy, Lillet rosé, Aperol, lemon, and a brut rosé. It’s a distinctly fruity corpse reviver with a gorgeous color. The citrus elements of the drink are delightful, and the mild bitterness of the Aperol counteracts the nearly peach flavor of the brandy. With light fizz tickling my tongue, I found it an exquisite, vibrant drink.

My friend had the Mediterranean Homesick Blues made with cardamom, gin, rose water, and I believe, Prosecco.

The drink had many layers but managed to come across as light and refreshing.

By the time we considered our second drinks, a pair of surprise ones hit the table! That’s the privilege of (a) a good bartender, (b) being with a friend who knows said bartender, and (c) being a conspicuous taker of lowlight cocktail photographs. One of Alley 26′s bartenders, Shannon Healy Dean James, who mainly works at Peccadillo and Crook’s Corner in Carrboro (3/18, thanks for the corrections, Dean! Shannon owns Alley 26, but I did not meet him), mixed us drinks he guessed we would like based on our first choices. One was a Jack Rose variation, using the apple brandy, lemon, and grenadine. It made me think of cinnamon although it contained none.

Perhaps the apple simply conjured up notes of cinnamon in my brain? Stranger things have happened. In fact, it happens all the time when tasting wine, being as grape and wood are never my only notes.

The second surprise drink was a take on a Gold Rush, a bourbon, lemon, and honey cocktail.

After being assured we were happy with our second round, Shannon Dean joined us, and who doesn’t like a bartender who’ll share a drink with you to cap off the evening? Alley 26 has a new fan in me, and I may end up part of that handful of 8 pm regular imbibers. They do offer some nibbles as well, what I would call a standard wine bar menu of olives, charcuterie, cheese plates, and the like with a focus on locally procured ingredients. Perhaps I’ll try one of those next time. Because there will be a next time.

Reviewed 13 Feb 13.

The setting

Two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to a complimentary media dinner at Carolina Crossroads in Chapel Hill. Carolina Crossroads is located inside the Carolina Inn, which has received 4 diamonds from AAA for the last 16 years. The restaurant has received 11 consecutive 4-star AAA ratings and 13 consecutive 4-star ratings from Forbes, which is quite an accomplishment. This night was a whirlwind tour of Chef James’s winter menu offerings. By whirlwind, I mean we had twelve dishes over seven courses, counting an amuse-bouche. Insanity!

My place card.

I learned a lot about the Carolina Inn from a few of our dining companions at this dinner: Martin Armes, their publicist, and Jack Schmidt, their general manager. Both men are charming and take obvious pride in being associated with the Carolina Inn. Jack is especially proud of being part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill system and that proceeds from the inn and restaurant fund the North Carolina Collection at the UNC Library. Indeed, the Inn has a resident historian who is available to give tours about the Inn’s nearly 90-year history and the bar, with its newest remodel, shows off a large collection of illustrations from the Daily Tar Heel.

One cannot subsist on anecdotes alone, however, so Chef James started us out with a cold version of an appetizer normally served warm on the winter menu.

First, apologies for all these food pictures—my photography was not up to par this evening. Second, that’s a seared scallop served with arugula pesto, NC trout caviar, orange, and pickled radish. The caviar imparted a lot of salt that the char of the scallop soaked up beautifully. The pickled radish, orange, and pesto made a nice trio of complements.

We tried a few sandwiches offered on the lunch menu next. The smells of bread and caramelized onions were remarkable as the dishes were served.

An ahi tuna BLFGT is in front of that shot, and it was an inventive sandwich. The thick tuna helping was cooked rare, and the fried green tomatoes, bacon, and spicy aioli made for pleasant textural sandwich companions. I’d like to try it with more heat from the aioli.

I had the pulled duck confit sandwich next, which included those caramelized onions we smelled, fig preserves, and swiss cheese. It’s on the left.

It was so, so good. The classic duck and berry pairing was cleverly reproduced within a grilled cheese sandwich. The duck itself could use a little more flavor, but Chef James wrung plenty out of the bread by coating it with mayonnaise prior to grilling. That’s a trick I will be reproducing soon! The sandwich on the right, a truffle mushroom sandwich with portobello, sottocenere (a white cheese with truffles laced into it), and onion aioli will thrill the vegetarians in the group. I’m not a mushroom fan, especially portobellos, but I was impressed with the heartiness of this offering.

The next course was a popular appetizer this season that Jack is hoping to convince the chef to keep on the menu all year. I don’t blame him.

It was crispy fried oysters with a country ham leek reduction below and a sunchoke and Pernod relish up top. The platter smelled amazing, giving off that tantalizing fried aroma rather than the deep-fried stench that can sometimes take over such food. The batter was thick and crunchy, and I loved the crazy contrast that came from pairing Pernod’s anise flavor with it. I wouldn’t expect those elements to work together, but I think the leek reduction worked some magic to make it happen. That appetizer is well worth trying at the bar on a casual evening.

A pair of fresh fish entrees came next, both procured by Dock to Door, the NC seafood service founded by Amanda Miller, an always fun dining companion who was there that evening. The two of us may need to market ourselves as conversationalists for hire at these events in the future (Want to start a new business, Amanda? ☺). The offerings were white grunt with leek and yellow beet confit, celery root horseradish puree, and watercress puree on the right and triggerfish with crisped pork belly, brussel sprouts, sunchokes, and corn milk butter on the left.

First off, the corn milk butter was genius. It provided a delicate sweetness that enlivened every bite it graced. Both fishes were cooked to fluffy, pleasing textures, and the vegetables were crisp and retained enough crunch to satisfy me. I appreciated that the horseradish was very mild, but I did think the pork belly and the watercress puree were lost. I wouldn’t be surprised if having the full portion of the entrees would solve that.

Course #4, and Dish #8 if you’re counting, was chestnut and acorn squash ravioli with ricotta made in-house, winter greens, and local mushrooms.

The artfully sloppy presentation of this dish was a good touch because it called attention to the handmade, delicious raviolis, making me wish I had an Italian mother making them in my kitchen. The cheese smelled rich and tangy and was the star of the dish along with the greens.

The meats took center stage next.

From left to right, we had duck-merguez-sausage-stuffed quail, butternut squash, cauliflower, and rice middlins served with a brown butter sauce; lamb shoulder terrine with creamed cabbage, Granny Smith apple salad, and an onion vinaigrette; and pork secreto with charred green-tomato chow chow, sweet potato mustard, and a peanut “goldsotto,” meaning a risotto made with peanuts. The quail and duck sausage combination was entirely unexpected but very successful. Secreto is a rarely used cut of pork that is similar to a beef strip steak, and I must say, it should be used more often. The combination of the peanut risotto and the chow chow gave that dish an Asian-Southern fusion sensibility, and it was worth trying for the pork cut on its own. My favorite, though, was the lamb shoulder terrine, which had a pulled-meat texture though the whole slice of terrine was fried crisp. The awesome creamed cabbage and apple slaw gave plenty of tartness and richness to what could come across as a drier dish otherwise.

Finally, the dessert. Three of course, because how could we feed our gluttony with only one?

I’ll start with the warm banana bread pudding on the far end, served with salted vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. The banana livened up the bread pudding, and there was an alluring toffee crunch to its outer shell. In the middle was a play on a German chocolate cake with vanilla and toasted coconut cream and sour cherry sauces tucked inside a roulade. The heavy frosting lent a generous helping of chocolate. I preferred this style over a normal slice of German chocolate cake, especially enjoying the several tiny layers of coconut filling. But nearly everyone agreed that the red velvet and cream cheese mousse dome covered in salted pecans in the forefront was the winner. Our fellow dinners were exclaiming their love for it while I was still drooling over banana bread pudding. Its texture was light and smooth, and it had a slightly raspberry taste to my palate. Jack’s wife, Linda, pointed out that it wasn’t that sweet of a dessert and the restraint may actually be what made it so excellent. Kudos to Pastry Chef Sara Thomas.

What’s nice about these media dinners, beyond the opportunity to sample cuisine that would qualify as a rare splurge on a blogger’s budget, is the opportunity to talk with the chef and the restaurant proprietors. Chef James gave us an introduction to each of our courses–

The chef doing so at the end of our long table

–and sat down for a well-deserved break at the end the meal, fielding our questions. (Yes, readers, he is working on a rabbit entree, if your question happens to be the same as mine was.) It’s always a treat to be invited, and I want to extend my thanks to the Carolina Crossroads team for a delicious feast that conquered us all with the sheer magnitude of food and the imagination shown in the creative pairings. Try that winter menu while you can, especially the oysters, red velvet mousse, lamb terrine, and pulled duck and tuna sandwiches.

