Calvin P.'s Profile

My wife and I were visiting relatives who graciously took us to dinner at V.. When they placed the menu and nightly special sheet in front of us, the following item from the nightly specials sheet immediately jumped out at me:

Artisan Sausage Plate
Andouille, chicken apple, rosemary lamb, fingerling potatoes, braised red cabbage & whole grain mustard

I think it jumped out at me because I thought it was amusing to see "artisan" and "sausage" used together.

And here's the thing. I've never been a big red cabbage fan, never really liked mustard, and honestly I'm not a huge sausage fan. And yet. And yet, this dish called to me.

Very glad I went with my gut. This turned out to be one of the best meals I've had in a long while.

The sausages were perfectly grilled. They were tender, slightly blackened, and not the least bit greasy. My favorite was the andouille. The chicken apple was a new experience to me and I didn't really taste apple per se. But noetheless it was good. The lamb tasted like lamb and was well grilled but didn't taste that special to me.

What amazed me was the mustard. Don't know much about mustard. No idea what it means to be "whole grained" but I did see tiny grains in it. In any case, the mustard had a strong, sharp tang to it that turned simple well grilled meats into a treat.  

The braised cabbage was not sweet or runny which is how I usually think of it and is why I don't normally like it. But I liked this cabbage.

This was my one and only experience with the restaurant, but it was a very well done meal and I'd go back in a heart beat.

We had good service. The decor has a warm family restaurant feel to it. Might have been a little on the noisy side. I wouldn't say it's a great place for an intimate conversation, but it is a friendly family place that suited us just right.

Prices might have been just a little on the high side IMHO, but not crazy high.

This is the way god meant us to enjoy baseball. True, the Asheville Tourists are a Class A team, but in a small park like this you get this great vibe going with everyone. You can hear everyone chatting with their neighbor. The you can hear the coaches on the field yelling up to the coaches in the press box. The player's wives are milling about gossiping with each other and the team mascot.  You can year the ball players yukking it up when things are going good and cursing a blue streak when things aren't going so good. The bally playing is, um, a hit or miss affair, but that just adds to the fun. Everyone in the ball park from the press box to the field still remembers that it's all a game and everyone is there for fun.

Tickets are cheap. Concessions reasonable. Lots of between the innings hi-jinks for the kids.

Early Girl Eatery is theee place to go for breakfast when you're visiting Asheville. Even if "early" in your book means stumbling through the door at 10:45-ish. The place was packed, but we only had to wait 15 minuted to get a table.

Early Girly prides itself on serving as much locally produced food as possible and it shows in the menu. Of course there's the classic shrimp and grits, which my wife had. She said it was just the right amount of spicy. I was tempted by the garlic potato pancakes which were on the special board. But I had to go with my tried and true, local sausage adn sweet potato scrambled eggs. The starchy sweetness of the potatoes was a perfect complement to the savory goodness in the sausage. Plus, shrooms and onion in the mix. Veryy nice. The thing that sent it over the top though was the jumbo size biscuit they give everyone, just because they are nice. I had it with the table jam which was a local grape that had a good strong tang to it and it was sweet but not too sweet.  

Endless cup of decent coffee. Fast and efficient staff. Prices that were just a tad above wa tyou'd pay at Shoneys and worth every damn penny.

Two words for ya: Breakfast. Bar. In addition to all the usual breakfasty stuff, eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, ham, etc. They had cinnamon apples, chees sauce for the eggs/hashbrowns. strawberries complete with short cake and whipped cream because why the hell not. In an apparent bit of ironic humor, which I'm sure was lost on most breakfasters there, the breakfast bar also included all the makings for green salad.

But here's what you really need to know. The biscuits were damn good and I am an expert at biscuits.

I concocted an entirely new dish inspired by strawberry shortcake. I took a biscuit and sliced it into two halves. Then I layered on top of each half baked cinnamon apples and just a bit of whipped cream. Lord it was good. I think I'm gonna call it. a biscuit apple bushel because it kinda looked like that.

And the waitress, bless her heart, didn't bat an eye as I was playing with my food designing the perfect breakfast decadence.

Also, the price was right. Less than 8 bucks for a decent breakfast bar.

The Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle (RTOOT)  occupied the Chapel Hill Bible Church on Saturday, December 10th to bring awareness of their "Revenge of the Sugar Plum Fairy" show to Chapel Hill. Their radical notion of time, meter, and tuning, not to mention their elastic approach to musical phrasing, raised eyebrows among the crowd of musical enthusiasts. The conductor who goes under the nome de guerre, My Strow Hobgood assembled his collective of occupiers from throughout the Triangle area.

