Road Tips

Mezzaluna - Fargo, ND

During my trip to North Dakota this summer, I always like to go out to dinner with one of my dealers in Fargo along with his wife.  Over the 12-plus years I have been traveling to Fargo, they have turned me on to a number of very good restaurants - surprisingly good restaurants - that one wouldn't think would be in the northern plains.  They were trying to figure out where we should go for dinner that evening and I said, "One place that I've been wanting to try is Mezzaluna.  Let's go there."  They both looked at one another in astonished agreement and we walked from their house to Mezzaluna for dinner that evening.  

Eric Watson grew up in Colorado where he was an avid outdoorsman as a young boy into his teens.  Hunting small game and trout fishing turned into a passion for preparing foods out of what he hunted or caught.  He had an early understanding of how the fresh game foods be prepared.  And as the older son of a working single mother, he made many of the meals in the house

Watson's first job in the restaurant business was as a dishwasher and busboy at a restaurant in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, CO.  He took close notice of the techniques the restaurant's Swiss-born chef showed from food preparation to presentation of dishes.  

After getting out of high school, Watson went directly to culinary school.  He traveled the country as an apprentice chef, but it was during a three-year apprenticeship at the Keystone Resort in Colorado that he met his future wife, Sara, who grew up not far from Fargo. 

The two worked together for a number of years before ending up in Fargo to run the former Cafe Muse at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo before becoming managing partners of Maxwell's in West Fargo.  (Click here to the see the Road Tips entry on Maxwell's.)  However, when the Silver Moon Supper Club closed down in 2011, the Watson's saw an opportunity to take over the space for their own restaurant concept.  They sold their interest in Maxwell's and opened Mezzaluna in March of 2012 with a focus on fresh, locally-raised ingredients.

Mezzaluna has been recognized by a number of magazines and on-line publications as being not only the top restaurant in North Dakota, but one of the top restaurants in the nation.  Time Magazine recently named Mezzaluna one of the top 51 restaurants in America and the best in North Dakota.  Over the past couple of years, OpenTable named the restaurant as one of the top 100 places to eat in the country, and Mezzaluna has also been recognized as one of the top restaurants in American by MSN and The Daily Meal websites.  

It was a 10 minute walk from my dealer's home to Mezzaluna on a beautiful summer evening.  It's located on N. Roberts Street, a block west of Fargo's famous Broadway Downtown District. (see map)   The inside decor hasn't changed much from the days of the old Silver Moon Supper Club (click here if you would like to read about the drunken evening my dealer and I had there about seven years ago). They still have the high back clam shell booths that I completely detest sitting in at restaurants (it's like you're on display for the rest of the diners).  In fact, that's where they tried to seat us when we asked for a table for three.  I immediately protested and they said it may be a moment to find a place to seat us.  I didn't think it would be that long of a wait as the place was - maybe - a quarter full that evening.  

While the staff tried to figure out where to put us, we went to the bar to order some pre-dinner drinks.  It's a small area with a horseshoe-shaped bar.  There's a small lounge area up a short set of stairs at Mezzaluna, the same lounge that I've drank in a couple times previously when it was the Silver Moon.   

It didn't take long for us to get seated at a table in the dining room.  The host that evening gave us some menus to look over and we enjoyed our drinks while we thumbed through the selections that night.  We decided to start out the evening with some appetizers.  I signed up for the seared Szechuan tuna appetizer that came on a bed with crisp wonton noodles and a cabbage slaw with a side of tamari (basically a heavier Japanese version of soy sauce).  The tuna was fresh and flavorful and I was happy to share some with my guests.  

My dealer and his wife ordered up the pan-seared scallops that came on a bed of carrot puree and topped with a brown butter sauce and fingerling potato chips.  As good as the seared tuna was, I had one of the pan-seared scallops and thought it was even better.  So much so, we had another order brought to our table for us to share.  

Everything on Mezzaluna's menu that evening sounded tempting to me.  From the beef tenderloin filet, to the prosciutto-wrapped pork tenderloin, to the pan-roasted chicken breast in a lemon caper sauce there was just so much to choose from.  I was still in a deep quandary as to what to get when our server came around to take our main entree order.

My dealer went with the rack of lamb.  It featured lamb chops on a bed of saffron risotto and served with a garlic confit.  The chops were big, meaty and cooked to a medium-rare.  

Lamb, to me, is hit or miss, but the lamb my dealer was served was lean, juicy and tender.  He said the lamb chops were "outstanding".  It was one of the items that I was heavily eyeing on the menu before I made my final choice.

My dealer's wife got another thing that I was looking at hard - the crab-stuffed walleye.  It was served on a bed of creamy brown wild rice, then topped with leeks and a citrus vinaigrette.  She thought it was just fabulous.  I was getting sort of envious of what my guests had gotten the way they were raving about the taste.  

I ended up going with the bacon-wrapped bison meatloaf.  It was served on a bed of parmesan mashed potatoes and topped with a smoked corn salsa.  And it, too, was very, very good.  The meatloaf wasn't dried out, the bacon wrapping gave it a wonderful flavor, and the roasted corn salsa and parmesan mashed potatoes were all a perfect complement.  I shouldn't have been jealous of what my guests got because I was more than happy with the bison meatloaf.  

Mezzaluna has been on my restaurant radar for a couple three years, and now that I've actually had the chance to try the place I have nothing but high praise for the place.  Our food was very good to excellent, the service was prompt, efficient and professional, and the atmosphere was chic and elegant, but it wasn't pretentious in the least.  I've eaten in some very fine restaurants in Fargo over the years, but it would be very hard to top the meal I had at Mezzaluna.

Mama Ricotta's - Charlotte, NC

On our recent trip to North Carolina, we flew in and out of Charlotte.  On the night before we flew out to go back home, we stayed at a hotel not far from the airport.  Looking for someplace to eat, the people at the front desk were absolutely no help, so we turned to our GPS that hadn't failed us so far on our trip when we were looking for some place to eat.  We found a pizza place that we started out for, but then my wife found a place on her smart phone that sounded pretty interesting.  It was an Italian restaurant called Mama Ricotta's that had pizza cooked in a brick oven.  We were hankering for a pizza so we changed directions on the GPS and ended up at Mama Ricotta's.  

Frank Scibelli grew up in a traditional Italian family in Springfield, MA.  Dinners were always a festive occasion and young Frank loved the way the dinner table drew the family together for conversation and good times.  After he graduated from Wake Forest with a business degree, he found himself doing consultant work in Charlotte.  But his passion for food was too much to overcome.  He opened Mama Ricotta's in 1992 and worked as the chef/owner for a number of years.  Many of the recipes he used in the restaurant were handed down from family members.  

Pictured right - Frank Scibelli.  Photo courtesy of Restaurant Business Magazine.

Business at Mama Ricotta's grew quickly in a city where there weren't a lot of traditional Italian restaurants.  Mama Ricotta's has expanded four times in the 25 years they've been in business.  (And they were expanding their outdoor patio area when we were there earlier this year.)

In addition to Mama Ricotta's, Scibelli has opened a number of other restaurants around the Charlotte area and beyond.  His Big Daddy's Burger Bar concept that opened in 2007 now has 24 company and franchise-owned locations in the Carolinas, Colorado and Oklahoma.  He then opened a couple of Mexican places - Cantina 1511 (which he sold a couple three years ago) and Pacos Tacos in Charlotte not long after that.  He opened his first barbecue place - Midwood Smokehouse - in 2012 and now has three locations in Charlotte (a fourth is scheduled to open later this year) and in Columbia, S.C.  And in 2016, Scibelli opened Yafo Kitchen which features a Middle Eastern variety of food, and a second Charlotte location will open later this year.  (Scibelli also partnered with chef Clark Barlowe to open Heirloom, a popular farm-to-fork restaurant in Charlotte.)  

We found Mama Ricotta's on the far end of the King's Pointe strip mall along King's Drive in the Myers Park neighborhood just south of downtown Charlotte.  (see map)  It was about a 15 minute drive from our hotel, but we didn't mind.  We had never been to Charlotte before and we wanted to check out the city a little bit.  Because of the construction around the front of the building, we had to park in back of the restaurant.  It was a pretty nondescript building that housed Mama Ricotta's, but I guessed that they were changing the outer facade on the building as part of their renovation. 

We were able to get right in and were shown to a table in the dining area.  Even though it had a number of light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, the light was subdued.  I really had to crank down the aperture on the camera on my smart phone to make the room appear bright for this picture.  We were given dinner menus to look through for the time being.   

There was a small wall that delineated the dining area from the rest of the restaurant.  The wall was paneled with slats of wood cases of wine.  Most of the wines were from Italy and I thought it was sort of a neat touch to the decor of the Italian restaurant.  

There was a small bar area off to the side of the restaurant.  It featured a curved bar and some lounge style tables and chairs near the bar.  It looked like a comfy little area to hang in if you had to wait for a table to open up.   

Near the bar was a brick wood-fired oven and a prep area that was used to make the pizza at Mama Ricotta's.  
There was a curved bar area for people to sit at.  Not a lot of people were having pizza that night. 

As we were looking over the menu, our server for the evening - Anthony, a personable young guy who was efficient with his service during our visit - came over to greet us.  Asking if we'd ever dined at Mama Ricotta's before - a question we found to be the norm at most restaurants we ate at while we were in North Carolina - we told him we were from out of town and just in for one evening.  "Well, you picked the best Italian restaurant in Charlotte," he told us.  "People have been coming here for 20, 25 years.  The Italian food is, by far, the best in town." 

He did a good job of selling their regular Italian fare, but we were hungry for pizza considering we started out for a pizza restaurant to begin with.  However, the menu at Mama Ricotta's had a number of Italian specialties available.  They had a rigatoni that came with a ground beef/pork/veal meat sauce that immediately got my attention.  The angel hair pasta with a tomato/basil sauce also sounded good, as did the Pollo alla Griglia entree consisting of a grilled chicken breast that had been marinated in lemon and garlic, then topped with bruschetta tomatoes and served with a side of garlic mashed potatoes.  

My wife needed some greens to start out and she got a small Mama's salad that was made with fresh romaine lettuce, shaved carrots, red onion slices, olives, and pepperoncinis, along with chopped artichoke hearts, chopped roasted red peppers, and cherry tomatoes.  All of the salad dressings served at Mama Ricotta's are housemade and my wife got the vinaigrette to go with the salad.  There was a lot of stuff going on with the salad and she encouraged me to help her eat it.  Everything was fresh and flavorful in the salad.