The Mississippi riverfront. Click twice for the largest view.

I bet you never thought I’d finish my New Orleans series! This is the fifth and final installment. Blog #1 was on sights to the north of Lake Pontchartrain, Blog #2 was on dining at night, and Blog #3 was on drinking at night. Blog #4 took us through the Honey Island Swamp. This time around, we’ll walk through the Garden district, stop for meals, beers, and streetcar rides, and finish the visit up with bourbon, breakfast, and one last Jackson Square view. Let’s go!

On our first morning in town, I wanted to take in some regular New Orleans street views. My husband wanted to shop and stop for several beers to recover from my fast pace. So we decided on Magazine St., where retail, food, and pretty houses are plentiful throughout the Central Business and Garden districts.

Heading out.

Surrey’s Café and Juice Bar (1418 Magazine St.) was our choice for breakfast because it’s highly recommended among locals on Yelp.

It’s cash only, and it proves my theory that locals really like recommending restaurants in renovated old homes that don’t have air conditioning.

That’s not to say breakfast was anything less than delicious! Breakfast dishes were affordable and tended toward a Californian/Mexican blend with items like migas and seafood scrambles.

Coffee was served in large, cozy mugs perfect for a lazy morning.

Our morning was anything but lazy, however, because I had streets to walk!

Lively corner café.

Sidewalk restaurant art.

For the antique lovers, take a left on Jackson Ave. for a truly unique antique shop, Antiques on Jackson (1028 Jackson Ave.).

I don’t even like antiquing, but I couldn’t help walking in with a storefront like that. The proprietors are super friendly. But my street strolling would not be waylaid for long.

Love that wrought ironwork.

Don’t forget to look up as you stroll! The trees just plain pretty–

–and leftover Mardi Gras beads decorate many of them all year long, which is wonderful when you’re visiting out of season like we were.

The Bulldog (3236 Magazine St.) is an excellent pub to stop at on a Sunday afternoon, and it was jam-packed with regulars in its little front courtyard.

Plus, they have a fountain of taps!

Who could resist that? Not us.

We were about three drinks in after the Bulldog, so after another few blocks, we headed up Napoleon Ave. to catch the streetcar on St. Charles Ave.

Streetcar approaching.

We decided to ride it until the end of the line on S. Carrollton, taking in the mansions, colleges, and parks that line the road as we went.

Loyola or Tulane University. Can’t remember which!

Audubon Park

On a nice day, it’s a truly relaxing way to spend the afternoon and well worth the $3 or so roundtrip. We hopped right back on it to return to the Central Business District.

Inside the streetcar.

On foot, we traversed the CBD for a few blocks, determined to make it to the riverfront by sunset.

Canal St.

Strolling along the Woldenberg Riverfront Park is a pleasure, and you can follow the river on it from the Aquarium—

Aquarium sculptures at sunset.

–to Jackson Square.

Walking toward Jackson Square.

Tribute to the Immigrant

We ventured off around Conti St. to see how beautiful the French Quarter is at sunset as well.

Decatur Ave. at sunset.

The Bourbon House (144 Bourbon St.) was our next stop, and we were happy to take advantage of their $5 small plates happy hour.

It’s an elegant location. We sidled up to the bar and feasted on a delicious trio of baked oysters in Rockefeller, Bienville, and Fonseca styles and bacon-wrapped duck poppers.

I also thoroughly enjoyed a flight of small batch bourbons.

The bar is a fantastic place to watch expert oyster shucking as well.

Bourbon House ranks high on my list of places we ate and drank.

Perhaps the only place that beat it was where we went to breakfast our last morning.

Stanley (547 Saint Ann St.) is one of the corner restaurants framing Jackson Square, and it is amazing for breakfast.

My cousin recommended the Breaux Bridge Benedict, and I will forever be grateful.

Made with Charlie T’s boudin, smoked ham, creole hollandaise, soft baguettes, and poached eggs, it is an absolute pleasure to eat. Luckily, breakfast is available all day at Stanley. My husband was quite happy with their roast beef po’ boy. It was much better than the one he had at Mother’s our first night in town.

I made use of our last few hours in New Orleans by giving Jackson Square its due in the daylight hours, having documented it quite well at night already.

Park gates.

Iconic view.

We walked back to the hotel and our waiting car, taking in a few more sights of the French Quarter along the way.

Louis Armstrong Park down the block.

I am so, so glad we took this trip to New Orleans, and I’m happy to report it lived up to my expectations. That is always a difficult task to pull off! If you’d like more pictures of our daylight jaunts there, click here. Where did our next vacation take us? Well, I did just take a day trip to Kinston, NC, where I crawled through a giant digestive system model, drank beer at Mother Earth Brewing, and ate at the Chef and the Farmer…but it’ll take me a few weeks to write that up!

This cocktail is a Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish cream, and Frangelico trio shaken up with chocolate and iced Counter Culture coffee. If you’re thinking dessert, you’re thinking correctly, as most coffee cocktails fall under that category.

The drink is indisputably gorgeous with that chocolate pattern laced into the lovely layer of foam on top. I think milk must be a secret ingredient, or this drink has a very healthy dose of Bailey’s that doesn’t come across when drinking it. The coffee is subsumed by the milky elements. Of the alcoholic ingredients, Frangelico comes through loud, clear, and nutty. It has that tendency.

The Boy’s Club is an attractive drink, but it needs more coffee.

Reviewed 26 Jan 13.

In the tradition of Trader Joe’s wine, the exact region in California these grapes hail from is murky, but that’s all part of the mystery, right? This Cab smells of berry and nothing else. Thin- to medium-bodied, barely there sweet anise and leather notes come out right away then fade quickly. It tastes like bright raspberry and currant jams, like the fruity liquid squirting out of juicy bubblegum.

Simple, pleasant, not memorable.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

The Wino That I Know

At first sip, I wasn’t a fan of this wine. It is a pretty full-bodied wine but not full of flavor. The more you drink, the more less-offensive it is. . . . I think it could be OK in the winter with a heavy, meaty meal, but I personally do not anticipate buying it again. Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Say Cheese and Wine

It’s tasty. It is a bit dry (I think), and it doesn’t make me make yuck wine faces. I approve.

Bach to Bacchus

This is flabby, unbalanced, uninteresting, and insipid, more like a cheap jug wine. It is not really a desert wine but is too sweet for a table wine unless it was balanced with more acid or carefully paired. It is the sort of wine that a person who does not usually like wine might like. I poured most of it out. . . . Definitely not recommended.

Reviewed 19 Jan 13.

Blogger David of Lunchboy Says, Robin Sorenson, and myself.

Two weeks ago, I was invited to the Firehouse Subs on Kildaire Farms Road in Cary for a night of sub sandwich and soda tasting with my blogging peers. The real draw for me was the chance to hear Robin Sorenson, who founded Firehouse Subs with his brother Chris, speak about the origins of the company, their goals, and their nonprofit work. I jumped at the chance because (a) I am not against chain stores unless they have dubious practices or a bad quality of food, and (b) I had never been to a Firehouse Subs.

The real draw for you is to leave a comment on this blog to win a $10 gift card to Firehouse Subs! First five comments will be mailed a gift card.

In case you’re one of the few people in the country who also hasn’t been, Firehouse Subs is decorated to resemble the inside of a firehouse with rows of firemen jackets, fake hoses, and attractive murals depicting local fire trucks and scenery.

Why the firehouse theme? Both of the Sorenson brothers are former firefighters, and Robin was inspired by the quality of eats and the sense of fellowship that came from breaking bread with his coworkers in the firehouse. I’ve heard legends of the skills of fireman and policemen at the stove, so I believe him. The Sorenson family has a history of entrepreneurship, so it was only natural the brothers would eventually try their hands at it. And they did, opening the first Firehouse Subs in Jacksonville, FL, in 1994.

Robin showing off the brisket used in their restaurants.

The Firehouse Sub sandwich-building technique involves toasting the bread then adding the meat, cheese, and dressings and sending all that through a steamer. The cold toppings are added before serving the sandwich. The result is outstanding for me, but I’m a fan of messy sandwiches with lots of mayo. For my husband, it was generally too drippy. I was especially impressed with the creamy, mellow mustard they use because strong mustard can be off-putting for me. The mustard on these sandwiches was a nice complement instead.