RTOOT's initial musical salvo was a manfiesto of Leroy Anderson Favorites, "Blue Tango," "Belle of the Ball," "The Syncopated Clock," and Serenata" that left the audience stunned by its use of enhanced syncopation. While the audience was still reeling, RTOOT lit into Johann and Josef  Strauss' Pizzicato Polka. It's unclear of the piece was a joint composition of if each man blamed the other brother for it. RTOOT's last number in their first set as the Prelude to Act 1 of Hansel and Gretel interpreted through the eyes of political correctness.

After intermission, RTOOT assaulted the holidays with a medley of excerpts from The Nutcracker, including the RTOOT dancers whose movements appeared more like a brewing riot than a dance troupe. That was followed by a subversive interpretation of  three parts of Handel's Messiah. Finally  RTOOT engaged and  confronted the audience in a series of holiday carols in which the audience singalong sounded like bullhorns directing RTOOT to stand down.

The Chapel Hill Police Department was unavailable for comment. No one was arrested.

I'm a sucker for Sunday Brunch and it had been way too long since I had indulged in Crook's Corner. So when a friend suggested that my wife and I join him for brunch there today, we jumped at the chance.

I am slowly learning to be a little more adventurous when selecting dishes at restaurants and looking for the items on the menu that I am not likely to get anywhere else. So even though the Shrimp and Grits called to me, and even though the Baked French Toast _begged_ to be ordered. I decided to go out on a limb and order the "Southern Fall Omelet" which was described as "w/ collard greens, cooked w/ ham, & parmesan, served w/ cheese grits."

Collard greens are a special favorite of mine because I'd never attempt to cook them at home. And as readers of my reviews in the past will note (see my Review of "Poole's Downtown Diner), I consider collard greens to be a true test of a southern chef because there are so very many ways you can screw them up.

But honestly, collard greens in an omelet?  I guess if you can put spinach in an omelet, you can put collard greens in an omelet? But I know, it just sounds wrong.

But it's not. In fact it was delicious. I was a little nervous when it was first put in front of me. The dish was maybe a little bit to juicy with collard green juice on the plate. But one bite and I knew I'd made the right choice. They were cooked to perfection. Just the right texture and a good strong flavor on the mouth without being bitter. The saltiness of the Parmesan cheese was a secondary flavor but it balanced the collards just right. If I had to criticize the dish, I'd say that I wished there were some ham in the dish. Because the greens had been cooked in ham, there was a definite ham flavor in the mix. But why not add some in there?

The side of cheese grits that came with it was good southern comfort food of course and a good balance to the omelet.

But I am also a carb addict and the cheese grits didn't quite satiate the carb craver in me, so I also ordered a Buttermilk Biscuit on the side which was perfectly baked. Not too doughy, not too brown and it was served with some home made grape jam. Menu didn't say, but I'm guessing Muscadine.

Prices were on the high end but not unreasonably high.  This is not your typical diner brunch. It's high Southern Cuisine and given that, I thought it was fairly reasonably priced.

I also want to take a minute and note that the staff was amazing.  Prompt, attentive, polite (they didn't interrupt our conversation). Kudos to them.

The Orange County Speedway is "the world's fastest 3/8 mile track." It's a great short course and not a bad seat in the house. You can see all four turns of the track very well which means you don't miss a singe bit of the racing action.

One of the things I like about the OCS is they do a great job keeping the fans involved in the race. You can go on the track between races and get up close to the cars and talk to the drivers. The announcers do a geast job with the turn by turn calls of the action.

There's usually 4 or 5 races each night covering pure stocks, street stocks, late model select, super mini trucks and bunches of other types of races.

Don't forget to take ear plugs with you. You can bring coolers up to one six-pack size. But there's beer and snacks available at the track.

If you've never watched car races up close before, the OCS is a great place to go for your first race. Friendly people, great view, and helpful annoncers.

This is the first time I'd been at the new location of Pop's. While I'm happy to say that the staff and people are just as warm and helpful as they've always been, I can't say I like the new place as much as the old place.

The old place had a homey feel to it, a certain warmth in the room. I didn't get that vibe in the new place, we were seated in the back room area and the high flat walls made the room extremely noisy and I was lip reading across the table pretty much the whole night. And it wasn't just the noise, the room was stark and felt more like a museum room than a dining room. Now, perhaps the main dining room has a better feel to it.