Along with the salad, they brought out a basket of fresh baked bread and a plate of olive oil with red pepper flakes.  The bread was awesome and it was all I could do to not have any more than one roll as I didn't want to bulk up on bread with a pizza coming.  

The pizza didn't take long thanks to the wood-fired oven and my wife and I were still piecing on her salad when Anthony showed up with the pizza.  I was drinking a locally brewed IPA that they had on tap and my wife was doing a glass of chianti to go along with the pizza.  It was a New Haven-style pizza with sort of a thin crust in the middle with a thicker outer crust.  We got our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza and the sausage had a nice somewhat-spicy taste to it.  There seemed to be more sauce than cheese on it, and the crust - although it was thin - was more chewy than crisp.  But it had a nice caramelization on top of the pizza that gave it a nice flavor.  While it wasn't the best pizza we had, it was still very good.  

Unless we find our way back to Charlotte for more than just one night, this will probably be our only visit to Mama Ricotta's.  And we were happy that we found the place.  The pizza was good - not as good as some places we like to go to in Chicago - but it filled the bill for us that night.  I'm sure their Italian dishes are good, as well.  You don't stay in business for 25 years if the food isn't good.  The service we received from Anthony was top-notch, and the atmosphere was laid-back and comfortable.   If you find yourself in Charlotte and looking for Italian food, I recommend you try Mama Ricotta's.  

A Drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway

A couple years ago when we were visiting friends in far western North Carolina, we came across an entrance for the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We decided to drive along the road for awhile, but conditions quickly deteriorated with dense fog enveloping the roadway.  After a couple miles, we turned around and headed back down out of the fog and continued on to our next destination.  However, during our trip to Asheville, we decided to find information on the Blue Ridge Parkway and go for a drive along the trail.  

Our first stop was to the Asheville Visitor Center at the suggestion of my wife.  The Visitor Center is located just north of downtown just off of Interstate 240 and is the starting point for many of the trolley tours that take tourists around Asheville.  (see map)  In addition to providing local tours, the Visitor Center has a number of brochures about attractions around the area, they have a gift shop and a ticket counter where they sell admissions to the Biltmore Estate.  I was looking through some of the brochures when my wife approached one of the many volunteers at the desk to ask her about where to go on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Well, it turned out that she was talking to the right person, a lady who told us that we needed to go up to Mt. Pisgah - specifically, the Pisgah Inn.  "It's about a 45 minute drive - probably an hour if you stop along the way at some of the scenic turn-outs," she explained to us.  "But you'll get a full Blue Ridge Parkway experience on the way up and back."  She showed us an entrance to the Blue Ridge on a map she provided to us and it wasn't far from our hotel.  My wife and I decided to take off and head over to the parkway from the Visitor Center.  

It was just after 10:30 when we pulled onto the Blue Ridge Parkway around mile marker 395 just east of Asheville and we turned south.  The roadway wasn't all that wide and the speed limit varied from 35 to 45 miles an hour.  There were no shoulders along the road and there were a lot of curves and turn backs along the route.  We had rented a Volkswagen Passat for our trip and it handled the mountain roads very well.  

My wife particularly loved the tunnels that bored through the mountainside.  We went through 9 tunnels on our journey up to and just past the Pisgah Inn.  The lengths ranged from 375 feet at the Ferris Knob #3 tunnel to 1434 feet at the Pine Mountain tunnel - the longest along the 469 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  

The Blue Ridge Parkway is actually a National Park, the longest linear park in the nation.  The roadway and land on either side of the parkway is maintained by the U.S. National Park Service and it has been the most visited park in the nation since 1946 with the exception of three years.  The Blue Ridge Parkway spans from near Waynesboro, VA on the northern terminus to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park near Cherokee, NC on the south end.  

The Blue Ridge Mountains get their name from the blue hue haze that is caused by isoprene emanating from the millions and millions trees along the range.  The Blue Ridge Mountains are technically part of the Appalachian Mountains, but are separated by the Great Appalachian Valley.  The Mountains stretch from northeastern Georgia and end in the hills of southern Pennsylvania.  

The Blue Ridge Parkway was commissioned by President Franklin Roosevelt in the mid-30's as part of his New Deal programs that put people back to work after the Great Depression.  Much of the roadwork was done by local contractors who worked under the Works Progress Administration along with workers with the Federal Emergency Relief Agency and Civilian Conservation Corps who did landscaping, painting, clean-up and roadside recreation areas.  While most of the work was completed just before World War II, but there were parts of the parkway that weren't connected until the mid-60's.  Well, with one exception - a seven mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway in northern North Carolina was finally completed in 1987.  It was over 50 years from the start of construction in western North Carolina to when the final part of the road was completed.

As you can see, there were some pretty vistas along the way up to the Pisgah Inn.  There were a number of turnouts with each one offering something completely different in views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It was a partly cloudy day and somewhat humid giving even more of a hazy view of the mountains.  

Along the way, we found out that the Pisgah Forest that the Blue Ridge Parkway snaked through is known as the Cradle of Forestry in the United States.   George Vanderbilt - the man who built the Biltmore mansion - owned over 150,000 acres south of Asheville, the vast majority of it forest land.  One of the men working for him to help build the Biltmore estate was a young forester by the name of Gifford Pinchot.  As a little boy, Pinchot remembered how his father lamented that the timber harvested off their family land wasn't properly replaced.  As a young man, Pinchot came up with a plan for reforestation of cut land timber.  Vanderbilt hired Pinchot for his ideas of replanting and replenishing the forest after cuts were made for wood used on the estate and for farmland to grow crops.  

Pinchot showed Vanderbilt how he could make a profit on the timber cut on the land and with some of the profits he could have trees replanted for future cuts.  Much of the conversation efforts of the forest owned by Vanderbilt were implemented by Pinchot and continued after he became the first head of the U.S. Forest Service.  After his death in 1914, George Vanderbilt's widow sold much of the family's land to the U.S. National Park Service for less than $5 an acre with the land becoming a large portion of what is now the Pisgah National Forest.  

We continued on the way to the Pisgah Inn and beyond before turning around at a vista turnout and heading back toward Asheville.   With the stops along the way to look at the magnificent views, it took us just over an hour to go approximately 20 miles.  

We decided to stop at the Pisgah Inn to check out the view from there.  The Pisgah Inn dates back nearly 100 years when the first buildings were built in 1918.  With Mt. Pisgah nearby, it became a popular destination for people looking to relax and get out of the heat of the summer with its 5000 foot elevation.  When the Blue Ridge Parkway was completed in both directions from the Pisgah Inn, it became even more of a popular destination after World War II.  The existing Pisgah Inn was constructed in the mid-1960's and the original buildings were demolished in 1990 after it was determined they were no longer safe to inhabit.  It was getting close to lunch time and they did have a restaurant up there, but we were more interested in heading back to Asheville and going to a place that had some craft beers - my main reason why I wanted to go to Asheville in the first place.  
It took us about a half-hour to get back to Asheville as we didn't stop at any of the turn-outs on the way back. Our trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway was absolutely worth the time it took to go up to just past the Pisgah Inn and back.  I complained earlier that the view at The Blowing Rock was worth nowhere near the $7.00 per person they charged for it.  And after driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway and seeing some of the views up there, the people who own Blowing Rock should be ashamed of themselves.  There were some spectacular - and FREE - views along the parkway.  It's definitely worth the time and effort to travel the Blue Ridge Parkway if you make it to Asheville.   

Cin Cin Burger Bar - Winston-Salem, NC

While we were in Winston-Salem, N.C. for a relative's wedding, we did some roaming around town to check things out.  When it came to lunch, we found a burger joint on the west side, but then we found out that it was a chain.  My wife remembered a burger place that we had passed a couple times that morning that looked interesting.  We doubled back to the place and found Cin Cin Burger Bar on W. 1st Street just off the Highway 421 Expressway near the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.  (see map) 

Christakis "Chris" Michael was born and raised on the island of Cyprus and his parents ran one of the more upscale resorts on the island.  The young Chris hobnobbed with the rich and famous of Europe learning the hospitality trade while growing up.  Zoe Rizos was born in Pennsylvania and literally grew up in her parent's restaurant in Ellwood City, PA, a high-volume family-style restaurant where nearly everything was made from scratch.  So you could say that restaurants and hospitality were in the blood of the two before they even met.  

After Zoe graduated from college with a dual degree in business administration and food service management, she met Chris Michael who had emigrated to the United States a few years before.  The couple married in 1984 and settled in Southwest Florida opening their first restaurant Plaka II the same year.  The Michael's eventually sold Plaka II and opened four more restaurants in the Fort Myers area over the next 20 years culminating with a Mediterranean restaurant by the name of Cin Cin Bar and Grille in 2004.  However, in 2007 plunging land values foreshadowed the beginning of the recession in Florida prompting the family to move to Winston-Salem to seek new opportunities.  

Along with their son, Vasili, the Michael's opened Mama Zoe's in 2008 which featured down-home Southern-style cooking.  The family opened Mama Zoe's Seafood Shack in Wilkesboro, NC (about 50 miles west of Winston-Salem) in 2011, but closed that down after they opened up Waldo's Wings, Burgers and Brews in Winston-Salem in 2015.  While he was working on a new concoction for a burger at Waldo's, Chris Michael came up with the concept for an upscale burger restaurant.  They cut the "burgers and brews" out of the name and their restaurant simply became Waldo's Wings in 2016.   When the former Twin City Diner closed in 2015 after 28 years in business, the Michael's leased the space to put in their new concept Cin Cin (pronounced "chin chin", the Italian phrase for "cheers") Burger Bar.  

We got into Cin Cin just after the noon rush hour and we were able to get a seat in a booth in the main dining area of the restaurant.  There was a nice patio out in front that was full, but we wanted to sit inside in the air conditioning on a hot Carolina day.  The dining room featured a number of booths with tables interspersed throughout the place.  The restaurant had a combination of contemporary and Prohibition-era decor.  

The bar area featured a step up area with a long bar with flat panel television along the back wall.  The bar features a number of rotating craft beers on tap and a list of "Speakeasy-style" mixed speciality drinks.