Throughout Robin’s talk, we worked our ways through several of Firehouse Subs’ most popular sandwiches, starting with the Hook and Ladder, their best seller. It was also my favorite of the night.

Each large Firehouse Sub sandwich bears a half-pound of deli meat, which means we were served half-portions and still had a hard time devouring anywhere near all of it. The Hook and Ladder is smoked turkey breast and Virginia honey ham with Monterey jack cheese. It’s served “Fully Involved,” which is a fireman’s term that essentially means “all in.” In the case of subs, that means mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, and onion. And it was delicious. See the pickle? Those pickles are fresh because they are brined on the way to the stores rather than months in advance. It’s a light, mellow brine, which I prefer. Firehouse Subs’ gets all their pickles from United Pickles in the Bronx, and they have stayed with them for 15 years. Once Firehouse Subs finds a vendor whose quality they like, they remain loyal to them, often paying more for ingredients than their competitors to ensure quality. That’s resulted in higher per-store volume sales than anyone else in the sub industry, so the ingredient cost pays off in the end.

The second sandwich we tried was the Smokehouse Beef and Cheddar Brisket.

The brisket comes from Sadler’s Barbecue in Texas, where it is smoked with hickory wood for 16 to 18 hours. Served with the delicious Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce and mayo, it was fantastic. I especially liked how pretty the sandwich is. Those extra-thin slices of meat make it an eye-pleaser.

Robin discussing Firehouse Subs’ goals, which are posted in every restaurant.

Robin shared way more information about Firehouse Sub’s goals and beginnings than a single blog post can cover, but I should note his special passion for their foundation, Firehouse Subs’ Public Safety Foundation. It is “dedicated to improving the life-saving capabilities of emergency service entities in communities served by Firehouse Subs.” Primarily, they donate emergency equipment that each individual community needs, such as thermal imaging gear and training systems. Robin and Chris have personally donated disaster relief through the foundation as well, driving in two-wheelers full of food during Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti during their last major earthquake. Customers can contribute to the foundation through purchasing leftover pickle buckets for $2, giving cash donations, or rounding up their orders to the nearest dollar amount, giving the difference to the foundation.

The New York Steamer, which is Robin’s favorite, is made with corned beef, pastrami, provolone, mayo, mustard, and Italian dressing—no veggies here! They weren’t sure about adding this sandwich at first, because in Florida, where the company started, no one eats those meats except on Saint Paddy’s Day. But they focused as usual on quality ingredients, using whole-muscle beef that is sliced in-store rather than ground, and it has done well. The fat melts off in the steamer.

Firehouse Subs Area Representative, Tim Goss, slicing up  meat for the NY Steamer.

Corned beef and pastrami are not my favorite deli meats, but they were much less fatty and more flavorful in this sandwich than I usually find them.

Our fourth and final sandwich was the Italian, which contains Genoa salami, pepperoni, ham, provolone, and Italian dressing with Italian seasonings. It is also served fully involved.

I love salami and pepperoni, and their flavors melded together nicely, though I was overwhelmed by all the meat! Of course, after eating the majority of three previous sandwiches, my stomach may have been in rebellion. Rest assured, I will never order a large sandwich from Firehouse Subs—the amount on the medium sandwiches is plenty. Regardless, I thought the pepperoni had a nice spice kick.

This evening was also a chance for Firehouse Subs to show off their Coca-Cola freestyle soda machines, which I’ve encountered once before.

Confusing at first, these soda machines are much better for people like me who don’t like colas. You have access to all of Coca-Cola’s products, and you can mix and match the flavors however you’d like. My Fanta peach and raspberry combination was very good. I also tried the Firehouse Subs Cherry Limeade, a flavor Robin worked with Coca-Cola on for a year to get the brothers’ homemade recipe right. Make sure you read the instructions by the machine for how many limes to squeeze in. It’s a syrupy soda that was definitely too sweet for me without that lime and a tad too fruit punchy with it. The Cherry Limeade is now the #2 soda seller in all Firehouse Subs.

I also had to take this opportunity to try some of the 50 hot sauces kept in all Firehouse Subs because spicy is my middle name.

A few of those beauties.

Firehouse’s own sauce, called Captain Sorenson, is made from datil peppers, which Robin shared grows everywhere in Florida. They are extremely hot peppers, but picked when yellow, that spice is mellowed and sweeter. The sauce has a great, thick texture and ingredient blend. For me, it was too tame, ketchup’s livelier cousin, but I can definitely see it as a people-pleaser. It’s their most popular sauce sold in store. I don’t see the point of Bull Snort Jalapeno Water; it really is a spicy sauce of water consistency. The Gator Hammock sauce was my favorite of the five I tried, full of black and cayenne pepper with a vinegar tang.

Firehouse subs sent us home with a cookie and an appreciation for the company.

My thanks to Robin and Firehouse Subs for the opportunity to sample, or stuff myself with, rather, their food this evening. Firehouse Sub’s unique style of steaming sandwiches produces a great texture and melding of ingredients. The bread is soft but toasty around the edges, and everything comes together in inviting, warm bites. Plus, I love a messy dressing on any sandwich, so I will definitely be back.

Now’s your chance, dear reader, to win a $10 gift card to Firehouse Subs! Be the first of five people to leave a comment on this post, and you’ll win. Make sure to give me your e-mail when filling out the comment form, so I can get your address.

Pizzeria Toro is an alluring and exciting gourmet pizza restaurant. I am jealous of downtown Durham residents who have this gem down the block.  At first look, the main dining room appears to be an office conference room with light brown, wooden, spinning chairs and a long, central table, which may be off-putting for some. But the cavernous, open-air pizza oven and kitchen dominate and bring a warm, casual vibe to the space. It’s a big city restaurant that successfully fosters a neighborhood feel. I want to spend whole nights there. I really do.

Even the dish towels used as napkins contribute to that relaxed, welcoming atmosphere. And any restaurant playing independent rock instead of contemporary anything gets bonus points. There is a darker bar adjacent to the dining room space, but I never went in.

There are a few more cocktail combinations at Pizzeria Toro than there are appetizer or salad choices, which is a plus in my book. I decided on the Horsefeather made with rye whiskey, Blenheim’s “Old #3 Hot” ginger ale, and orange bitters served on the rocks in a tall glass.

Going down like cinnamon candy, the drink had plenty of heat, great complexity from the bitters, and a touch of sweetness from the ale that made for a fabulous concoction. I nursed it throughout the meal, and it was good to the last drop, which is rare for an iced drink.

My husband and I shared a salad, pizza, and dessert. The salad was shaved chicory, fennel, Chapel Hill Creamery’s Calvander cheese, and truffle.

This is when I again remark that I have no idea what truffle contributes to a dish. I have no idea if I tasted it at all. But the rest of the salad was crisp, intriguing, and fun to eat if too bitter overall. The Calvander gave the dish a fair bit of creaminess to dilute the bitter vegetables’ flavors, but it wasn’t entirely successful. I blame that on the tangy vinaigrette. Add a little cream to that, and this dish would soar.

I had no such concerns with the pizza.

We chose the spicy lamb meatball pizza with rapini and Cacia di Roma sheep’s cheese. The thin crust was coated in something like semolina to give it grit, attractively bubbly all around, and charred on the edges. The whole pizza was shiny with that appetizing grease sheen. You know what I mean, when it’s enough to pull you in but not enough to gross you out. In other words, probably brushed with olive oil before baking. The meatballs fall apart at the slightest jostling and melt away fast in your mouth. Perhaps the roasted whole garlic cloves are a bit much, but that’s me pulling critique out of my ass. It’s a great pizza.

Dessert was just as satisfying. We had a pear crostada with clobber and caramel.

Clobber, based on our devouring of the dessert, is that lemon curd and clotted cream hybrid dolloped on the side. The pastry was baked perfectly, and all the ingredients were top-notch. I especially liked the note of savoriness the basil sprinkle added.

Other than finding the salad a touch too bitter, our meal at Pizzeria Toro was amazing and I didn’t even try the antipasti or special ham charcuterie. I am now accepting invitations to be anyone’s dinner companion there in the future. I can’t think of a better way to while away the evening in Durham.

Reviewed 6 Feb 13.

