Melusina54's Profile
Can I do anything about this?
"Clearly (to me at least), the fault lies with an individual who most likely works at this restaurant (unless one of my co-workers was at the party took the cards, which is highly unlikely)"
It is unclear (to me at least) how it is more likely that the fault lies with an individual who works at this restaurant than with one of your co-workers.
Perhaps you should let the co-workers who werent at the party know that they should guard their valuables at the office?
People are careless and misplace things all the time. Gift cards should be treated as cash and not left lying about on a table.
Fresh and Local in Downtown Raleigh
Hands down, Zely and Ritz. Seasonal, local, organic and much of it from Coon Rock Farm. Ok, so its Glenwood South and not downtown, but I think its a great option.
http://www.zelyandritz.com/
Triangle Restaurant Week, May 12-18
Located in uber-hot North Hills in Midtown Raleigh, Vivace is another successful concept by the Urban Food Group. I am obsessed with this place. From the gorgeous patio with mocha-umbrellaed tables, rattan chairs, indoor-outdoor bar and romantic fountain to the marble bar and curved and curtained sofa dividing the lounge from the dining room decorated in shades of cream and espresso...everything about this place is just my style. When I become wealthy and famous, Id like the architect and interior designer to design my home!
The modern trattoria concept is brilliant. Bustling, informal and vibrant, it just feels like an authentic neighborhood restaurant in Rome or Tuscany. I love the seasonal, regionally focused menu. I love the filtered tap water served in large glass bottles. I love that wines are offered by the quartino and organized by region. I love that a mid-afternoon intermedio menu is offered. I love sitting at the chefs bar overlooking the open kitchen. And I really love the cocktail menu based on homemade cellos and sangrias.
Okay, on to Restaurant Week! Upon arriving for my booking, the hostess asked if Id prefer a table or to be seated at the chefs bar. Chefs bar, please! I was thrilled to find it open on a Saturday night! I asked for both the RW and the regular menus and settled in with a mojito with house-made limecello to consider my options.
The Restaurant Week menu had more offerings than the single choices presented at Fraziers, 2-3 options each for appetizer, entree and dessert. I thought Id decided when the striped grouper on the regular menu caught my eye.
My dinner:
buffalo bocconcini, arugula, strawberry sauce amuse-bouche
bucatini all' amatriciana con gambieri
pan-roasted grouper, grilled radicchio, fingerling potatoes, saffron brodo, bitter herb salad
honey-almond gelato, almond bric tuile
quartino of orvieto
cappucino
The amuse-bouche was tangy and creamy, offset by the sweetness of the strawberry sauce. The house-made pasta was perfectly cooked and had the just the right amount of spicy sauce with smoked pancetta, red pepper and tender shrimp. The fish was fresh off the Carolina coast, moist and sweet, balanced by the bitterness of the warm radicchio and cool herb salad.
I only managed a third of my entree, packing the rest for home, but I cannot resist an opportunity to linger over coffee and dessert...so I ordered cappucino and the house made honey-almond gelato that Id watched being paddled up before me all night.
I think Ill be back with a 12-oz to go container from work and gladly pay whatever it costs to pack it with more of that creamy, honeyed silkiness. All Id need then is a pool boy to spoon it into my mouth.
Triangle Restaurant Week, May 12-18
Friday night brought me to SONO, a recently opened Japanese/sushi restaurant in the Hudson condo building on Fayetteville St. Id hoped to be able to walk downtown (its about a mile and a half), but the weather was most uncooperative, with the same crazy early-evening thunderstorm pattern weve been having here for the past week.
I arrived right on time for my booking and was seated immediately after some confusion about the number of people in my party--one, not seven. The hostess was initally suspicious of this. Who makes a reservation for a party of one at 8 pm on a Friday? Me, thats who!
I go out to eat alone quite frequently and dont find it odd at all. I get to go where I want at the time I want, get to order what I want and stay as long as I want without compromise over someone elses tastes or schedule. (Im sure the error was simply a clerical transposition of the 1 and 7 on numerical keyboard vs. cell phone keypad.)