Cin Cin Burger Bar had a dedicated Prohibition-era motif to the place.  Signs and posters recreated from just before the beginning of Prohibition in 1919 through the ratification of the 21st Amendment in 1933 were all throughout the restaurant.  On a shelf along a wall were the antique products and utensils used to make homemade "moonshine" whisky during - well, actually, also before and after - Prohibition.

Our server for the day was a lady by the name of Jennifer who gave us a couple menus to look over after we sat down.  Beer was the first order of the day, however, and I got a Bell's Two Hearted pale ale while my wife got the Jade IPA from Winston-Salem's Foothills Brewing Company.  

There's much more than just burgers on the menu at Cin Cin Burger Bar.  They feature a number of appetizers and sharable plates, salads, sandwiches and entrees such as bourbon molasses-glazed meatloaf, cherry-chipotle salmon, and a 12 ounce ribeye topped with a garlic herb butter.  

But we had burgers on our mind and my wife went with a "topless" burger adorned with aged Vermont cheddar cheese, garlic aioli, cucumbers and arugula.  She got a side salad with a housemade lemon vinaigrette dressing.  

The burgers at Cin Cin Burger Bar are pure Black Angus beef, ground in house and flat-grilled.  Her burger was cooked to a perfect medium with a hint of pink in the middle.  She thought it was very good.  

They have about a dozen specialty burgers on the menu, all with Prohibition-era or gangster-phrase names.  The Speakeasy burger was topped with American cheese, lettuce, tomato and red onion slices and a champagne burger sauce.  The Juice-Joint Dipper was topped with gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, a fried onion ring, scallions, and finished with a roasted garlic aioli with some au jus sauce for dipping the burger into.  But they also had a "Build-Your-Own" burger with a long list of toppings, buns and cheese that you can add to a burger.  

And that's the route I took.  I got the Black Angus burger on a brioche bun.  I had it topped with gruyere cheese, pickled red pepper slices, sautéed mushrooms, bacon slices, dill pickles and a sliced red onion.  I went with the onion rings for a side.  The burger was thick, juicy and very tasty.  Even with all the stuff on top of it, I could still taste the big beefy flavor of the burger with nearly every bite.  

The onion rings were also very good.  They were a little overcooked, but still very delicious.  They came with a side of a spicy sauce that was simply outstanding.  It was so good that I put some of the sauce on my burger. It had a creamy and spicy bite to the palate.  I would have bought a jar of that sauce had they had it available.   

The Cin Cin Burger Bar was an excellent find in our quest for a good burger for lunch.  It was an interesting place with interesting decor, the booth we had was spacious and comfortable, the service was fine, and the burgers we both had were very good.  I especially liked the onion rings with the spicy sauce that came with them, and they had a pretty good selection of beers at Cin Cin.  We were more than happy with our visit to Cin Cin Burger Bar.   (Photo courtesy Trip Advisor.)

Los Charros - Aledo, IL

I had been hearing about a Mexican restaurant in Aledo, IL - about 30 miles south and west of the Quad Cities - that was supposed to be pretty good.  I didn't know much about it except that it was near the Walmart.  One beautiful Friday evening, my wife and I decided to take a drive in the country and enjoy the countryside sights and sounds on the Illinois side of the river.  Taking backroads down to Aledo, it so happened that Illinois Highway 94 that was taking us south toward the small town ended up right in front of the Walmart.  And in front of Walmart was Los Charros.  I said, "Well, that must be the place."  We went in to check the place out and to have some dinner.  

There are two locations of Los Charros - the original one opened in Carthage, IL in 2010 and the Aledo location opened in 2011.  Both are owned by Jacinto Santiago and other than that, I don't know much more about Los Charros. (There is a Los Charros Mexican restaurant in East Moline that has been around the Quad Cities off and on since 1992, but I don't believe there is an affiliation with the ones in Aledo and Carthage.)  

The Aledo location is located on Illinois Highway 17 just east of its junction with Highway 94.  (see map)  It is housed in what looks like it was a former Country Kitchen or possibly a Hardee's restaurant.  The restaurant basically featured three different areas - the main dining room that had a number of tables and some booths, a back room and an atrium area off to the side.  It was pretty busy when we got there and we ended up seated at the end of a long community table, one of two that were in the dining room.

There were a lot of beer signs on the wall, but there was also some Mexican artwork on display.  This little area was up front by the cash register and was an area for people who were waiting for tables to open up. 

We started out with some chips and salsa.  The chips were pretty dull and lifeless like they'd been sitting in the bin way too long, but the salsa was good.   We asked our waitress if we could get some salsa verde.  She didn't know what that was - we determined later in the evening that she must have been pretty new as a server - and I finally said, "The green salsa."  She went off to check and brought back a bowl of salsa verde.  It had a smooth taste on the front end with an eye-opening spicy pop on the back end.  It was very delicious. 

The margaritas were interesting.  We both got margaritas made with Patron tequila.  The mix they used was sort of thicker than most margaritas and it was served with a sliced melon wedge.  I wasn't certain that I liked the margarita all that much, so I ended up getting a Dos Equis Ambar when I finished my drink.

The menu is basic Mexican fare with a few twists thrown in here and there.  My wife went with the combo kabobs - chicken, skirt steak and shrimp with red and yellow peppers and onions on skewers.  A side of Mexican rice, guacamole, chopped tomatoes and lettuce came with it.  She felt the skirt steak was a little tough and chewy, but that the shrimp and the peppers had a wonderful grilled taste to them.  She was undecided if she really liked her meal.  

I got the pork carnitas dinner.  Along with the braised pork, I got a side of Mexican rice and refried beans.  A mix of chopped onions and tomatoes, as well as sliced pickled jalapeños came with it.  And, as a nice touch, some sliced avocados came with the dinner, as well.  The pork was tender and pulled apart rather easily.  The flavor was just all right, but I was able to zip it up a bit with the salsa verde that we had left on the table.  

Now, it had taken quite awhile to get our food out to the table.  My wife had noticed a couple people seated near us who had come in after we did, ordered well after we did, who got their food before us.  It turned out the girl had forgotten to turn in our food order.  That was about the point of the evening when we figured out that she probably didn't have much time under her belt as a server. 

The hiccups in service were about the only thing that marred our meal at Los Charros.  While I thought the food was good for Mexican fare, there are a half-dozen places in the Quad Cities that I think are better.  My wife would probably be not as kind in her assessment as she thought the meal she had was "just all right" and that the chips they served were stale.  I don't know if Los Charros was worth the 30 mile-plus drive we took to go try the place out, but we did and gave it a shot.  

Isa's Bistro - Asheville, NC

One night during our stay in Asheville, we were looking for a good place to dine.  We asked one of the very helpful front desk persons at the Hilton Garden Inn - Downtown Asheville where a good place to dine would be.  We were looking for a low-key, unpretentious place that served good food.  He immediately came back with a place we had seen in our walks around downtown - Isa's Bistro.  "And we can even take you there," he cheerfully said.  Moments later, their electric shuttle car dropped us off in front of Isa's Bistro located at 1 Battery Park in downtown Asheville.  (see map) 

Tony Fraga is a local developer whose FIRC Group oversees commercial and residential properties in Asheville and in South Florida.  One of the properties Fraga's group manages is the Haywood Park Hotel, a boutique hotel in downtown Asheville.  In business now for over 30 years, the Haywood Park is located in a building that was once the Bon Marché department store, a high-end establishment that catered to the well-heeled who would vacation in Asheville.  In the late 30's, the department store was taken over by Ivey's, a North Carolina-based department store that was eventually bought out by Dilliard's in 1990.  Ivey's had moved to a mall location in Asheville in the mid-70's and the building languished before being turned into a hotel in 1985.  

At the corner of Battery Park and Haywood next to the hotel's lobby was a longtime local favorite restaurant by the name of the Flying Frog.  The owners eventually changed it to a bistro by the name of Solace before closing it in 2012.  Tony Fraga came along with plans to do his own restaurant - named after his wife, Isabel, - and he opened Isa's Bistro in June of 2013.  Isa's Bistro executive chef, Duane Fernandes - a double culinary school graduate from both Johnson and Wales, and the Culinary Institute of Charleston - had worked in AAA Four Diamond and Five Diamond restaurants in South Carolina and Virginia before he joined the staff at Thomas Keller's iconic Per Se in New York City, a Michelin 3-star restaurant.  Prior to moving over to Isa's Bistro, Fernandes was in charge of the restaurant at the luxurious Grove Park Inn and Spa in Asheville.  

It was around 7:30 when we walked into Isa's Bistro.  We were greeted by a host who said that we could pretty much have our choice to sit anywhere we liked.  The place was pretty quiet.  "After a long holiday weekend, it's been pretty slow," he explained.  "But that's all right.  It's allowed us to catch our breath."  There were wrought iron tables out front for sidewalk dining and a nice contemporary bar area, but we took a seat near a window that allowed us to do some people watching while we dined.

The dining area was spacious, but had little areas bounded by short walls.  We were soon greeted by our server for the evening, a young friendly guy by the name of Brady who gave us menus to look over.  My wife ordered a glass of pinot grigio and I got a pale ale beer that they had on tap.

On the wall near where we were seated were the original doors to the restaurant with two photos flanking the doors.  The photo on the left was of Julia Child, the photo on the right was of James Beard - personal heroes of chef Duane Fernandes and two influential people in terms of haute cuisine in the United States.

Downstairs where the restrooms were located was a private dining area called The Cellar.  It featured areas for group dining, receptions or gatherings.  There was a nice den area with a fireplace down in The Cellar area along with a large collection of wines served at Isa's Bistro.  

Like his mentor Thomas Keller, chef Duane Fernandes is a firm believer in the "farm-to-fork" concept of serving only locally grown, sustainable foods.  Because of that, we were told, there's an evolving menu that features nightly specials of foods that were procured within the last 24 hours.  But the main menu is usually intact with much of the same items available daily.  

Isa's Bistro features a number of appetizers or small plate varieties to share among diners.   My wife wanted to try something and one of the small plates specials they had that evening were Prince Edward Island mussels served in a butter sauce.  (Actually, I wanted to try the grilled octopus, but she didn't want anything to do with that.)  We were served a small bowl of the mussels that were all plump and meaty in the shell.  But the broth - wow!  The taste was out of this world.  Just two small pieces of toasted bread came with the mussels and those were quickly consumed after dipping the bread into the broth.  We made Brady get us some more bread because there was still a lot of the butter sauce in the bottom of the bowl and it was all I could do from just picking up the bowl and slurping it back.  