I’ve been to the Borough twice now, and I love it as a casual night spot to relax with slightly trussed up comfort food and a good drink list. This is my second time drinking the Little Fŭk’ər as well. It’s made with bourbon, red apple Schnapps, butterscotch Schnapps, and ginger ale. The presence of ginger ale or club soda in a cocktail’s ingredient list is usually a sign I’ll think it’s watered down, but that’s not the case with the Little Fŭk’ər. Instead, the soda makes the sweeter Schnapps participants less cloying. I swear I can taste cinnamon, but that may be the red apple flavor playing games with my mind. Regardless, it entices me from one sip to the next. There’s no unpleasant alcohol burn from the bourbon, and the butterscotch serves as an invisible unifier of the other elements.

This is a nicely blended drink; all the ingredients melt into each other beautifully.

Reviewed 26 Jan 13.

The Gourmez happy in the swamp.

This is the fourth entry in a series on my December New Orleans vacation. Lest you think this many entries is a few too many, just know New Orleans has always been high on my list of cities to visit, so I was pretty excited to finally do so! Blog #1 was on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain, Blog #2 was on dining at night in New Orleans, and Blog #3 was on drinking at night in New Orleans—and no, drinking need not be limited to the dark hours in this town.

The dock at Cajun Encounters.

For our next New Orleans adventure, we went 40 minutes east of the city to Slidell. Honey Island Swamp is 20 miles long, and a good portion of it is protected for wildlife conservation. A large number of boat tour companies operate within the protected section of the swamp, and we chose Cajun Encounters on a recommendation. It’s $25 for a day tour of the swamp, and with a tour that takes about 90 minutes, it’s well worth it. I thought it a deal in all honesty. They offer transportation from New Orleans for an extra $20 if you don’t have a car.

First view of the river. Click twice for the largest picture.

Who doesn’t love Spanish moss?

Our tour guide was super nice and pretty entertaining for a man with only a few months under his belt. Questions were always welcome. We went through three distinct areas of swamp. The first was similar to a standard riverbank but with plenty of Spanish moss, reddish leaves, and cypress outcroppings called knees.

Knees in the water.

This was December, which means winter and the least active time for the swamp’s wildlife, so we were cautioned we wouldn’t see a lot of it. We didn’t, but there were some creatures to encounter!

Turtles on the left.

Plenty of snapping turtles lined the banks, and they’d dive into the water when we got close.

Turtles up close

Blue Heron taking in the sights

Blue Heron up close

We were especially cautioned alligators would probably elude us because most had migrated southward at this time of year, but there was a surprise in store.

Yep, that’s a baby alligator sunbathing on the right with a few snapping turtles on the left.

So cute. And yes, I find reptiles cute. After the alligator sighting, we headed into the next section of the swamp. It had narrower banks and much more tree coverage. Our tour guide called it the prettiest place in the Honey Island Swamp, and it was positively breathtaking in spots. Right away, I fell in love with the trees’ reflections in the water.

I swear it’s Impressionism with a swamp for a canvas.

The tour guide told us a few stories of how the swamp had been used as a meeting place for bootleggers during Prohibition. I think it was this specific tree they used as a landmark:

The stories weren’t nearly as exciting as staring at the scenery, however.

Once we entered the section of swamp where the water is covered with tiny green plants, gorgeous doesn’t seem enough anymore.

Click twice for the biggest view.

At the back edge of this particular river finger, we stopped to take it all in for a while. Some animals decided to join us.

Owl high up in the cypress.

A wild pig came running, and it turns out that the guides know calls to draw them closer. The marshmallows tossed in the water help as well. I couldn’t get a clear shot of the pig, but he hung out for a while. I was must struck by how his back was covered in moss.

Sun hitting the cypress.

We circled back out of that beautiful, plant-covered section of the swamp, passing another couple of tour boats on the way out.

Then we headed into an area dominated by sawgrass.

It’s called sawgrass for a reason, so we didn’t try and touch any as we crept through.

Arrowroot also took up a lot of real estate there.

At the end of the sawgrass section, we rode out into wider waters again, and the tour guide took us through a Cajun fishing village.

Click twice for the largest view.

People are granted use of the land as long as they have a structure standing on it, so buildings go up everywhere, and they aren’t destroyed until another one goes up. Everything must be transported over by boat from the docks on the west side of the river.

First house encountered.

Plenty of Cajun humor could be found in signs posted on the houses or painted on bathtubs.

“Cajun bathtub”

“Da Palace”

Many structures have never been rebuilt or torn down since Hurricane Katrina came through.

Dipping into the water

After leaving the village behind, we headed south on the river back to Cajun Encounters’ dock.

Last view from the swamp.

I would highly recommend this experience, and although it limited our animal encounters, I’m glad we did it in December. The weather was perfect, in the 60s. There was no humidity, and none of the bugs to go along with that. It was also less crowded than summer tours can be, and all of that made up for missing large alligators. But no matter what time of year you go, it’s worth it for the beauty of the swamp.

We’ll take on New Orleans sights and eats in the daytime hours next. For more pictures of the Honey Island Swamp, click here. 

This is a spirit of legend for me, in that I’d seen it in a million cocktail recipes before I could ever track it down. Now that it’s finally appeared at my local ABC store, I can explore it. And it’s full of shockers. Per Luxardo’s website, the spirit is distilled from the marasca cherry and aged for two years before being diluted and sweetened. When I think maraschino, I think of the dessert topping and thus (1) sweet and (2) reddish-pink. This spirit is neither.

It’s clear as it can be for one. And there’s nothing sweet about the nose. The smell is a blend of cherry and almond that makes me wish it were in ice cream form, like now. I’m not talking toppings. I’m talking the main event.

Okay, the Gourmez, just drink it already! Fine, fine. So about that sweetness…it’s there, but its taste is pure sugar in undissolved, granular form. The sweetness bears no resemblance to most mixers’ almost plastic taste and its very light. Vanilla notes are strong, but it’s the spirit’s nuttiness that’s most surprising. Cherry comes across as the least of its ingredients.

Maraschino stands out on its own, and I do think it’s appropriate for sipping. But I want to try it in cocktails because it has been so prominently featured in them historically. The challenge will be not overwhelming the rest of a cocktaiI’s ingredients with Maraschino’s unique flavor.  So I will peruse Luxardo’s website for inspiration.

The Mayan Premonition à la Gourmez
1.25 shots tequila
0.75 shot Luxardo Maraschino Original
0.25 shot lime juice
lemon-lime soda
a little ginger

That recipe list is a variation from the Mayan Premonition on their website because I don’t have all their ingredients on hand, so I’m making do. And it does pretty well! The mixture highlights the Maraschino, but it’s easier to drink than it was on its own because its already mild alcohol kick is subdued. The flavors are too mellow, however. Perhaps adding more ginger or doubling the lime would enliven the cocktail. But it’s good, and more importantly, I can better appreciate the possibilities for Maraschino.

I should not have gone looking at other recipes over at Luxardo. There are cocktails combining Maraschino and Sambuca! Now I need to find a bottle of their Sambuca…

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

This spirit is all over the web, but finding opinions on it turned up nothing. There are lots of reviews of the Luxardo maraschino cherries and a few of Luxardo Cherry Liquor, but I could only find Maraschino Original in cocktails.

Reviewed 14 Jan 13.

About a year and a half ago, I visited the the Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro. They are an excellent nonprofit organization that provides homes for big cats that have been abandoned or abused, whether they are reclaimed from a zoo or given up by owners who can no longer care for the exotic creatures. Tigers, lions, lynx — it doesn’t matter what species of big cat. The Carolina Tiger Rescue tends to them all, and they have never been busier, often unable to take in new animals because their cages are full.

That’s great, the Gourmez, you may be saying, but what does this have to do with food? Well, it’s nearly time for the Carolina Tiger Rescue’s annual fundraiser, and it is of definite interest to area foodies.

The Black Tie and Tails Ball will be held on 2/23 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the Washington Duke Inn, and if you know me, you know I love the food by Chef Jason Cunningham. The theme this year is the Many Faces of Thailand, and the menu is as follows:

Appetizers

Beef satay w/ southwest Asian sauce
Thai curry and coconut soup shooters
Grilled & marinated chicken satay w/ chili peanut sauce
Spicy lime and herb tofu in lettuce cups
Vietnamese spring rolls w/ Chile sauce

Starter Course

Artisanal baby lettuces, toasted walnuts, poached pears, feta cheese, champagne vinaigrette

Entrees (Choice of 1)

Grilled and smoked beef tenderloin, rosemary, and horseradish, potato, roasted asparagus and baby carrots, braised mushrooms, red wine glacage

Pan-roasted grouper, lobster and chive risotto, garlic, spinach, and cured tomatoes, with vin blanc sauce.