The interior is a sleek, contemporary urban space: backlit bar up front and visible from the streetfront, dining room in the center and sushi bar along the back wall. A red, black and bamboo color scheme is dominated by a huge photographic mural of a beautiful woman in a red cheongsam, lounging on the floor with one shoe fallen behind her as she contemplates a flower. Get a little bit of this, indeed!
I asked for both the Restaurant Week and the standard menus. The RW menu offered choices of 4-5 different appetizers and entrees, with dessert selection from the regular dessert menu. One of the entree options was any two specialty rolls--so this was an easy choice from a cost perspective. I generally prefer nigiri or chirashi to rolls, but this was a good deal.
I ordered:
stuffed calamari appetizer
Sono and Screaming O rolls
Key lime calypso dessert
Rubytini
250 ml bottle of Zipang sake
The stuffed calamari was a tube, stuffed with what tasted like a very spicy ebi shumai filling, fried and topped with a spicy sauce that tasted a lot like the sauce they serve on the firecracker shrimp at Mura, their restaurant across from my gym in North Hills.
I liked the Sono (tuna, red snapper, salmon, blue crab, wasabi and masako wrapped in nori and daikon) and I loved the Screaming O (spicy tuna, tempura shrimp and avocado with seared tuna outside).
The Key Lime Calypso was a very light and refreshing Key lime mousse with vanilla bean, wrapped in a dark and white chocolate tuile.
The Zipang was something I just had to try, since its the must-have beverage of the summer. It was different--Id describe it as a cross between sake and champagne, err, sparkling wine. Light and refreshing, it paired well with the spicy food.
It was a nice dinner, and a great atmosphere. Ill be back over the summer to work the chefs eat at the sushi bar or sit at the front bar for a cocktail or some more Zipang if Im feeling bubbly!
Triangle Restaurant Week, May 12-18
I had grandiose plans to visit 5 restaurants during RW...however I only made it to 3 and actually only got the RW special menu at one place. I had a great 3 days of eating, nevertheless!
Im a little disappointed there hasnt been more about in on here or anywhere else Ive searched...
Im not sure a link to my blog would be appropriate, so I will paste my expeiences here:
Ive been a fan of Fraziers since I moved to Raleigh to attend NCSU and discovered this little bistro tucked among the pizza joints, bookstores and college bars of Hillsborough Street.
In the eight years Ive been here, Fraziers has evolved into a sophisticated urban paradise for foodies--setting the bar in terms of service, culinary innovation and atmosphere very high indeed--and the Jennings' second project, Porters City Tavern opened next door and assumed the neighborhood bistro role. Yet Fraziers has maintained an intimate neighborhood accessibility and I am very glad they are in my neighborhood!
I was able to make my reservation with OpenTable without incident and was seated immediately upon arrival. Id asked for both the Restaurant Week and the regular seasonal menu. The RW menu looked good, but offered no options: mussels and orzo, saffron broth; roasted salmon with fennel (and something else, I should have written it down); chocolate tres leches cake, mango sorbet.
I hadnt eaten there since fall, so naturally my head swam with all the possibilities of the regular menu and the $25 menu was quickly discarded. I have to admit that menus are my porn. I love food with a passion that is sometimes shocking to me and I will often ask to keep menus to look at as Im eating so I can indulge in fantasies about what the other ten things I wanted to order would feel and smell and taste like.
I ended up ordering:
half portion of yukon gold gnocchi with duck confit, tomato jam, napa, celebrity dairy goat cheese and beurre noisette
wasabi-pea crusted halibut with spring pea and melted leek risotto, pea shoots and tomato coulis
single-origin Colombian chocolate and hazelnut mousse, fleur de sel palmier
2 glasses of Orvieto
Total bill was $60 plus tip. It was money well spent on one of the best meals Ive had in a long time. I could have laid down in the gnocchi and taken a bath, it was that good. The halibut was every flavor of spring bursting against my tongue and Im afraid the mousse has spoiled me from mangeant de la mousse de chocolat ordinaire toujours encore.