During the course of the evening, I spilled my full glass of beer literally dumping it on the table as the frosted glass slipped from my hand.  I was embarrassed and apologetic to Brady and the host as they did their best to clean up the mess.  They finally just moved us to the table next to us, considering there were only two other tables occupied in the restaurant when we were there.  

For dinner that night, my wife got one of the specials on the menu - Julia Child's chicken.  It was two pieces of fresh farm raised chicken, roasted in herbs and served on a bed of multi-vegetable succotash.  The chicken was tender and my wife said it had a load of flavor from the herbs it was cooked with.  The succotash, she thought, was perfectly cooked with a variety of beans, corn, peppers and radishes.  She thought it was the perfect meal - light and healthy. 

Me? Well, there didn't seem to be anything on the menu that jumped out at me.  Oh, there was a lot to choose from including a North Carolina pork chop, a "fresh-catch-of-the-day" caught along with Carolina coast with shrimp, and a pan-seared North Carolina mountain trout.  But I ended up getting the Carolina bison brisket with pasta.  The bison was braised for 10 hours making the bison moist and tender without losing the great beef flavor, and it was served with some pasta in a wonderful brown sauce.  It was the perfect portion size in regard to the braised bison and pasta - not a lot of both, but enough to satiate my appetite.  It wasn't heavy, nor was it too light.  And it was simply delicious.  

We thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of our visit to Isa's Bistro.  We were told it was a great place to eat and we certainly weren't disappointed.  While it wasn't good for them that evening, we liked that we were one of just a very few patrons in the place on a quiet weeknight.  And because of that, we got excellent service from Brady who got a nice tip at the end of the night - not only for the spilled beer incident - but for his attentive nature and friendly demeanor.  We ate at a lot of nice places during our time in Asheville and Isa's Bistro was definitely a meal that we'll remember.   

317 Burger - Indianapolis

I have an account in the Broad Ripple Village area of Indianapolis, a vibrant entertainment and shops district on the north side of the city.  There are a number of restaurants in the immediate area and after one recent morning visit I decided to have lunch at a spot I've had my eye on for a couple years, a burger and craft beer place by the name of 317 Burger.  

Bill Ficca is sort of a serial restaurateur around Broad Ripple.  Ficca, his wife, Nancy, and various investors have stakes in a number of restaurants in the area including the Vanguard, Delicia,  and the Northside Social.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the Northside Social.)  When Boogie Burger moved a few blocks east Broad Ripple in 2011, some say it left a void for a good burger in the neighborhood.  The Ficca's came up with a concept gourmet burger joint/craft brew house that grinds their own steak burgers.  317 Burger (317 is the area code for Indianapolis) opened in December of 2013.  

It was just before the noon rush on a beautiful day in Indy when I pulled up to a parking spot across the street from 317 Burger on Westfield Ave. in the heart of Broad Ripple.  (see map)  I walked into the place to find a very nice bar with an upscale pub decor.  317 Burger wasn't very large, but it was clean and comfortable.  It wasn't busy inside, but nearly all the tables on the patio in front of the place were full.  

In the corner of the bar is an area called the Indiana Speakers Corner.  It features a number of quotes from some of Bill Ficca's favorite famous Indiana natives.  A local art/mural company - Blice Edwards - was commissioned to do the artwork for the Indiana Speakers Corner.  There was a booth and table set up for people to converse in a pub-style setting.

Off to the side of the main bar was a smaller game room set up in an informal hodgepodge of bar stools with high top tables, and a sofa with a table that had a number of board games stacked underneath the table top.  Two real dart boards - not the electronic kind you find in most bars these days - were hung on the wall of the game room. 

Next door and attached to 317 Burger is a tap room called None the Wiser.  The name, of course, comes from a play on words signifying that they don't sell Budweiser products in the tap room.  They feature a full bar with 16 different craft brews on tap.  It's more elegant than 317 Burger with real cowhide back coverings on the booths and high quality wood paneling throughout the room. 

I took a seat at the bar and the bartender handed me a menu to look over.  I ordered up an Oaken Barrel IPA to enjoy while I looked through the menu.  The menu featured a number of interesting appetizers such as a seasonal veggie poutine, French onion soup dumplings, Caribbean pulled pork nachos, and crispy chicken tenders.  317 Burger also features wings, quesadillas and salads.  

In addition to burgers at 317 Burger, they also feature a number of sandwiches - a couple of which caught my eye.  They had a grilled four cheese (American, Gouda, Swiss and Provolone) sandwich where you could add pulled pork to it for a $3 upcharge.  And they had a pork tenderloin sandwich - breaded and fried, or grilled - a true Indiana signature sandwich. 

I was still thinking about the grilled four-cheese with pulled pork sandwich when I saw that they had a similar burger - the 317 Burger - with the American/Swiss/Gouda/Provolone combo with a garlic aioli sauce and pepper bacon.  I asked the bartender if they could do some sautéed mushrooms on the burger and she said it would be no problem.   

The burgers at 317 Burger are all ground in house from high quality Black Angus beef.  The burger was lean with a hint of juiciness to it.  But with all the cheese on it, along with the, garlic aioli, bacon and mushrooms, it didn't need to be an overly juicy burger.  It was pretty messy in its own right and was definitely a multi-napkin burger.  

The burger - when I could taste it through everything that was on it - had a great, rich beef flavor.  Flat-grilled, the burger was thick and had a bit of pink in the middle.  The garlic aioli was very strong in flavor and something was very salty on the burger.  I figured out later on that it was the bacon.  Because it was so salty, I didn't seem to get much of a peppery taste from the pepper bacon.  

The fries that came on the side were a little lukewarm when they were served.  They were fresh cut, but they'd obviously been made earlier and set into a warming pan.  But that was fine with me.  I wasn't much interested in the fries as I was finishing the delicious big burger I had in front of me.   

317 Burger - nice place, nice bar, good burger, good service, good beer selection, comfortable setting.  There's not much more to say than that.   They have a number of other things on their menu if you don't want a burger, and their appetizers are interesting.  And even if you don't want to get something to eat and would like to enjoy a beer, 317 Burger and its taproom - None the Wiser - are a great place to relax with friends.  317 Burger fits in wonderfully with the rest of the Broad Ripple places of choice.  

Biltmore - Asheville, NC

When we went to North Carolina earlier this year for a family wedding, we spent some time in Asheville.  One of the major tourist attractions in North Carolina is located outside of Asheville - the Biltmore Estate built by George W. Vanderbilt III, the grandson of one of the richest men of his day, Cornelius Vanderbilt.  My wife had read up on the Biltmore Estate before we went and she saw that they had a great rose garden and conservatory on the grounds and she was adamant that we go there while we were in Asheville.  

When George Vanderbilt came to Asheville in 1888 to visit his mother who was spending the summer in the Blue Ridge Mountains, he envisioned a place of his own so grand and splendid that it would be called the finest home in America.  Vanderbilt bought 125,000 acres of land south of Asheville and construction on the home began in 1889.  The construction crews had their own brick factory on-site, as well as a massive woodworking shop that employed artisans from all over the country.  A three mile long railroad spur to the construction site fed materials for the building of the home.

When it was finished in 1895, it was easily the largest home in America - 250 rooms - 34 of which were bedrooms for family, guests and servants - 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.  The house had an indoor swimming pool, a bowling alley, a gymnasium and a game room that featured card tables and a pool table.  It also featured a long patio deck off the back of the house that afforded some stunning vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Vanderbilt entertained family members for the first time on Christmas Eve in 1895.  

The grounds of the estate - as well as much of the wooded area surrounding the estate - were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York's Central Park and referred to as the father of American landscaping.  Olmsted designed the long lawns, gardens, fountains and green space that surrounded the property.  During construction of the estate, nearly 1000 acres were cleared for building plots - with much of the cleared timber used for wood inside the mansion and other estate buildings - and for farmland to feed the workers, and later, the Vanderbilt family.  Under Vanderbilt's guidance, Olmsted replanted 300 acres of white pine trees in 1891, and in 1892 he hired Gifford Pinchot, a young forester who eventually would go on to become the first head of the U.S. Forest Service, to come in and work on a concept of managing forest growth while making a profit on the sale of timber for the Vanderbilt's.   When George Vanderbilt passed away in 1914 at the age of 51, his wife Edith sold nearly 90,000 acres for less than $5 bucks an acre to the U.S. Government for the establishment of the Pisgah National Forest.  

A couple weeks before we went to North Carolina, my wife had me look up the particulars for going to the Biltmore Estate.  While we weren't too whippy on actually seeing the interior of the mansion itself, we were very interesting in the gardens and the conservatory.  However, they didn't have an admission just for the outdoor area, you had to go to through the mansion first.  And it wasn't cheap - normal admission price was $75 per person.  However, we were able to get $20 off each ticket for ordering online over a week in advance.  That helped take some of the sting out of the overall price of going there.  (We found that admission prices vary depending upon the day of the week or the time you want to visit.)  

We made reservations to go to Biltmore on a Tuesday morning around 10 a.m.  It turns out that we really didn't need to make the reservations.  We went in to the Cedarcliff Ave. entrance off Biltmore Ave. south of Asheville (see map) and took the long, meandering road through a tree-lined road to the check point building of the estate.  After they scanned our tickets that we had printed out, we carried on to the parking area.  They have shuttle buses that can take you from the parking lots to the front entrance of the mansion, or it's a short walk up a sidewalk that comes out on the front lawn of the estate.  

After a quick walk-thru of the horse barn/turned tourist trap next to the mansion, we entered the building and started out on a self-guided tour through the Vanderbilt home.  (The audio tour was $10.95 for the earphones and device.)  The Biltmore mansion has been open to the public since 1930 when George Vanderbilt's daughter Cornelia Cecil thought it would be a boost to the local economy during the Great Depression.  The Cecil family oversees the operations at Biltmore which now include a winery, hotels and shopping areas within the estate.  

I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of photos of the interior, but there were some interesting things to see in the place, especially how people lived in luxury at the start of the 20th century.  The main entrance featured a beautiful arboretum - not the one we were interested in seeing - but a much smaller one that featured a number of ferns and vines that grew with the help of the natural light coming in the large windows.  I was impressed with the stonework inside and out of the building wondering how in the heck workers were able to lift some of the stone pieces to such heights to set them in place.  