Baby turnips, beets, and carrot Anson Mills Carolina gold rice risotto, braised rustic kale, toasted pumpkin seed pesto, sweet onion and sweet potato jus.

Baskets of assorted naan for all.

Dessert

Chocolate melting cake with coconut lime ice cream.

I don’t know about you, but I’m salivating reading that list. It sounds amazing! In addition to dinner, there will be both live and silent auctions including vacations and wine and dine packages. Now, this is a fundraiser, so it’s not cheap. Tickets are $125. But honestly, for a phenomenal dinner and fundraising? That’s not so bad. If you’re interested, get your tickets here.

Last time, we covered the bevy of food I ate after dark in New Orleans. In this post, we’ll take a look at all the tantalizing libations Ben and I imbibed in the Big Easy in early December. You may question this claim by the end, but I swear we weren’t drinking at all times. Sometimes, we were walking. Walking off-kilter, but walking nonetheless.

It was Saturday evening when we arrived in New Orleans, and there were surprisingly few people around. We began our journey in the Central Business District.

In short time, or rather, short time to me and my warped concept of a city block—we really should have taken a streetcar—we made it to the French Quarter. The first few western blocks of Decatur and Chartres Streets were all but abandoned, but we did not yet know we needed to continue on toward Jackson Square to find the crowds or head north a few blocks to Bourbon St. So when the modern, romantic vibe of Evangeline (329 Decatur St.) caught our eye, we stepped in for Drink #1.

You’ll note their signature drink, the Ginger Mint Julep, advertised on the building behind the restaurant.

It was refreshing, but not the sort of cocktail that keeps my attention for long. Too much club soda for that, and who knew what was waiting for me in a city known for its mixology? My husband went for one of our trusty standards, the Sazerac, and we were surprised by how sweet it was. Sugar is not something I associate with a Sazerac, but several bars served it that way in New Orleans. Simple syrup appears to be in the standard recipe for it, but I think bars outside of New Orleans may skimp on it—and I approve of that decision.

We moved on after one drink, not realizing there was a full courtyard in back that would have been more appealing than the abandoned bar—obviously, we were newcomers to this city. Many French Quarter joints have a courtyard. But the change of locale had its rewards. Our next choice was the Carousel Bar inside the Monteleone Hotel (214 Royal St.).

It’s hard to make out in that second picture, but if there’s room at the actual bar rather than in the parlor, grab a spot! The bar is a beautiful old carousel and it spins!

A partial drink list.

That beauty is the Vieux Carré, one of the many drinks invented in New Orleans, invented in that very spot in fact. Vieux Carré, French for Old Square, is another name for the French Quarter, and I don’t know how, but I think that rye, cognac, vermouth, Bénédictine, and bitters mixture manages to distill the Quarter’s essence into a glass. Definitely my favorite drink of the trip.

My husband had the Brazilian Sparkler with rum, lime, lemon, pineapple, and club soda. He remembers it not. That’s no complaint. We did a lot of drinking.

After Drink #2, more exploring ensued. The streets were still remarkably empty for a Saturday night, but I didn’t mind—I had been worried it would be wall-to-wall people. As it turns out, December is a wonderful time to visit. There are lights everywhere for Christmas, and it’s not prime tourist season, so you can breathe. Plus, the weather was beautiful; we only hit humidity on our last day. But back to exploring!

A carriage stopped for a story.

Papá Noel decorations.

Around the corner from a particularly lively restaurant,

we suddenly discovered where all the people were!

Yes, folks, we had made it to Bourbon St. It has plenty of neon, plenty of gay bars in the eastern blocks, and plenty of dance and live music clubs everywhere you look.

You bet we crowded onto one of those balconies, though I threw no beads. A few hit me in the head, however!

View from a balcony.

Christmas lights on Bourbon St.

I also engaged in a task required of anyone who strolls a party street anywhere in the world:

The drinking of a cheap, godawful concoction. This one was called the Hand Grenade, and it was as bad as it looks. I’m a little sad I forgot to bring the cup home, though.

The next night began with stumbling upon Jackson Square at night.

I don’t know why, but a sidewalk full of fortune tellers feels right.

Closed up park gates.

Row of shops bordering Jackson Square.

Decorated carriages hoping for customers.

Fleur de Lis in the evening.

Merry Christmas walkway.

We walked back to CBD and the hotel that evening by way of Woldenberg Riverfront Park. It was a scenic, romantic way to get a good, long look at the Mississippi River.

Decatur St. from the river. Click twice for the largest view!

Ole Man River Ole Man River

Bridge view.

Holocaust Memorial.

Aquarium of the Americas

Octopus in the sky/I wish I could fly so high  ♫

Harrah’s casino is pretty in the night sky, too.

It looks even better after you win $250 at slots. Trust me on that.

On the third night, we moved on to the French Quarter after dinner as was our custom. Yes, we developed customs in a total of four days in New Orleans. Don’t scoff. But first, because it was on our way and we’d been gaping at it each time we passed, we investigated the strange, abandoned Piazza D’Italia (Lafayette and Commerce) behind Harrah’s hotel.

I have no idea what to make of it, but it’d be a lot cooler if the pool was full of flowing gold rather than water.

This was our last evening in town, and my Louisianan relatives told me I couldn’t miss Pat O’Brien’s (718 St. Peter St.). They did not steer me wrong.

It’s the home of the Hurricane—I told you New Orleans was the granddaddy of cocktails!

Honestly, their version was too sweet for me, but I drank it like the dutiful tourist I am. You can keep the souvenir glass if you want, but if you don’t, turn that sucker in before you go to get a few extra dollars back. The real draw at Pat O’Brien’s is the gorgeous courtyard and the flaming fountain.

There’s a piano bar off one of these rooms leading toward the courtyard.

My husband pretending he cares as much about ambience as I do.

The flame!

Me and the flame!

Thus, it was time to walk off another drink and make our way to a new one, by way of more lit up French Quarter side streets.

Back on Bourbon St., us absinthe lovers decided to risk the Old Absinthe House (240 Bourbon St.) despite warnings from a few fellow aficionados to not let anyone flame the precious Green Fairy. That goth/sports bar mix had a nice vibe if you don’t count the extra-loud, drunken trio who kept talking about needing to leave so they could go have sex (Ah, Bourbon St.!).

Our lovely bartender determined that the Mata Hari would be a good absinthe for us and set up the louche.

Before we could stop it, that absinthe was flamed!

I swear I didn’t know she was going to light it, absinthe lovers! Regardless, it made for a dramatic presentation. The check presentation was just as dramatic, as we learned those servings were $30 each! Well, Ben, swears it was $20, but still!

“Oops,” said the bartender when we confirmed the tab. “I was supposed to tell you the price first.” I would have raged, but I’m far too mellow for that, and besides, I had drunk absinthe.

That strikes me as an excellent way to end this post on nightlife in the Big Easy: with a note of contentedness and a note of confusion. Really, isn’t that how all good bar crawls should finish? If you want more pictures for our eats and drinks in the dark times, click here.

My next post on New Orleans will drag you through the swamp—the Honey Island Swamp to be exact. Who knew moss and the threat of alligators could be so alluring?

This Shiraz has the most interesting nose I’ve smelled in a while. It’s full of leather and juicy blackberry. The wine itself is much thinner than expected for a Shiraz, but it’s nicely matured. Blackberry swoops up then is replaced with whipped cream and spices. Pink peppercorn, a hint of anise. It goes down easily, leaving something sweet on your tongue. That leathery nose is absent while sipping.

The wine is too thin for the berry to demand attention as it should, but it’s pleasant regardless. It’ll go down fast and there’s no shame in letting it.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

Frugal Wine Snob on the 2007 vintage

We find this label to be interesting and delicious, especially for the price. The initial aroma and taste were very pleasing with oak, vanilla, and big luscious berries. It’s a gorgeous, fat wine with a beautiful garnet color and a long finish. Utterly enjoyable by itself.

Grape in a Bottle on an unknown vintage

This medium-bodied, peppery wine was perfect with its raspberry jam and honey finish mingled with spicy floral undertones.