Ill be back this week to sit at the bar with a glass of the Orvieto and a book. Oh, and a whole portion of that ethereal gnocchi.
What is the difference in types of curry?
Im only familiar with Thai green curry, which I like very much.
What is the difference in heat, ingredients and taste between panang, massamun, yellow and red curry?
Thanks.
Cringe-worthy words in restaurant reviews
I cant stand "Sammies"
What is a sammie? First RR, now Quiznos.
I guess I should consider the source.
Recommendations in Hilton Head area
Update on lunch in Beaufort:
While we would have liked to have eaten at Saltus River Grille, they were only open for dinner. We tried to decide between Paninis and Plums, and since my parents had eaten at Paninis when my brother was in town, we went to Plums. Huge mistake.
Upon being seated, our server came by and was very apologetic that they were slammed (every table in the place was full at 3pm, about 25 tables with 3 servers on that I could see) but said shed be right with us. Sure, I understand this and at least she told us up front and was apologetic. The first ominous sign was as she saw us reading the specials board, she remarked, "Oh--and were out of all of those specials and theres no soup". Hmm, ok. Come in at 3 pm, we might expect them to be out of the specials. Fair enough.
Our server returns with our beverages, clearly frazzled and still apologetic. The drinks (all non-alcoholic, but in hindsight I wish Id ordered a stiff cocktail) were served in plastic cups of the variety you would see at a keg party. Wow. Not what I am used to at a table service restaurant. I didnt expect stemware, but disposable plastic cups? We order a shrimp and black bean quesadilla to share, I order the Biarrtiz (pita with smoked turkey, bacon, brie and strawberry spread). Guess what? They are out of it. Fine. I look at the menu again, my mother orders the BLT and my father the Reuben. Our server comes back to me and I order the Pub Club (smoked turkey, gouda, mango chutney on sourdough). Guess what? No sourdough. Well, maybe I can get it on another kind of bread, but maybe not because she "thinks" thats one of the sandwiches they "premake". Huh? Okay, Ill keep looking at the menu. Oh, and one more thing, they are out of burgers. And theres no sweet potato fries but they do have regular fries instead. At this point, Im sure I had a quite a look on my face because she scurried off and said shed see if they would make me the club on another kind of bread. Turns out they will make it on whole wheat, so thats what I order.
We sit and sit and sit. The place is finally starting to clear out and calm down. We sip out of our plastic keg party cups and await our quesadilla. It never shows. The server comes back after about 40 minutes and plops down our sandwiches and announces, "I know you ordered the quesadilla as an appetizer. I put it in, but they didnt make it first. Its almost done and will be out in a few minutes". Huh? My father tells her to forget it, well just eat the sandwiches. She says she will bring it anyway and make sure we arent charged for it. Fair enough.
I look over at my parents food and am mortified. My moms BLT is on burned toast. My dads Reuben looks pathetic. They can see Im very upset because Im embarrassed that I picked this place and eat their food without comment. BTW, when the quesadilla finally arrived, it was delicious, stuffed with huge whole fresh shrimp, black beans, cilantro and a really kicky pepper jack cheese, served with clearly homemade pico and sour cream.
I have no idea what was going on with this place. We saw several tables get up and leave when they found out there was no this, no that. Which we probably should have done, but it was getting late and we were hungry and the place was recommended as having the same ownership as Saltus River Grille. As I said, I wasnt expecting fine dining, just a decent little lunch. I wish wed gone to Nippys and gotten hot dogs or shrimp rolls and cans of soda.
Sigh. I hope we have better luck with lunch in Savannah.
Recommendations in Hilton Head area
Ive done a search and feel a little discouraged. Im visiting my parents in Bluffton and would like recommendations for 2 lunches and a dinner.
My parents are taking me on daytrips to see Beaufort and Savannah (different days). They are leaving it up to me to decide where to have lunch since Im "in the business". We prefer local places, non-chain and middle of the road budget-wise for lunch. Id be just as happy ordering from a counter at a great local shack as having table service. Weve already gone to Bluffton Oyster Co and steamed shrimp and oysters at home. I would love to try red rice.