Right off the bat, the mansion reminded me of the one time I visited the Hearst Castle, also known as San Simeon, located along the California coast.  There were dozens of large tapestries that hung from the walls in the vast rooms located in the mansion, similar to the ones William Randolph Hearst had in his home that overlooks the Pacific Ocean.  The lighting throughout the house was subdued using the same lighting methods they had in the 1920's.  

I was particularly interested in the kitchen areas that were in the mansion.  There were various kitchens of various sizes throughout the house that ranged from a smaller one for when it was just the immediate family in the house, to a kitchen that was large enough to accommodate large numbers of people, to a kitchen that was used just for the servants and help.  I was interested in the lay-out of the kitchens, what types of ovens or stoves that were used, and what type of utensils that they used to make the food.  

There was a sizable crowd there that day and we were forced to stop or slow down on our route through the mansion.  I finally said that I'd had enough of seeing expansive "his and hers" bedrooms, servants quarters, dining rooms, billiard rooms and libraries in the house, so we sort of cut out of the walking tour as quick as we could.  

Off to the side of the house was the garden area that featured a walkway covered in vines and greenery along the South Terrace.  It was a very warm day in Western North Carolina and the shade was a welcome relief.  

Down the steps from the wall that featured the overhanging vines was the rose garden.  The beautiful sculpted garden featured walkways that meandered around dozens of different varieties of rose bushes.  We grow roses at our house - we have over two dozen rose bushes - and this was the place that we were particularly interested in checking out during our visit to the Biltmore Estate.  

The conservatory was located just beyond the spacious rose garden.  It was basically a brick building with long greenhouse buildings in the back of the place.  It was warm and humid inside the building, but it was comfortable enough to walk around.  Protecting the environment is a big thing at the Biltmore Estate and they have six acres of solar panels that heat water and provide electricity for different areas of the estate.  

There were dozens - no, probably more like hundreds - of tropical plants, palm trees and delicate flowering plants in the arboretum.  The floral scents emanating from the building were pleasant.  There were a bunch of beautiful plants that we weren't familiar with and we had a fun time identifying some of the ones we didn't know much about.  

Back out to the rose garden, we spent a long time walking around looking for rose bushes that we had at home, as well as rose bushes that were pretty and we made note of to look up when we got home.  There was a deep orange rose bushes - Orange Sensation - that we fell in love with and made a note to see if we could find one to plant in our backyard to go along with the other colors we already have.  

Unfortunately, many of the rose bushes were just past their first prime growth of the season.  (Many of ours back home in Iowa hadn't even bloomed yet by the time we left for North Carolina.)  Still, we were able to stop and literally "smell the roses" on many of the plants that they had in what had to be the largest rose garden we've ever seen.  

We went through some of the other outdoor gardens they had at the Biltmore Estates - the Italian Garden, the shrub garden, and the azalea garden (which didn't have many - if any - blooms left.  We walked along the front yard to the main fountain and then up to the wall that faced the front of the mansion to get this picture.  We'd had enough and we walked back to our car, but we were sort of forced to drive through the rest of the estate to see the equestrian area, the hotel and inn on the grounds, the shopping area and the winery.  We were more than ready to get out of there by the time we drove back into Asheville.  

A number of movies have been filmed at the Biltmore mansion including scenes from Forrest Gump, Ri¢hie Ri¢h, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and one of my all-time favorite films - the very underrated, but critically acclaimed Being There that starred Peter Sellers in his last role in a full-featured movie.  I suppose Biltmore was fine enough to visit, but we were much more interested in the grounds, gardens and conservatory than we were with the mansion. We felt it was a little expensive for what it was - even with the $20 per person reduction in price for buying tickets online more than seven days of the visit.  If we could have skipped the tour through the mansion and gone directly to the gardens, we probably would have liked it much more.  It took us about 3 hours to see what we saw at the Biltmore Estate.  But, we also found that the crowds diminished tremendously after 1 p.m.  If you want to go, you may want to go in the afternoon.  (There are also guided tours through the estate that you can buy in addition to the regular admission tickets - and we understand there is a very nice Christmas lights tour of the mansion.)  There's a lot to do in and around Asheville, but the Biltmore Estate is probably the best thing to see in the area.  That is, if you're into that type of thing.  

Mercadito - Chicago

On a trip into Chicago earlier this year, my wife and I decided to have some Mexican food for dinner.  We searched for some Mexican places near our hotel in downtown Chicago and I found a place not too far away called Mercadito.  It had been raining earlier in the day, but it had cleared off by the time we started out for the restaurant about four blocks away.  

You could probably say that Patricio Sandoval grew up with a ladle in his hand.  That's because he literally grew up in the kitchen of Madeiras, an upscale restaurant in Acapulco owned by his father.  In the 1960's into the 1980's, Madeiras was the place to see and be seen for celebrities in Acapulco.  When Acapulco began to fall on hard times at the start of the 21st century, Madeiras closed up.  However, it had a short rebirth in 2008 owned by Patricio Sandoval's brother, Richard Sandoval - who is a famous restaurateur with nearly four dozen restaurants in 11 states and five countries - and internationally renown opera singer Placido Domingo.  Madeiras closed for good after a couple three years back in business.

 

 

Patricio Sandoval had gone to private high school in California, and after graduating in 1992 he ended up puttering around for a few years.  Finally at the age of 23, he ended up going to New York City to work along side his brother Richard at his prestigious Maya restaurant that combined modern Mexican cuisine with traditional recipes.  He started out on the ground floor of the restaurant business bussing tables and working in his brother's kitchen, but within a couple of years he had worked his way up to a sous chef position at Maya.   

Pictured right - Patricio Sandoval.  Photo courtesy NBC Latino.

In 1999, Patricio Sandoval moved back out to California to help open the Maya location in San Francisco.  In 2000, he was offered a sous chef position by Chef/Partner David Gingrass at Hawthorne Lane which - at the time - was annually named one of the top 100 restaurants in the United States.  It was during his time at Hawthorne Lane that he decided to take his passion for cooking to the next level.  

Patricio Sandoval moved back to New York and enrolled in the prestigious French Culinary Institute - now known as the International Culinary Center.  While in culinary school, Patricio got a job working for Chef Peter Hoffman at the famous Savoy restaurant in New York City.  Hoffman was one of the first chefs to use locally grown and sustainable foods in his restaurant.  Patricio Sandoval continued to work at Savoy after he graduated from culinary school, but it wasn't long before Richard Sandoval came calling to tap his brother as the Consulting Chef at Pampano, an upscale/fine dining contemporary Mexican cuisine restaurant in New York City.  

It was during his time at Pampano that Patricio Sandoval began to seriously think about opening his own restaurant.  He remembered going to the open air markets in Mexico with his mother to buy food for the Sandoval family.  The small booths where the local farmers sold their produce that Sandoval's mother made into simple, yet delicious meals were a fond memory of Patricio's youth.  When he finally did start his first restaurant in New York City in 2006, he called it Mercadito which roughly translates into "small market".  

Patricio eventually opened a couple of Mercadito locations in New York and one in Miami.  He was soon joined by his brothers, Alfredo and Felipe, in the Mercadito Hospitality Group.  Alfredo and Felipe also knew their way around the kitchen as they, too, were working with older brother Richard in some of his restaurants.  

In 2010, the Sandoval brothers opened the Mercadito location in the River North neighborhood of Chicago with Alfredo the managing partner.  By 2014, they had closed their New York and Miami locations and focused on the Chicago Mercadito and two other restaurants (that are now closed).  In addition to Mercadito, the Sandoval's have two smaller Mercadito locations - Mercadito Taqueria - in downtown Chicago.  

It was about a 10 minute walk to Mercadito located on W. Kinzie Ave. between LaSalle and Clark streets. (see map)  The front of the building featured a small brown facade with smaller windows.  There was a small al fresco dining area up front.  No one was seated there as it was still cool after the rain ended earlier in the afternoon.  

The inside of Mercadito was long and narrow.  The space was very loud thanks to the wooden ceilings, wooden walls and wooden floors.  They really could have used acoustic tiles to help dampen the sound levels.  But, then again, loud restaurants are supposed to be trendy.  

Exquisite artwork and contemporary decor were found throughout the restaurant.  The lighting in the restaurant was diffused from bright lights from long sconce lights placed halfway up the wall.  I found myself looking around at the artwork while we waited for a table.  

We were told it would be up to an hour wait for a table, so we decided to go over to the bar to hang out.  We were able to find a couple spots that had just opened up and ordered up a couple margaritas.  

They had a special margarita that featured tequila, Grand Marnier, lime juice and agave syrup.  I made the mistake a few years ago of introducing my wife to Herradura tequila - especially the Herradura Silver variety. She asked the bartender if he could put Herradura silver in her margarita.  I thought that sounded good and I signed up for that, too.  The bartender told me the upcharge for the better tequila was $4.00 a glass.  That wasn't too bad, I thought.  But here's the kicker - the margaritas were $13.50 to start out with a house tequila.  So, you're looking at a couple of $17.50 margaritas.  But they were damned good.  Both of us had two while we waited for the table.  Yes, that was a $70 bar tab even before we sat down.  

We noticed a number of people going up and down the stairs toward the front of the restaurant.  It turned out there was a lounge upstairs - La Mez - that featured mezcal agave drinks.  We didn't venture upstairs to check the place out.   

It wasn't quite 45 minutes when we were finally shown to a table along the north wall of the restaurant.  It was fairly cramped near the corner - in the corner next to us a group of six people were seated at a table that looked like it could only accommodate four diners.  My wife took the banquette seat along the wall while I scrunched in to the chair hoping not to disturb the diners next to us.  It was pretty tight for all involved, but we made do.  

Our server for the evening was Jesus, a likable young guy with a thick Hispanic accent.  More than once I had to have him repeat what he said to me, not because of his accent, but because it was so blasted loud in the place.  Looking through the menu, we ordered up some traditional guacamole (we saw it being made back behind the bar) and a couple of their housemade salsas.  One of the salsas was a grilled tomatillo salsa that had a smoky flavor to it.  It was wonderful.  The other one was a red salsa that had a bit of a bit on the back end.  (They also had a habanero and a chile de arbol, both a little too spicy for even my taste.)   The guacamole and the salsas were a perfect compliment to the wonderfully fresh tortilla chips that were served with it.  Oh, and we had to break down and have a third $17.50 margarita each to go along with the chips, salsa and guacamole.  They also had a shrimp ceviche for an appetizer, and we thought about getting that, but we ended up focusing on what to order for dinner.  