Cooking for Assholes on the 2004 vintage

The second it rolled across my lips, I recoiled in horror. This wine was fucking disgusting. It was sweeter than the tender kisses your mom showered upon me last night while you were watching us from the closet. The overt sweetness gave it that ‘church wine’ taste. In fact, I am pretty sure I have had better wine at church but that was probably due to the transubstantiation. . . . 0 out of 5. Oh hell no!

Reviewed 11 Jan 13.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The mall is rarely my choice when I’m craving a burger, but one of our local chefs, Giorgios Bakatsias, opened a joint in Chapel Hill’s University Mall that is likely to change my tune. The Giorgios Group owns a string of fine-dining restaurants in the area, including Bin 54 and Parizade, so I was intrigued to see what would happen when this upscale, internationally trained chef took on the quintessential American meal…

You can read the rest of that review at WRAL here. And because a photo makes everything more exciting, here you go.

I’ve heard many good things about East Coast Chinese Food Express. They’ve been located inside the Kroger by the Highway 54 and Fayetteville intersection for quite some time. It’s a small café, mainly for to-go orders, but there are a few tables if you want to sit and eat in the grocery store. Everyone else ordering was a regular and on friendly terms with the owner at the register. Food is cooked to order, so it’ll take 10 to 20 minutes depending on how crowded it is. There are menus everywhere, so figuring out your options can seem a tad overwhelming. Make sure you take a look at them in addition to the printed English menu.

Slushies and bubble teas are available. Additionally, there is a Chinese menu with traditional Chinese dishes versus Americanized ones, and that’s what our readers have highly recommended—ask the woman at the register for it. I don’t speak or read Chinese, however, so I stuck with the regular menu full of Hunan, Szechuan, Cantonese, and Japanese preparations. And I can tell you that it blew my other options in South Durham out of the water.

The boneless spare ribs are definitely the best I’ve had. It’s a generous portion, and the pork is cut in thick slices. The sauce’s flavor is fantastic, and there’s plenty of it, so spoon that goodness over extra rice.

The rice itself was cooked well with no stickiness or clumping. It was great with the sha cha chicken, which we ordered at 3x spicy.

Was it that spicy? I’d call it medium, but that’s more heat than you can get at a lot of places. The chicken was tender and moist. There were crisp vegetables all over the place, the standard stir-fry mix of broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, baby corn, and water chestnuts. The sauce itself avoided oiliness and lent a light flavor to the stir-fry.

Our last dish was the beef mei fun.

The rice vermicelli was cooked perfectly, and the beef was good. Shredded cabbage and carrots were the main accompaniments, and they were also good, but the dish was a bit dry overall.

I’m bummed I didn’t notice the chicken-stuffed tofu skins until after I ordered. The Americanized options didn’t blow me away except for those spare ribs, but they were a lot better than my other nearby Chinese spots. What have people tried off the Chinese menu? I hear the eggplant is delicious, but that wasn’t on the American menu, either, so I’ll ask for a recommendation with it next time.

Reviewed 9 February 13.

Published by Stupefying Stories, the 2013 Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology is now available for free — that’s right, free! — for anyone interested in perusing the works of authors eligible for Campbell award nominations this year. What’s that? As M. David Blake, editor of Stupefying Stories explained,

Named for John W. Campbell, Jr., whose 34 years at the helm of Astounding Science Fiction (later renamed Analog) defined the “Golden Age” of the genre and launched the careers of dozens of famous writers, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer is presented annually at WorldCon to an outstanding author whose first professional work of science fiction or fantasy was published within the previous two years.

What does this have to do with me? Well, with my sale of “Bother” to Bull Spec nearing on two years ago now, I became eligible for the Campbell Award. I have absolutely no expectations of being nominated, especially because I haven’t had other speculative fiction published since then — I’ve been working on my first fantasy novel instead of sending out my short stories. But “Bother” has been reprinted in the anthology, and now’s your chance to read it for free along with other worthy works by a large list of fantastic speculative fiction authors. All for free until the Hugo nominees, including for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, are announced at the end of April.

To take advantage of this amazing access to these stories, just click here and chose the e-format you prefer at the end of the publication announcement post. And if you do read “Bother,” please let me know what you thought! Us writers do thrive on feedback.

I love Vinho Verde. Wine made from its or Torrontes’s grapes convinced me I’d given white wines too hard of a time when they became popular in the last few years. So I’m always happy to try another bottle of the stuff. The Broadbent Vinho Verde has a delicious nose of limes, minerals, and flowers. The minerals are especially strong.

On drinking, a bubbly undercurrent surprises me. It’s not bothersome, though it makes the lime more astringent. That lime is predominant in the glass. The secondary flavors are kumquat and dandelion stems—yes, I am well familiar with dandelion stems from my childhood. Fleeting sweetness gives way to a lively tartness with a quinine tang.

This wine has a lot of typical Vinho Verde characteristics, but it’s too astringent and too lacking in anything else of note to be a keeper for me. There are much better Vinho Verde options.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

Boise Weekly

The aromas in this wine are an intriguing mix of sweet citrus, clover and spring greens. You get a bit of a tingle on the tongue from the light-but-persistent fizz. Sweet melon and tangerine flavors play against bright lemon and lime. This is a charming wine that’s lean and lively but not austere.

Bianca Blanca Rioja

The Broadbent delivers excellent value with a down to earth attitude. The zesty, crisp, citrusy fruit notes are fun to give a quick swish in your mouth. Your cheeks salivate as the slight effervescence wakes up your palate. Floral and pear-like, Broadbent is not a sweet wine but a flavorful nectar that feels like biting into a fresh spring day.

The People’s Palate with Rich Mauro

This delightful wine (at a great price) opens with the impression of a light sparkling wine and that is confirmed in the mouth with fairly significant spritz. A touch of fresh green apple and a clean finish makes this a great quaffer.

Last Thoughts from the Gourmez: My compatriots clearly disagree with me on this wine! It may be worth your Vinho-Verde-loving glass after all.

Reviewed 3 January 12.

Click twice on the panorama for the largest view!

Why, you might ask, are you focusing on dining at night in New Orleans? Isn’t the food there good anytime? Of course it is! But one must make distinctions between their blog posts somehow, and with the massive amount of eating we did in New Orleans, I figured divvying up the meals by time of day made as much sense as any other reasoning. So yes, you can expect an Eats in the Day post in a few weeks. There will also be Drinks at Night coming up, and in all my New Orleans travelogues, sights found while walking through the streets will be interspersed. But I know you, you know me, and we all know that food and drink is our priority. So let’s dig in!

Last travelogue, we visited the Abita Brewery, the Abita Mystery House, and the World’s Largest Ronald Reagan, all located around 40 minutes north of New Orleans. Our first stop, after checking into the awesome and humongous New Orleans Hilton Riverside (2 Poydras St.), was the New Orleans’ institution, Mother’s (401 Poydras St.). Proclamations from friends had assured me I would never hunger again after dinner there, so perhaps my expectations were a bit high.

Waiting at the counter to order.

Or perhaps I’ve spent too much time in the South. It’s the same meat plus three sort of establishment I’ve been to a million times by now, and I’m not that enamored with most Southern sides. I opted for the crawfish etoufée.

The sauce is smothering white rice, and my chosen sides were grits (lackluster) and collards (pretty good). The etoufée had a nice, deep roux flavor but no spice to speak of. My husband tried their roast beef po’ boy.

He was not impressed. It was drenched in juice, not that flavorful, and the bread was soaked through. Perhaps that’s normal for a po’ boy, but none of the other ones we saw on this vacation were floating. You are all more than welcome to eviscerate our opinions of Mother’s in the comments—I know it has a lot of fans!

Discouraged that Mother’s didn’t live up to the hype for me, we walked a few blocks from the Central Business District to get our first experiences in the French Quarter.

Crossing Canal St.

Typical French Quarter block at night.

Crossing the French Quarter entirely, with a few drinks mixed in to sustain us, we eventually arrived at Fauborg Maurigny. Frenchmen St. was our target, the prime spot for music lovers. Of course, there’s live music every night in many of the city’s restaurants and bars, but Frenchmen has a concentration of small clubs.

Café Negril’s (606 Frenchman St.) huge mural of Bob Marley pulled me in, and I thought their cheap taco stand in back was a great idea. We stayed for a few songs then wandered across the street into an awesome open-air craft market.

Called the Frenchman Art Market (619 Frenchman St.), it’s a great way to chat up local vendors and get a better sense of New Orleans’ people. Don’t forget to gape at all the bone jewelry and wonder whether wearing a finger around your neck would be creepy or gauche.