Id also like a dinner recommendation in Bluffton/HHI, more upscale than lunch. We enjoy all types of food, especially seafood. Its just discouraging to me to read that there is very little, if any, local seafood in the area.
Thanks!
Half price special at Georges Garage? Not necessarily.
Prime Only in the old Southend Brewery location on West Jones St off Glenwood South is advertising half price sushi rolls Mon-Fri nights from 9-midnight. Havent checked it out yet, hopefully this week! But theres another "half price" sushi option if anyone is interested.
Raleigh-Thai-near NC State/downtown/Cary
Thai Villa on Buck Jones Road near Crossroads (I forget the name of the shopping center, but its near the old Ruths Chris) has decent Thai.
My favorite Thai is Sawasdee on Capital Boulevard. Very fresh, high-quality ingredients, lots of vegetarian options, very friendly and $7.99 lunch specials daily.
Lemons with peppermint sticks [moved from What's My Craving board]
Revsharkie, I graduated from Old Mill in 1983. Im glad to hear that someone else has fond memories of the Fine Arts Festival. Yes, Annapolis has certainly changed...and what a pleasure to hear that your little girl enjoyed these treats at her party. Somtimes the simple things in life are the best!
As a follow-up, I ended up finding the perfect peppermint sticks at the Harry and Davids outlet in Smithfield, NC. I hadnt even though of the King Leo sticks.
Half price special at Georges Garage? Not necessarily.
Sushi Blues on Glenwood South has half price rolls (not nigiri, but rolls) on Tuesdays from 10-midnight and Thursdays from 11p-1a. They start taking names for tables 30 mins before the special starts, and be warned, there is a line out the door.
This is a statement, not an endorsement. I definitely prefer Waraji, but Sushi Blues is next door to where I work so its convenient sometimes. And as far as the half price rolls...yeah, its a deal, but the place is wall to wall with cheap college kids. Not my idea of an enjoyable evening. For my money, Id rather spend the $$ and have a nice evening. Just wanted to point out another REAL half-price option.
Breckenridge Vanilla Porter
Well, Im in North Carolina...Ill have to seek out the Atwater Porter, and maybe Ill just give the Breckenridge a try...if its too sweet, I can just use it in the chocolate mousse desserts Ive been making for the pub I manage. Thanks for the info!
Breckenridge Vanilla Porter
Has anyone tried this? Im dying to try it, Im hoping for something with vanilla/coffee/burnt caramel type flavors. Im hoping its not sickeningly sweet. Id love any feedback or reviews...thanks!
Blue Crab Pasta Sauce
Of of my favorite pasta with crab dishes is from a restaurant in Raleigh called 518 West and the dish is simply called "The Crab". Its red pepper papardelle with a dill cream, mushrooms, bacon, scallions and about a TON of lumb crab piled on top. Its sublime.
I dont have the recipe, but Id imagine a decent version would be fairly easy to replicate. Make a dill cream sauce, saute some wild mushrooms and bacon or pancetta in a little olive oil, chop some scallions, buy a pound of jumbo lump backfin and theres dinner!
Blenheim Ginger Ale in Raleigh-Durham
They had in the Cameron Village Harris Teeter over the weekend. And if for some reason you go in there and dont see it, just fill out an item request form and they will special order it for you.
Best Oyster Bar in Durham/Chapel Hill area
Nelsons is about as far from a dive as one can get. True, they have toned their menu and prices down considerably from when they first opened but they are DEFINITELY not a "pitchers of beer, pool tables and wings" kind of place. The most downscale you will ever see the place is Thursday nights when they are invaded by barely-21 frat boys and sorostitutes.
Shuckers on Capital Blvd, downscale, probably what the OP is looking for. Unfortunately nowhere near Chapel Hill.
Sunny Side Oyster Bar Too in Garner, also very downscale. I dont recommend...nothing like the one at the beach.