My wife was looking at either getting the seafood-stuffed chile relleno entree or the shrimp enchiladas, but Jesus talked her into the red snapper dinner.   The red snapper was grilled and served on a bed of Mexican-style cole slaw and topped with lemon wedges and a chipotle vinaigrette.  Black beans and rice came on the side.  The red snapper was light and flaky with a great charred and somewhat spicy taste to it.  The chipotle vinaigrette had a wonderful smoky and vinegar taste that went extremely well with her fish.  She was more than happy with her choice.  

I was in the mood for tacos and that's what Mercadito is famous for.   They had something on the menu called "taquizas" - basically it's a term for a taco party where different meats or seafood are brought to the table with salsas, shredded veggies and sometimes cheese.  Jesus was explaining to me that it's more for large groups who want to try a little bit of everything.  

Well, that's sort of what I wanted to do - try a little bit of everything as far as the taco filling was concerned.  They had a dozen different choices for meat or seafood ranging from espada (swordfish), estila (mahi mahi), shrimp and lobster to beef brisket, steak and chicken tacos.  They also had vegetarian options with hongos (mushrooms) and rajas (poblano chile) tacos.  But they didn't allow for a person to order more than one type of filling.   

I ended up ordering the barbacoa pork tacos.  The barbacoa came in a large bowl with a side of shredded cabbage and other vegetables on the side.  Fresh made taco shells were provided.  I was able to order a couple salsa to go with the tacos.  This time I got a mild verde sauce and a different red sauce that was more mild than I expected.  And, yes, I had to get another $17.50 margarita.  It was like sipping heroin.  

The barbacoa was fine.  It had a bit of a spicy taste and was very tender.  It was a little fatty in places, though, and I sort of wished I had been able to try something else after the second small taco.  I mean, it was good - but I like to order different types of meats at taquerias.  Mercadito was definitely an upscale taqueria and not one where you could get various individual types of tacos.  Oh well...

With a bar tab that ventured well north of $100 bucks, the rest of meal at Mercadito was also pretty expensive.  With a tip for our efficient waiter, our final bill came to around $200 dollars.  It was more expensive than we planned to spend and while the food was good, we didn't think it to be that good of a value.  I really wished I could have tried two or three different types of meat for the tacos, but they only let you pick one.  The barbacoa pork was fine, but I really wanted to try something else to get a feel of what the other fillings tasted like.  My wife was more than happy with her grilled and somewhat spicy red snapper, and even though the margaritas were outrageously priced, they were very good.  If you go to Mercadito expect to shell out a lot of bucks, expect to be seated close to the other tables, and expect to have to raise your voice to carry on a conversation in a loud environment.  

Big Hoffa's - Westfield, IN

Out in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis earlier this summer, I was in the mood for some barbecue.  I did a search on line to find something in the area around Westfield and Carmel, and I found a place that sounded intriguing to me - Big Hoffa's.  It wasn't far from the hotel where I was staying and I decided to head over to Big Hoffa's for dinner.  

Adam Hoffman grew up in California and started out his food career at an early age.  In grade school, the young Hoffman would sell candy and beef jerky treats to friends.  When he got old enough to work in a restaurant, he found work in a variety of coffee shops near his home.  Hoffman's restaurant career evolved over the years and he eventually became an corporate operations manager for California Pizza Kitchen.  However, working in the corporate office in Los Angeles wasn't for him and Hoffman longed to get back into working in restaurants. 

About 14 years ago Hoffman took a trip to Indianapolis and stayed a few days in the Hamilton County area north of the city.  He liked the area so much that he went back to Los Angeles, quit his job and moved halfway across the United States and ended up in an apartment that he had never seen until he got there.  

Hoffman decided his new life would be doing barbecue.  He studied techniques and played around with some different barbecue styles when he was living in California.  His barbecue gatherings with friends out there were always a big hit.  Once he moved to Indiana, he procured a smoker and a truck, and he began to sell his barbecued ribs, smoked brisket and pulled pork in parking lots and at events around Indianapolis. 

Pictured right - Adam Hoffman.  Photo courtesy Indianapolis Star

Like most people who do barbecue contests or have a food truck that features barbecue, Hoffman discovered a following that would allow him to serve barbecue from a store front.  He found a small place for his first location, but he quickly outgrew that.  In 2007, Hoffman moved into his current location along East Main Street in Westfield in what is basically a pole barn with a number of other businesses in it.  (see map)  Big Hoffa's has been there ever since.  (Hoffman announced last year that he was going to break ground on a new location in Westfield with an opening in the Spring of this year.  But as of now, Big Hoffa's is still in the E. Main Street location.) 

It was around 8 p.m. when I got into Big Hoffa's.  The lot had a number of motorcycles parked in it with a handful of patrons dressed in their road leathers eating barbecue out in front on some picnic tables.  The electric smoker for the establishment was sitting out in front.  Hoffman says that he slow cooks his ribs for 12 hours, his pork shoulders for 25 hours and his beef brisket for 30 hours ensuring tender, fall-off-the-bone quality to his meats.  In addition to barbecue at Big Hoffa's, they also have a small ice cream parlor - cleverly called "Skull and Cones" - that serves ice cream cones and cups.  

Inside Big Hoffa's, I couldn't decide whether I had walked into a shrine for the Oakland Raiders or the recreation of a pirate's den.  Jolly Roger flags were hanging all around the dining area and pirate artifacts where on shelves on the wall.  Hoffman once explained that pirates were possibly the original barbecuers, and that a pirate decor doesn't get dated and is always interesting.  I'll have to say that he had an interesting variety of pirate objet d'art.

Big Hoffa's features counter service with a menu on the wall behind the counter.  In addition to pulled pork, brisket, pulled chicken, ribs and rib tips, Big Hoffa's has a number of sandwiches with the meats, and also features a number of specialty dinners including a rice teriyaki entree with a choice of barbecued meat on top,  a mac and cheese dish with pulled chicken on the top, and something called the Hoffanator - seasoned French fries topped with mac and cheese, in turn topped with pulled pork, baked beans, barbecue sauce, and somewhat interestingly, ranch dressing.  

As I like to try different things when I first go to a barbecue joint, I got a half-pound of pulled pork and a half pound of beef brisket.  For sides, I got baked beans and some potato salad with cayenne pepper mixed in.  The young lady who was working the counter (Adam Hoffman was there, too, but he was talking with some people about some catering) sold me on the cayenne potato salad.  I also got a bottle of Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  They also had a number of the local Sun King beers available, as well

When they brought the food out to me moments later on a small baking sheet, my eyes must have grown double their size.  "This is a lot of food," I exclaimed as the young lady sat it down in front of me.  "Don't worry.   We have to-go boxes," she assured me.  I knew there would be no way I'd be able to eat all of this in one sitting.  But I made a good go of it. 

The brisket was good - thick slices of beef that had a bit of a smoky taste.  I added some of their sweet barbecue sauce to the brisket, but they had a spicy sauce that had a subtle kick on the back side.  Mixed together, they were perfect.  The brisket was good, but it wasn't as good as the pulled pork.  

The pulled pork was outstanding.  It was moist, tender and had a nice smoky flavor to it.  I do like sauce with my barbecue, but the pork was so good that I didn't want to taste anything else with it.  Whatever technique Adam Hoffman did with his pork butt, I have to say he had it down.  And then some.  

The baked beans were heavy in brown sugar and needed some help with the sauce.  I added in both the sweet sauce and the spicy sauce and they perked up in taste rather well.  But the cayenne potato salad had a great mustard taste on the front end and a surprising spicy kick on the back end.  The young lady did not undersell the cayenne baked potato, they too, were very good. 

Big Hoffa's Barbecue was a great find in my travels.  While the brisket was good, the pulled pork was outstanding.  The baked beans needed a little help with a mixture of the sweet and the spicy sauces, but the cayenne potato salad that the young lady at the counter sold me on had an excellent taste sensation.  It's not fancy and if pirate memorabilia upsets you, you're not going to like the interior.  But I found it all rather interesting.  Big Hoffa's has some very good to excellent barbecue, the portions are more than generous, and I would highly recommend a visit if you're in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis.  

The Beers of Asheville

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Asheville for a few days was to check out a handful of the numerous microbreweries and brewpubs that are located in the area.  There are about two dozen breweries located in the Asheville city limits with another dozen or so within a 15 minute drive of the city.  Since we were only going to be there for a few days, we knew we couldn't hit all of the breweries, but we were going to hit as many as we could.  

How Asheville became "Beer City, U.S.A." is something that seemingly happened overnight to many, but the story dates back to the early 90's when a nuclear waste engineer by the name of Oscar Wong met a young brewmaster by the name of John McDermott who was heading up the beer making at the Dilworth Brewing Company in Charlotte.  Wong had been somewhat of a home brewer during his time in college and always fancied himself as a beer connoisseur.  Wong and McDermott decided to look for an area to develop a brewery and they moved up to Asheville in 1992.  It took a couple years for Wong - who was the money man after he sold his engineering company - and McDermott - the brewmaster - to finally open Highland Brewing Company.  It was in the basement of a restaurant that had opened earlier in the year - and which is still there today - Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria.  Using mostly reclaimed dairy equipment, Wong and McDermott produced their first beer in December of 1994.  McDermott had aspirations of large expansion throughout the Southeast, but Wong liked the smaller microbrewery concept.  McDermott eventually left in 1997 and Wong stayed on with a new brewmaster.   By 2006 the brewery had moved to a larger location on the east side of Asheville, and in 2014 Oscar Wong turned the reins of Highland Brewing Company over to his daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn.  

The biggest problem with the initial growth of microbreweries in Asheville, however, was that North Carolina's liquor laws dated back to just after Prohibition was repealed in the early 1930's.  Certain stipulations - such as how strong the beer could be, where it could be served, etc. - were archaic compared to laws in other states.  It took until around 2002 before lobbying efforts commenced for the growing number of microbreweries in North Carolina and another three years before legislators passed new laws allowing for stronger than 6% ABV beers to be brewed and served in the state.  But it wasn't for another three or four years that the boom in Asheville breweries and brew pubs began.  Asheville won their first Beer City, U.S.A. designation in 2010 and has won or shared the title for four different years.  (Portland, OR and Grand Rapids, MI also have won or shared the title over the years, as well.)   