After all that perusing, it was time for dessert. We chose Marigny Brasserie (640 Frenchmen St.).

With a moderately sweet sazerac in hand (What is it with making sazeracs sweet in NOLA?),

I was up to the task of eating bread pudding.

Theirs was similar in shape to an inverted bundt cake, but the texture was creamy and spongy. The vanilla anglaise sauce was the best part. And thus ended Day 1 of our food adventures.

For an early dinner the next night, Ben chose Lucy’s Retired Surfers Bar and Restaurant (701 Tchoupitoulas Street), which is located in the Central Business District.

It’s a small chain, and the food is on par with most chain restaurants, meaning good, but not outstanding. Ben had the Valley Girl club sandwich,

and being in New Orleans, I tried the Oyster Po’ Boy.

It was satisfying though possibly holding too many oysters! The bread was delicious. But the real reason we went to Lucy’s wasn’t nourishment. It was so Ben could order a Shark Attack cocktail.

That’s as hilarious of a drink as it looks. The waitress served it with two mermaids floating on top of rum and lemonade. Then she dove that shark right into it, its mouth full of grenadine to provide the final ingredient: the blood of one innocent victim. The whole routine was well worth the $6. You can even keep the shark! Ours is now proudly residing on our mantel.

I’m full just from looking, you say. Enough time spent noshing and imbibing! That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. There is never enough time spent during either of those things in New Orleans. We barely made it out of the French Quarter on most evenings, and that was time well spent. In Jackson Square maybe two hours later, I dug right into more must-tastes for the tourist foodie. When in Rome New Orleans, Café du Monde (800 Decatur St.) is a necessity.

It’s open all hours, so a nighttime nibble is the perfect time to try it. Beignets, always fresh, are the main draw.

They are puffed, fried dough for those of you unfamiliar with these packets of goodness. As you can see, Café du Monde covers them in an avalanche of powdered sugar. Make sure you try their coffee as well, as they are the primary purveyor of New Orleans’ unique bean and chicory brew.

I had mine iced and mixed with half-and-half in the traditional style, though I’m normally a black coffee drinker. The chicory definitely gives it a fun layer of depth.

Forswearing beignets for some unknown reason, or because HE’S CRAZY, Ben took us in pursuit of an appetizer. Café Pontalba (546 St. Peter St.), on the exact opposite end of Jackson Square, was his choice. It has a relaxed, cozy pub feel.

More importantly, they make delicious alligator bites!

That was not my first alligator, but it was the best I’ve had. The batter was medium density with plenty of spices, the meat tender, and you know that hot sauce drizzled on top only made it better. Good call, Ben.

Night #3 began with an early appetizer at the Crescent City Brewhouse (527 Decatur St.), the only microbrewery in the French Quarter.

Awesome octopi above the bar.

Those Cajun meat pies were very good, and so was the beer.

Seasonal fall brew.

Black Forest beer.

I would avoid their cocktails, though.

My Old-Fashioned was lacking on a few counts, and as beer is their specialty, it’s a safer bet.

Also a safe bet? Finding a voodoo store when you need one!

The best spots for these stores were just to the east and south of Jackson Square, and there are authentic ones with practitioners inside performing rituals and ones like Voodoo Blues that are just there to make some tourist buck.

Entertain me with displays like that, and I won’t care that you’re ripping me off!

We had that early appetizer because we met my Louisiana relatives for the real deal later at Mr. B’s Bistro (201 Royal St.).

It has that old-fashioned feel of a steakhouse or Italian restaurant for your big night out on the town but the food is upscale Creole and Southern. Big, leather booths, lots of people chattering in great spirits.

I had their tasting menu, which is always offered and includes three courses for about $50. Not a steal, but not too bad, either. The gumbo ya ya was my first course, and it was delicious, though my cousin-in-law Jenny claims she can make it better.

Since her children backed her up, I’m quite willing to believe it.

The trout almondine was executed well, although it lacked inventiveness. The roasted lemon was a nice touch. My husband was happy with his braised rabbit served with garlic mashed potatoes.

One dish to be sure to try, and I’m still not sure why I didn’t beyond having only met my cousin-in-law Zach a few minutes earlier, was the barbecue shrimp.

It’s closer to a mussels dish than barbecue yet manages to be finger-lickin’ good all the same.

Dessert was more bread pudding, which always makes me happy. No finesse, but it was simply done and didn’t need it.

What? That’s it? I swear I ate more food! Oh, I did. It was just in the daytime. You’ll have to wade your way through the libations before we can feast again. Yes, that means cocktails in New Orleans are next on the agenda. Viva la vieux carre!

This wine was part of a value pack from my wine shop up the street. It’s pale yellow. The nose is a well-blended mix of flowers and minerals. Mildly sweet, and tannins play against that sweetness for a nicely balanced body. The lime is perhaps too tart, but it reminds me of the coconut-lime bread pudding I had this evening, and that was delicious. I could see it going well with similar desserts or something with a ginger punch.

The Bergerac Sec is harmless with character from the lime and custard notes. You could swill much worse.

Other Bloggers’ Thoughts:

Wine is Life on the 2006 vintage

A light patio pounder. Citrus and pears on the nose. Light taste of the same fruits on the palate with a little spice. Not much of a full flavor. Very light leaning toward the dry side. Not sure I would purchase this again. Not very impressive.

Tammy’s Tastings on the 2005 vintage

It’s one of my favorite wines for keeping around the house — it’s a little bit fruity and just a tiny bit off-dry and goes with every food I’ve ever tried to serve it with.

Feed Me/Drink Me on the 2005 vintage

This white Bergerac hailing from the Dordogne Valley was more robust than a Pinot Grigio but not as sweet as a Riesling. With white grape early and a citrusy tang at the end, this crisp drinker was exactly right for a pre-dinner drink.

Reviewed 20 Dec 12. 

Art at the Abita Mystery House

The hubby and I did a whirlwind tour of New Orleans and the surrounding areas in early December. The quintessence of the city—Cajun food, voodoo religion, laissez faire—has always placed it high on my list of places to see. I had considered moving there not long before Hurricane Katrina hit. Its pull on me is that strong, and yes, I’m the type of girl that will move without ever having seen the area where I’m relocating. I’ve done it a few times, actually.

So December was when I finally had the chance to indulge my Crescent City hankering. And it lived up to nearly all my expectations. Ultimately, it was a speedy, sanitized view of New Orleans for tourists, but it was wonderful. We drove there over two days, and luckily, the miles flew fast. It was the first time I’d been in Alabama or Mississippi as well, if driving over their highways and staying overnight counts. Midday on our second day of driving, we made it to our first destination: the Abita Brewery (21084 Louisiana 36, Abita Springs) in Abita Springs.

The town of Abita Springs is tiny and centered around a cute roundabout of an intersection, just about a mile south of the brewery on Route 36. We were there on a Saturday, and tours start on the hour from 10 am to 3 pm. They’ll assign you to the next tour when you arrive at the courtyard. In the meantime, soak up that southern sun!

My husband in the courtyard.

The tour begins right inside the french doors in a large, mahogany barroom.

Two short videos give the history of the brewery, and then it’s time to taste! Everyone shuffles behind the bar to pour their own samples from 8 to10 options including stalwarts like Purple Haze and Turbodog to seasonal brews and an experiment or two. My favorites, and keep in mind that I’m a fan of bitter stouts, were that Turbodog and the Abbey Ale. Their root beer is also really good. Tastes are unlimited and you can enjoy them both before the tour proper starts and after. Play a little ring toss,

or admire bottlecap art while you enjoy the beers!

The tour of the facilities goes pretty fast and covers the basic process of brewing .

Our tour guide explaining the process.

Beer barrels and our tour group.

Each of those barrels holds enough beer to fill about 100,000 bottles. It’s insane to think of such quantities even for midsize craft labels like Abita. All in all, the whole tour took about an hour tops. That means you’ll have time to head back south on Route 36 to check out the Abita Mystery House (22275 Highway 36, Abita Springs).

Artist John Preble, who is likely to be at the register in the gift shop entrance, is responsible for the masterpieces and ever-changing folk art landmark. Formerly known as the UCM Museum, the Mystery House spans several small buildings and is a head-to-toe celebration of oddities and miniature animatronics. For $3, it’s a steal. It could take hours to wander every room. The gift shop is first, and a lovely gator woman greets you right away.

I’m honestly jealous of her figure. But don’t stay in the gift shop. Wander on to the exhibit rooms!