I wasn't feeling adventurous food-wise. I had the simple green salad with pecans and the apples-and-brie pizza. The green salad was fresh and done right, but it's not exactly a dish to showcase a chef's talents. Likewise, the apples and brie pizza was comfort food. But it was done just right and I enjoyed it. For dessert I had the blueberry torte, which I enjoyed.

I give them three stars because the food satisfied me. I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth. And I'm more than willing to go back again sometime when I'm more in the mode of trying some signature dishes.  

But I'd also strongly recommend that people try to get a seating in the main dining room, even if it means waiting a little longer to get seated. Hopefully the folks behind Pop's will be able to rebuild the warm kitchen feel the old place had.

PieBird serves good old-fashioned comfort-food dressed up in hipster chic. As far as comfort food goes, I think it mostly lives up to its billing, but my one experience eating dinner there didn't impress me anymore than your average diner. But hey, it's not bad as far as diners go.

Being a first class carb addict, I was intrigued by the pie-centered menu. So we started out with an order of "Pie Cracklin's." That would lead you to believe it's actual pie crust. But I don't think it was. As one of my dinner companions pointed out, it's more like fried won-tons than anything else. Maybe a little thicker. We had ours served with the onion relish spread and it was a tasty appetizer, if not quite what we were expecting. Good and crunchy. Maybe a hint of paprika in there too, I think.

For my "side dish" which was served as a first course rather than a side dish, I had the watermelon salad. It had watermelon, baby spinach, onion, and beets. Not a combination I would have predicted, ever. But it worked surprisingly well and it was a good starter for the main dish.

For my main dish, I opted for the curried vegetable pie. Served in a crockery dish it was basically chicken pot pie vegetables simmered in a curry sauce. It wasn't too spicy. but it did liven up the dish quite a bit. On the side, they served a small dish of mango chutney and yogurt. When your mouth got too hot you could dip your fork in theat and get a taste of something creamy and sweet that took the burn of the curry away. But what about the carbs? When I think of savory pies, I think of an actual pie with  bottom and side crusts. But no such thing. Just a top crust. And the top crust wasn't like a usual pie crust tat you would expect on a chicken pot pie. It was more of a flat bread thing. And it wasn't bad, just not what I usually think of when I think of savory pies. I want an actual pie when I order savory pies.  So again, it was good, well prepared. and satisfied in a comfort food sort if way. But t didn't feel like I was eating a savory pie. If I'm eating pie, I want actual pie crust, dammit.

Of course, at a pie restaurant, we have to have dessert.  My companions had the chocolate creme pie, which they raved about, resorting to willing the plate with their fingers to get every last bit of chocolate goodness. I wish I could be as enthusiastic about my choice. I ordered the apple crumb pie which was described as an apple pie with cinnamon and an oatmeal crumb topping.  A good classic pie, which I have to say I was disappointed in. First of all, it was served cold. I expect apple pies to be served hot or at least at room temperature, but the slice served to me was cold and the crust was dense and chewy, but not flaky. I almost suspect it was supposed to have been baked and it wasn't. I'll give them points for the oatmeal crumb topping being pretty good and the apples were crisp, so that's cool. But here's my big grip about the pie. THERE WAS NO DISCERNIBLE TASTE OF CINNAMON!!! WTF??? Whoever heard of an apple pie without cinnamon? I double checked the description on the menu to make sure I had not misread or mis-ordered, but the description of both apple pies on the menu indicated that cinnamon was one of the ingredients. And I had one of my dinner companions taste it too and she didn't taste any cinnamon either.  So while the pie that was served to me wasn't that bad, it's definitely not what I expected based on a) the menu and b) my past experience with every other apple pie ever.

If I had walked into an unpretentious diner and paid diner prices and been served this meal, I wouldn't have minded a bit. It was perfectly OK. But I would have expected more at PieBird.

For the record, PieBird is a pleasant place to visit, nice ambiance. And our wait staff was very helpful in terms of explaining the menu and answering questions about the dishes. So they have that going for them. But overall, I have to give them three stars.

I've had a contract with Pest and Termite Consultants to protect my townhouse in Chapel Hill since I bought the place in 2001. They do their annual inspection for termites and one year even had to have some garage areas treated. But I've never had any actual termite damage.

Recently there was a complicated situation between me, this company, and the HOA. I won't go into all the blow-by-blow details here. But I am happy to say that the company Did The Right Thing.  So I wanted to give them kudos for that on this site.

I would not hesitate to recommend them to friends.