Other established craft breweries from around the nation have also jumped into the Asheville/Western Carolina beer craze, most notably the Oskar Blues brewery and the New Belgium brewery based out of Colorado.  New Belgium opened a tasting room in May of 2016 and then opened a full brewing operation on Asheville's west side just about a year ago.  Oskar Blues owner Dale Katechis had vacationed in the Pisgah National Forest for a number of years.  An avid biker, Katechis kept a bike in Brevard, NC - about 35 miles from Asheville - so he could use it when he came there to get away from Colorado.  He liked the area so much ended up putting in a brewery/gastropub in Brevard opening on New Years Eve in 2012.  

When we got into Asheville, we were asked by the personable young man at the Hilton Garden Inn - Downtown Asheville what brought us to the area.  "Brewpubs," I quickly replied.  "Well, we do have a lot of them here," he said laughingly.  Their electric car shuttle service took us up to Pack Square which sits at the top of what is known as The South Slope, an area that has a number of brewpubs just south of Asheville's downtown.  We walked down the hill and found ourselves in front of the Wicked Weed Brewing Pub.  (see map)  This combination brewery and brewpub was founded in 2011 by brothers Walt and Luke Dickinson, who were joined in the venture by lifelong friend Ryan Guthy, and his parents, Rick and Denise, after the Guthy's tried some of the beers the Dickinson's had brewed at their home.  (Rick Guthy was the co-founder/owner of the Guthy-Renker direct marketing company that made dozens of infomercials over the years.  He retired in 2012 just before he invested in Wicked Weed.)

The brewpub was packed inside and out with people enjoying the Sunday night of the Memorial Day weekend.  We were lucky to score a couple seats at the bar from a couple who was departing when we went up to the bar to order a beer.  The name Wicked Weed came from a quote attributed to England's King Henry VIII who declared hops to be a "wicked and pernicious weed" during his reign in the 16th century.   We ended up having a couple Freak of Nature double IPA's that they had on tap.  They were hoppy, yet very smooth on the back end.  

While we were in Asheville, the huge buzz going on was the announcement just a couple three weeks before of the sale of Wicked Weed to Anheuser-Busch/InBev.  While this rankled many beer aficionados in Asheville and elsewhere, you couldn't tell it with the dozens of people who were enjoying their beer.  Plus, as we spent the next few days in Asheville, many people we talked to - including bartenders at other brewpubs - were happy for the people at Wicked Weed.  One female bartender at a beer pub we went to a couple days later told us, "Good for them.  They're good people.  They make great beer."  

Outside on the street in front of Wicked Weed, there were two young brothers Andrew and Kyle Hernandez playing guitars.  They called themselves The Buskits (a take off on the term "busking" for European street performers) and their father was standing next to the fence to supervise them as they were playing.  We got to talking to the father Chris Hernandez and he told us his boys - Andrew is 11 and Kyle is 8 - started playing guitar when they were both just 4 years old.  "Completely self taught," Chris told us as the boys played their interpretation of classic rock standards on their acoustic guitars, the whole while never changing the neutral expressions on their faces.  They were very good musicians and attracted a huge crowd.  We put five bucks into the guitar case after listening to them for about 15 minutes.  (If you want to see a video of them perform, click on their Facebook page and scroll down to one of the videos posted on their page.  It's worth the time to do it.)  

From there we went up the slope to Patton Ave., one of the main drags in downtown Asheville.  We stopped momentarily on the street and saw a sign that said One World Brewing Company.  (see map)  It had an arrow that pointed back down this small alleyway that was between a Mexican restaurant and a burger joint.  We decided to walk down the alley and see what was down there.  We were greeted by a young guy standing in the doorway.  He said, "Welcome to One World.  We're located down the stairs.  Come on in!"

We went down a small flight of stairs, took a left down some more steps and then went left again.  After a few more steps we found ourselves in a basement bar with a nano-brewery.  Jason "Jay" Schutz had been home-brewing beer for about 10 years and with the encouragement of his wife, Lisa, the couple opened the small brewery in 2014.  Initially, the brewery was able to do about 40 gallon batches of beer, but it looks like they've expanded their brewing facilities since they opened three years ago.  We hung out and enjoyed a pint of the Ashevegas pale ale that they had on tap.  (It was also at One World that my wife found out there such as thing as half pint glasses available.)

In the following days, we wandered into a number of places including a place called the Thirsty Monk (see map) that featured a Belgian bar in their basement with American beers on their main level.  Opened in 2008, the Thirsty Monk brews about 20 full-time and seasonal beers - mainly Belgian-styles of beer - in addition to a number of rotating Belgian and American craft brews available at their two bars.  We went to the basement first and I made the rookie mistake of asking for a pale ale on tap.  "Only Belgian beers down here," the totally urban hipster snapped back at me.  "You need to go upstairs and get a pale ale."  OH!  Sorry!  Well, believe it or not, I'm not a big fan of Belgian ales, so we went upstairs to have a beer.  I ended up getting a Thirsty Monk Farmhouse IPA - a saison-style beer with its roots hearkening back to a Belgian-style beer with a lot of hoppiness to the beer.  The beer was just all right in my book, but the Thirsty Monk was a neat place to have a beer.

Literally across the street from the Thirsty Monk on Patton Ave. was a place called Jack of the Wood. (see map)  It was a traditional neighborhood pub with a great beer selection, a food menu, and live music at nights.  

We ended up going inside to have a beer and we sat at the bar talking with a bartender and a lady who worked there who had just gotten off work and was having a beer before she left.  Jack of the Wood has been open since 1997 and was once a brewpub with beer being brewed in the back until the owner moved the brewing operation to a larger and more efficient location in Asheville.  I enjoyed a Green Man Rambler pale ale and it was very good.  I told my wife that I'd like to go visit the Green Man brewery at some point.

Well, it just so turned out that the brewery that was once in the back of Jack of the Wood was the original Green Man Brewery.   A couple days later, we ended up going to the Green Man Brewery south of Asheville's downtown on Buxton Ave. (see map)  The three story brewery/tap room is the culmination of years of expansion by Green Man in Asheville which was started by Philadelphia native Joe Eckert in the back of Jack of the Wood.  When current owner Dennis Thies bought the brewery in 2010, he started a campaign of expanding distribution which meant they needed more space for their brewing equipment.  Green Man Brewery opened their "Green Mansion" brewery/tap room in 2016.  

The entrance to the tap room featured a high-ceilinged room with the Green Man logo on the wall over looking the small bar.  The Green Man legend dates back to medieval England involving a mystical man, also known as Father Nature, that lived in the woods overseeing nature.  (He was also known as "Jack of the Wood", hence the tie-in to the two names.)  There was a small gift shop area off to the side of the bar.  

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Not much was happening at the small bar area downstairs, but we heard some commotion going on upstairs.  I asked the young girl what was upstairs and she said, "Oh, that's our main tap room.  We have a deck up there, too."  Heading up the stairs, we found a large tap room with a long bar, some interesting fixtures and an outside covered patio.  We ended up sitting at the bar and had a couple beers each - I got the Wayfarer India pale ale on this visit.  Green Man had some very good beer.  

Another interesting place that we ended up at during our visit was the Bhramari Brewhouse, one of the newer South Slope breweries in Asheville.  (see map)  Opened in 2016, this brewpub took over the space that was once the Asheville Music School, a non-profit entity that educates budding musicians of all ages.  The brewery is named after Bhramari, the Hindu Goddess of bees.   

We had hoped they had lunch in the place, but their restaurant didn't open until 5 p.m.  Still we thought it was a cool enough place to have a quick beer.  We tried the Lorelai IPA, a forward tasting beer made with American hops.  It was a good beer and I was glad we stopped in.  

One of the local brewpubs that we did go to for lunch on our last day in Asheville was the Lexington Avenue Brewery, or the "LAB" as its known to the locals.  Located on Lexington Avenue in downtown Asheville (see map), LAB bills itself as a microbrewery and gastropub.  Originally opened in 2010 by two cousins who had a deep love for craft beer, LAB underwent a massive expansion about five years ago and added a tap room/restaurant that features a patio that faces Lexington Avenue.  (Look for an upcoming Road Tips entry on the Lexington Avenue Brewery.)

We went to a handful of other brewpubs/tap rooms around Asheville while we were there.  But quite honestly, there was no way we could have visited them all during our visit.  We would have been trashed all the time and we didn't to have our first visit to Asheville be spent in a drunken haze caused by 7.2% ABV beers.  Since we came back, I've done some reading up on some of the breweries we either missed or where we didn't spend enough time.  I hate to call myself a beer connoisseur, but I do like beer and I know what I like.  I found some very good beers in Asheville.  But it can almost be like a kid in a candy store - there's just so many to choose from.  However, I think we found a good cross-section of good and interesting beers during our trip to Asheville.  

The Lobster Trap - Asheville, NC

On our first day in Asheville, we walked around the downtown area trying a handful of the city's numerous brewpubs, taking in some sights and getting a lay of the land.  A place that we passed by a couple times caught our interest for food that evening, a nice looking restaurant by the name of The Lobster Trap.  We had a lot of options for dining that first night, but we ended up going over to The Lobster Trap located on Patton Ave.  (see map)

Amy Beard grew up in New England and ended up in Asheville around the turn of the 21st century.  One of the things that she missed about her home was the fresh seafood that she could have on a daily basis.  The only problem was that there wasn't any place in Asheville that had fresh seafood.  She had gone back home to visit family and friends in the Portland, ME area and one day she found herself sitting on The Lucky Catch, a shrimp and lobster boat owned by her lifelong friend Tom Martin.  She told "Captain Tom" that she really missed having fresh seafood - especially lobsters and oysters - while living in Asheville.  Brain storming on the deck of the boat over a few beers, Amy Beard came up with a restaurant concept in Asheville with Captain Tom providing the fresh lobsters, shrimp and oyster and making arrangements to have the fresh seafood flown in on a daily basis to Asheville.  

Beard went back to Asheville to find a spot for her restaurant.  Nine months after she had her restaurant idea on the back of a boat, The Lobster Trap opened in March of 2005.  Chef Mike McCarty came on board in 2008 and is  the head chef and managing partner today.  Captain Tom Martin still is catching lobsters for The Lobster Trap in Casco Bay off the Maine coast.  And still an owner of The Lobster Trap, Amy Beard eventually got married to a childhood sweetheart from Maine, moved back there to open a bookstore, as well as to coordinate the procurement and shipping of lobsters, shrimp, oysters and seafood that is flown to Asheville six days a week.  