Porch outside the exhibits.

Entrance to the hall.

Many of the displays are both whimsical and politically pointed miniatures of life in the bayou and the Big Easy. Some of them are animatronic, powered by various buttons to whirl a tornado or send a float on its way.

Tornado in this one!

The walls are covered in sayings, etchings, and various bits of found art.

My husband testing out a crank player piano.

The House of Shards is a mosaic of, well, shards of ceramics, glass, and plenty of other materials.

Inside the guest bathroom, a portrait of the photographer.

A big draw is a cast of a bigfoot print, the Honey Island Monster.

We went to Honey Island later in our trip, but alas, there were no sightings.

Another big draw is the animal oddities that appear all over the Mystery House grounds. I’m sure they are all absolutely real creatures. Surely they couldn’t be fakes!

The most exciting of the animals is the Amazing Bassigator.

Truly terrifying.

Make sure you spend some time in that gift shop before heading out. There were plenty of awesome souvenirs.

What can top the Mystery House? Not much, I promise, but we continued on into Covington anyhow. It’s just a few miles west on Route 36. Our reason? Finding the world’s largest Ronald Reagan statue.

Mission accomplished!

It would be a lot more impressive if you could actually get close to the statue, but it’s on a raised platform at the Covington Trailhead (419 E. New Hampshire St.).

Like the whole downtown of Covington, the trailhead was very pretty. There were several blocks of attractive shops and restaurants in pristine white buildings, and if we had more time, I think an afternoon spent perusing those blocks would be an afternoon well spent. But we wanted to see New Orleans before dark, and we barely made it over the world’s longest bridge, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, in time. I am truly sad I don’t have pictures of that 24-mile journey over the lake, because it was absolutely gorgeous, and the excitement built as New Orleans loomed larger on the far shore. But we’ll pick up there next time, when the travelogue will explore New Orleans eats, drinks, and sights at night.

For more pictures from Abita Springs and Covington, click here.

This winter wheat, small-batch whiskey is made in the same style as bourbon but the wheat is 51% of its makeup rather than corn. Its color is lovely, reminding me of opaque almond brittle, not the creamy stuff. It is significantly sweeter to smell than most bourbons. That sweetness sucks me right in and doesn’t let go even after the alcohol fire roars to life. The nose also has mellow cinnamon. Star anise comes to mind but so gently that licorice haters should not worry.

The sweetness coats my throat while sipping. It’s floral first, sweet blossoms like honeysuckle. Then the flavor segues into rich pecan and ends with classic bourbon notes and butter that lingers on the tongue. The body has an airy quality like taking a bite of Laffy Taffy complete with the filminess of that candy. But I like bourbon a lot more than I like taffy, and it’s no distraction here.

I don’t want to mislead you with candy comparisons; this is a strong whiskey. But it achieves a balance that makes drinking it entirely more pleasurable than the hard stuff often is.

Other bloggers’ thoughts:

Robert’s Whiskey Review

When nosing Bernheim, you might be surprised that it smells a tiny bit spicy, but this initial peppery feel quickly takes a back seat to a thick maple syrup sweetness. Tasting Bernheim, you will first be surprised how superb it is, then immediately take another drink to double-check what your palate just experienced. You are going to get some bourbon qualities, because there is corn in the mash bill. It does have some subtle vanilla notes and has a bit off an alcohol kick on the front end, but what you get primarily is a delicate and nonsticky honey sweetness, baked apple pie (or other dessert notes) and freshly baked bread. You might detect some baking spices (all spice, nutmeg) in between the honey and bread layers. It has light and delicate taste with a finish that is not too short and mainly filled with the fading traces of the honey sweetness and bread/wheat combo.

Whiskey Reviews

The nose on Bernheim Original is soft and sugary.  It’s much more refined than a bourbon as wheat is often brought in to tame the corn and malted barley in bourbon recipes.

The taste is silky smooth, with a slight bite on the back-end.  The wheat really shines with this whiskey, and you can immediately tell that Bernheim is matured to perfection.  The texture is surprisingly light, for a 90 proof expression.

Afterwards, the finish is brief but satisfying, with the underlying tone of wheat.

Whiskey Reviewer

The whiskey has a warm, light aroma with hints of citrus and spice and just a touch of oak. The flavor is clean, crisp and dry with honeyed citrus and undertones of toasted nuts. I think a cube or two of ice brings out the best qualities in Bernheim’s Original Wheat Whiskey, especially since dry liquors are rarely at their best when taken neat. B+

Reviewed 28 Dec 12. 

Sunset over the mountains.

This is the last of my travelogues from my October visit with my mom and stepfather in Central Washington. The first was on a day in Yakima and the second was on a day in Ellensburg. This entry covers the beautiful scenery to be found in the tiny towns of Tieton and Naches nestled in the Cascades and driving along State Route 410 West toward the edge of the Snoqualmie National Forest, also known as the Chinook Pass. There is no food in this post—shocker, I know!—but we did stop for pictures at a few restaurants and wineries along the way that are known for good eats or tastings.

The Naches Valley is gorgeous all on its own, as you can see in both of these panoramas taken off the side of Summitview Rd. that runs between Naches and Tieton.

Click twice for the largest view!

Click twice for the largest view!

The town of Naches has a number of pretty nooks and crannies, including their welcome building.

Make sure you visit the fruit stands in season on the side of road leading toward Yakima.

I dare you not to eat one of these in person.

Unique decorative squashes.

Many of them also offer local goods like hot sauces and jams. There was a restored soda counter in one stand that now serves as a display for old-fashioned candies.

My parents live in Tieton, and during my two weeks there, I made many circuits of the streets while walking their tiny dog Ferocious.

Ferocius.

The prettiest parts were making my way through several country roads that led into apple, cherry, pear, and hops orchards. A great walk takes you from Rosencranz up N. Tieton Rd. toward the mountains, down Diller Road, and through Franklin to reach Rosencranz again.

Walking down Rosencranz.

Sunset over the mountains.

Sagebrush on Noye Rd.

Walking up Noye Rd.

Passing a nice view on Rosencranz.

Horses and hills on N. Tieton.

Passing orchards.

Panorama of a hops farm. Click twice for the biggest view!

More hops.

Of course, watching the family cat explore her backyard is always a good way to enjoy myself after taking a long walk.

Birds scared of Pookie.

Most of the Yakima Valley wineries can be found to the south of Tieton, but there are a few near my parents’ house. I had fun tasting at Wilridge Winery (250 Ehler Road, Yakima), although I’m the only one who drinks in my family. They offer wines from four different labels, and the Red Mountain Melange was my favorite.

The house.

The tasting room.

Crab apples fallen around a tree swing.

It’s impossible to complain about the views from either the back or the front of the tasting room.

Click twice for the biggest view!

Click twice for the biggest view!

The second winery we hit, just down the road, was Naches Heights Vineyards (2410 Naches Heights Rd, Yakima).

None of their wines agreed with my palate, but they have a beautiful yard with a stream worth visiting, and of course, not all palates are the same.

My family at their tiny waterfall.

Taking Route 410, the Chinook Pass, out of Tieton leads you deeper into the Cascades and provides gorgeous views.

Ferocious agrees.

Again, I was struck by how much the mountain terrain made me think of Mordor.

We took two pit stops along the way, the first at Gold Creek Station (18431 State Route 410, Naches). It was packed for lunch on a Friday. In addition to what’s likely a delicious menu, they had stage flats for an old mining town up in back, making for a fun backdrop while eating lunch on a warmer day.

The mining town.

Flowers in front of the restaurant.

View from the restaurant. Click twice for the biggest view!

Drive a little bit farther and you can find Whistlin’ Jack Lodge and Restaurant (20800 State Route 410, Naches), a favorite of locals for a fancy night out. I can vouch for how inviting their bar is on a chill day.

Oddities in the lodge entrance.

We wandered around the property, and it is full of great spots to watch the Naches River and enjoy the carved wooden animals.

Even the carvings like the view.

If you have a car, driving the Chinook Pass is a great way to spend the day, making sure you stop for food in Naches or at any of those restaurants along the way. Don’t forget a winery in Tieton for the afternoon, and revel in the gorgeous vistas to be found throughout Central Washington. For more pictures from Naches, Tieton, and the Chinook Pass, click here and here.

My next series of travelogues will be on my December trip to New Orleans. First up will be spending a day north of the city in Abita Springs and Covington. Brewery tours and crazy mystery houses, oh my!