Hudsons Oyster Bar and Grille in the old Gino Russos location, meh. Kinda middle of the road, hopefully they are getting the kinks worked out after having been open almost a year.
42nd Street Oyster Bar, also meh. Very overpriced, but good beer selection and its fun to sit at the oyster bar and have a few dozen.
The state of shellfish in Raleigh is very disappointing to me, as someone who grew up in MD where crab and oysters were king.
Lunch Spots in Raleigh & @ Southpoint... NOFO?
Unfortunately, the nature of malls is chain dining. You will have to leave either Crabtree or Southpoint in order to find more unique or "local" food. Hayes Barton Cafe does have a great lunch and fabulous desserts (the white chocolate banana cream pie is to DIE for!), but be warned, they close at 2. My favorite is the chicken salad croissant.
Five minutes up Glenwood from Crabtree is Waraji, my favorite for sushi in Raleigh. If you like a little heat, try the Scary Jerry, which is a secret roll not on the menu!
If you want to go further south on Glenwood than Five Points, the Rockford has got great sandwiches, a funky arty atmosphere and a beautiful copper topped bar...they make a nice cocktail if the shopping has gotten to you *that much*! I like the ABC (Granny Smith Apples, Bacon and Cheddar) and both versions of their Cuban. Like Hayes Barton, and Waraji for that matter, they also close for lunch at 2.
Im afraid Im no help when it comes to Durham.
"Great" Restaurant Names
Pho Shizzle! Not sure where it is...found it when doing an online search for Pho.
brunch/lunch in Raleigh NC
Unfortunately, Village Deli in Cameron Village is closed until November due to expansion/renovation. But they were open Sundays from 12-4. Id also recommend The Grape in Cameron Village, they have a great little brunch and tapas menu and offer options for both vegetarians and carnivores. Or try one of my favorites, Porters City Tavern on Hillsborough St, right across from NCSU. Porters is owned by the same husband/wife as Vivace and South in North Hills and Fraziers (next door to Porters).
Any Delivery Services Around?? Cary/Apex/Morrisville NC
The state of food delivery in Raleigh/Cary is deplorable. And I live "inside the beltline", in Cameron Village...about a mile from Glenwood South and Powerhouse food/entertainment districtsand a mile and a half from the Warehouse District, Fayetteville Street and downtown proper.
I dont know much about Cary, but you might try www.raleightakeout.com, they deliver from multimple restaurants...unfortunately none to write home about.
Horseradish sauce?
I make a horseradish cream sauce at the restaurant that we serve with both a hot roast beef sandwich we call the Galway Hot Beef Roll, as well as sliced cold beef tenderloin on the brunch buffet. I dont have exact measurements because I eyeball everything except when baking. But its very easy, 3 ingredients:
sour cream or creme fraiche
mayonnaise
prepared white horseradish
Equal parts sour cream and mayo, add horseradish to taste. Spicy and cool at the same time.
Fish Tacos in the Raleigh-area?
Porters City Tavern on Hillsborough St across from NC State has great fish tacos. I believe they are Mahi-Mahi. This is the same group that owns Fraziers (next door to Porters), Vivace and South (both in North Hills). Porters is a great spot for lunch or dinner and has an amazing patio that would be perfect to dine on over these next few cooler nights!
Lemons with peppermint sticks [moved from What's My Craving board]
As a kid, one of my fondest memories was going to the Annapolis Fine Arts Festival every year and getting a whole lemon with the top cut off and a short, fat, peppermint stick stuck inside of it. The peppermint sticks were slightly hollow or "straw-like" and one would suck the lemon juice through the peppermint stick...it was a sticky, delicious mess! Does anyone know where I could find peppermint sticks like these so I could make this bit of nostalgia at home?
Im looking for an on-line source, but currently live in Raleigh and travel to the Annapolis/Baltimore/Washington area and have family in Hilton Head and Portland (ME) areas that would also be willing to help me procure these elusive peppermint sticks! Thanks.