(Pictured right - Mike McCarty, Captain Tom Martin and Amy Beard on the stern of the Lucky Catch.  Martin now owns three boats and also has a charter service that allows passengers to go catch their own lobsters.)

It was a holiday weekend when we were in Asheville and the city was packed with people.  We walked into The Lobster Trap around 8:15 with no reservation and we were told it would be a 30 to 45 minute wait.  The bar area was packed with people waiting for a table to open or having oysters and beer.  We ended up waiting outside for a few moments until some spots opened at the bar.  We sort of hung at one end of the bar, sitting on the edge of a small stage that is used for live music from time to time.  

On the wall opposite the bar area was a list of fresh oysters and some of the beers they had on tap.  It turns out that one of the local brewpubs supplying beer to The Lobster Trap - Oyster House Brewing Company - is owned by a former employee at the restaurant.  I ordered up an Oyster House Step Papa pale ale to enjoy while we waited for a table to open up.  (I wanted to go to Oyster House Brewing Company for lunch one day, but it turned out that the place doesn't open up until 3 p.m. through the week.  So, sadly, we never made it over.  Next time we go to Asheville, however...)

Near the bar area was the vibrant and very busy open kitchen.  A large salt-water tank with live lobsters was positioned along the front of the kitchen going back toward the restrooms.  One of the hallmarks of The Lobster Trap is that they adhere to the strict requirements set in place by the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch in terms of how the seafood is fished from the sea.  Both restaurants and fishermen must follow guidelines in regard to sustainable and eco-friendly measures to keep the ocean intact and ensure a lasting environment for continued growth without overfishing certain areas.  The Lobster Trap is one of just seven restaurants in the state of North Carolina who are members of the Seafood Watch program.  

The restaurant, itself, was long and narrow with sort of an old-time, antique feeling to the place.  It featured antique-style lighting hanging from a tin ceiling with a number of wooden booths along a narrow aisle.  It was sort of loud in there, but it wasn't oppressive.  

The 30 to 45 minute wait actually turned out to be over an hour wait.  It was well past 9 p.m. when we were finally seated at a table toward the front of the restaurant.  It was entirely too late for us to be eating, but we were having a good time passing the time with some good beers and a couple glasses of Pinot Grigio for my wife while we waited.  

We were greeted by our server for the evening, Rob, and we immediately ordered up a dozen of the oysters on the half-shell sampler that they had flown in fresh from Massachusetts.  They weren't cheap - $32 bucks compared to the $15 oysters Gulf-raised oysters that we could have had.  But, hey!  We were on vacation!  The platter consisted of Sweet Petite Bay oysters, Island Creek farm-raised oysters, and the ever-popular Wellfleet oysters that are a staple at nearly any oyster bar found in New England.  The oysters were all meaty and yummy.   My wife thought that she needed some greens, so she got a Caesar's salad to go along with the oysters.  It was a great start to the meal.

The menu at The Lobster Trap is very extensive with fresh seafood, pasta dishes, and a number of great sounding appetizers including lobster-stuffed mushrooms, scallops wrapped in maple bacon, and steamed clams, shrimp or mussels.   Since it was so late, we really didn't want to eat a lot of rich seafood and we both saw that they had a seafood fettuccine alfredo on the menu - $22 bucks for fettuccine with a combination of shrimp and lobster meat.

My wife suggested we split the fettuccine which was fine with me given how late it was.  But I saw something on the menu that I had to try - the lobster mac 'n cheese that was under the "sharable sides" header on the menu.  When I asked Rob about the lobster mac 'n cheese, he said, "We have people come in and just order double sides of that for dinner."  I've been underwhelmed with lobster mac 'n cheese at many places over the years that I've just quit ordering it.  But something told me this would be a little different. 

And it was.  The lobster mac 'n cheese was to die for.  It was creamy and cheesy with large chunks of lobster meat mixed - good lobster meat, not the rubbery stuff that I've had in other lobster mac 'n cheese from the past.  It was very rich and "eyes-rolling-back-in-your-head" tasty.  

It would have been tough for the seafood fettuccine alfredo to measure up to the lobster mac 'n cheese, but somehow it did.  The creamy alfredo sauce was rich and flavorful, the fettuccine noodles tasted like they were made in house, and the chunks of lobster meat and the plump shrimp were all cooked perfectly.  Some garlic bread came with the fettuccine and we were using it to sop up the creamy sauce after we finished the pasta and seafood in the bowl.    

My wife and I have already said that we'd like to go back to Asheville and spend some more time there.  One of the places that will be on our list to revisit will be The Lobster Trap.  Other than the over an hour wait for a table, the wait was worth it.  The Massachusetts oysters-on-the-half shell were meaty and tasty, the seafood fettuccine alfredo was excellent, and I cannot even tell you how great the lobster mac 'n cheese was.  I can see why some people will order two sides of the lobster mac 'n cheese for a meal at The Lobster Trap - it was that good.  The service was top-notch, the atmosphere was comfortable, and the food was, well, heavenly.  It was a great first meal during our few days we spent in Asheville - and it may have been the best meal we had the whole time we were there.

Fresh Deli (by Nostalgia Farms) - Davenport, IA

In Davenport, there's a very good Farmers Market on Saturday mornings from May thru October.  We go there about every weekend - early enough to beat the crowds (and the large dogs) that fill up the aisles in the parking lot at Modern Woodmen Park.  One of the longtime vendors at the Farmers Market was Nostalgia Farms, an organic farm run by partners Joe Dennis and Ed Kraklio.  However, when a chance for Kraklio and Dennis to run a restaurant inside the nearby Freight House building came up, they decided to open a little deli - Fresh Deli (by Nostalgia Farms) - and stop selling at the Farmers Market.  We've eaten at Fresh Deli a number of times since they opened in the Spring of 2012, and on a recent Sunday afternoon we went down to have a sandwich at Fresh Deli.  

When Ed Kraklio and Joe Dennis (pictured at right - photo courtesy Radish Magazine) met over 20 years ago, they found that they shared an interest in organically-raised, locally-grown foods.  They ended up setting up their farm near Maysville, IA as a sustainable farm, long before the sustainable movement really got any traction.  The two provided a handful of restaurants in the area with produce, but most of their business was done in the summertime at the Davenport Farmers Market.  My wife was a regular at their stand getting veggies such as broccoli, tomatoes and peppers, and a lettuce mix they had for salads.  Dennis and Kraklio were outgoing and engaging with their customers at their stand, and also educated people on this obscure leafy substance called kale long before kale was a trendy thing to eat (or use in blended vegetable drinks.)  

Kraklio and Dennis also were known for their poultry farm - they raised chickens and turkeys, and they also raised duck and geese, as well.  My wife loved to get their farm fresh eggs from their stand at the Davenport Farmers Market.  However, after the two opened the little restaurant, they decided to give up their poultry operation and closed it down in 2014 after the last turkey was sold for Thanksgiving.  A little over a year later, the two sold their farm west of Davenport to concentrate solely on the restaurant.   

Fresh Deli is located in the Freight House that is next to LeClaire Park in downtown Davenport.  (see map)  There's a large parking lot just off Ripley Street at River Drive that's in front of Fresh Deli.  The Freight House also features the indoor Farmers Market that is open year round, the Quad Cities Food Hub - a non-profit entity that features locally grown and locally made items, and the Front Street Brewery Tap Room.  A deck in front of the businesses at the Freight House that overlooks LeClaire Park and the Mississippi River beyond is a busy place during the warmer months with the popular bike path just on the other side of the parking lot.   

The deck was nearly full of people when we got to Fresh Deli around 1 p.m. that particular Sunday.  We decided to eat indoors this time.  The dining area at Fresh Deli isn't large, but it will easily accommodate 35 to 40 people.  It's also very well lit with the full front glass windows across the front of the restaurant.  The same "Now Open - Fresh Deli" sign that has been there since they opened five years ago still hangs above the front door to the establishment.  

It's counter service at Fresh Deli which features breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The menu is on the wall above the counter and they have smaller folded menu's in a holder near the cash register.  A board of daily specials is also located on the floor near the cash register.   Many of the foods can be made gluten-free and they have a number of vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.  

Fresh Deli also has draft beer from local breweries and they feature a limited bar including Bloody Mary's - one of the few places in the Quad Cities where you can get a Bloody Mary on a Sunday morning at 8 a.m.  I ended up getting one of their very good Bloody Mary's - I think it's made with clamato juice, but I'm not certain.  The basic Bloody Mary is what I ordered - you can also get a couple three different levels of loaded Bloody Mary's with different things added to the olives, pickle spear and celery - including shrimp and bacon - that you can get other the basic one.  And I like a cold beer chaser to go along with my Bloody Mary's.  I ended up getting a Mississippi Blonde from the Bent River Brewing Company in downtown Moline.  

I had been hankering for a tuna melt sandwich and the Fresh Deli has a good one.  It's albacore tuna salad topped with American cheese and fresh tomato slices and served on grilled sour dough bread.  It's pretty tough to screw up a tuna melt sandwich, but for some reason I really like the one they serve at Fresh Deli.  (As we were leaving that day, we passed a couple who was discussing their lunch out on the deck.  He was rather dismissive of his sandwich - the tuna melt.  He felt it didn't have much flavor.  I beg to differ, but I didn't tell him so.)  

My wife went with something that she had thought about getting in the past, but had never ordered - one of Fresh Deli's flat breads with pesto, mozzarella and fresh sliced tomatoes.  She got a small bowl of mixed chopped vegetables to go with the flat bread.  She loved the taste of the combination of the fresh pesto, fresh tomatoes and the fresh mozzarella cheese on the house-baked flat bread.  It wasn't large, but it was more than enough for her to satiate her appetite.  

Fresh Deli is nothing fancy, but their food is always fresh and consistent.  It's tough to beat their reasonable prices on their food items, and its one of the very few places in the Quad Cities to be able to get a Bloody Mary at 8 a.m. on a weekend morning. Fresh Deli is a popular place for breakfast and lunch, and if you're down the way enjoying an afternoon or evening beer at the Front Street Tap Room, you can order up some appetizers from Fresh Deli to enjoy while you're seated on the expansive patio out front.  While I'm not quite as dismissive of their food as that other patron was, I know what I'm going to get each time I go into Fresh Deli - good and fresh food at a fair price.