Restaurants – Page 3 – Fervent Foodie

Restaurant Roundup: The Round Bistro, Fahrenheit, Stagioni

September 7, 2014 1 Comment

THE ROUND BISTRO. I don’t make it out to Gastonia very often (once a year, give or take), but I made a special trip last month to check out Chef Jack Acheson’s restaurant, The Round Bistro, and celebrate the restaurant’s two year anniversary with a wine dinner. Within minutes of speaking with Chef Jack, one thing becomes blatantly apparent: his strong passion for the history and diversity of American food. That’s what fueled him to chose American cuisine as his concept for the Round Bistro, and each month, Chef Jack develops a new regional menu that features indigenous ingredients of a specific U.S. region. Last month’s region was the Pacific Northwest, and for September, he’s taking a fun turn and featuring famous football stadium foods. Ingredients are sourced locally whenever possible, and Chef incorporates what’s in season into his regional menu planning.

The menu at the The Round Bistro is large, and spans the gamut from fondue-of-the-day to potato-crusted crab fritters, muffaleta to “Pittsburgers”, plus several salads, She Crab soup, shrimp and grits, and fresh salmon FIVE ways (including baked parmesan crusted, olive oil poached, cedar plank roasted, and blackened). In short, if you want it, they’ve got it, brunch included.

Every third Thursday of the month, The Round Bistro hosts a wine dinner. Chef Jack works closely with a sommelier to select regional wine pairings for each of the six courses, and he uses these dinners as an opportunity to showcase his culinary creativity. The menu for the wine dinner I attended included a cold peach soup with mint and cantaloupe, bay scallop over cactus and smoked gouda salad tossed in a green apple vinaigrette, cedar roasted salmon over basil tomato risotto, wine poached heritage chicken over rosemary polenta, pappardelle pasta with lamb ragu, and chocolate and raspberry mousse parfait, plus wine pairings for each course. All for just $65 per person.

Product Review, Restaurants

Viddlz Alertz {plus a sneak peek of J. Sam’s}

June 7, 2014 1 Comment

I have a few food obsessions. Yes, besides my well-documented love of barbecue, there are some foods I simply cannot go without ordering. Burrata. Scallops. Caramelized onion anything. Housemade bread. Bread pudding. Bread. We all have our trigger foods. How cool would it be to get an automatic alert any time one of the foods you’re craving was offered by a restaurant? Blackberry cobbler, softshell crab, meatloaf. Whatever! That would cut out, like, hours of food research a week. Am I right? That’s why I’m super excited about a new concept in Charlotte called Viddlz Alertz. It’s an online tool that lets you manage your cravings by alerting you when your particular food obession is offered in the area. Plus, the Alertz system displays daily drink and food specials from restaurants and bars you follow (you can also get daily email updates with this info), and the Viddlz app is expected to be rolled out later this month.

Restaurants

Flatiron Kitchen & Taphouse–Davidson, NC {restaurant review}

April 9, 2014 No Comments

I think it’s safe to say I dine at restaurants more often than the average eater, that is to say A LOT. I impose mandatory splitsies on my dining companions, which means everyone gets to try everyone’s food, so it’s normal for me to sample several plates during a single meal. This is good for obvious reasons (though my pants may disagree), but trying lots of different things means you’ll inevitably end up with a dish or two that just don’t strike your fancy–something you wouldn’t order again or that you wouldn’t recommend to a friend. Every once in a while, I’ll find myself eating an AMAZING appetizer, and feel my apprehension grow as I worry the remainder of the meal won’t live up to the starter.

This is precisely how I felt when I dined at Flatiron Kitchen & Taphouse for the first time. I started with a glass of Malbec and their fried green Napoleon: salty fried green tomatoes, sautéed spinach, sweet bits of corn, and bacon atop a dollop of warm, creamy goat cheese (a hearty serving for a mere $8).

Restaurants

Restaurant Roundup: Elwood’s, Chuy’s, Urban Sip {Charlotte, NC}

March 5, 2014 1 Comment

ELWOODS BARBECUE & BURGER BAR

Invite me to brunch, and you’ll get a look. When I ask you “what time” with furrowed eyebrows, it’s because I’m trying to determine whether you’re inviting me to have 10am brunch (AKA breakfast) or 12pm brunch (AKAlunch). I don’t do brunch. I love breakfast and I love lunch. Why consolidate the eating joy into one meal?

Enter Elwoods Barbecue & Burger Bar‘s new brunch menu. Needless to say, I ate my words. Brunch vendetta be gone. How could I say no knowing their juicy brisket makes an appearance in several of the menu items? Exactly. You can get straight-up brisket and eggs if you’d like, but if we’re doing brunch, might as well get a little fancy and go with my top pick: the brisket BBQ Benedict with poached eggs and grilled tomatoes nestled on English muffin halves and topped with their signature red sauce. It made a brunch believer out of me.

If you’re not in the mood for BBQ (blasphemy!), their take on chicken and waffles, with buttermilk fried chicken tenders, a homestyle waffle, and honey maple syrup is a solid choice. They’ve also got French toast make with thick-cut Texas toast, and you can even get it stuffed with peanut butter and banana or strawberry and cream cheese.

For you do-it-yourselfers, there’s a build-your-own breakfast sandwich, with your choice of bacon, sausage, pulled pork, or pulled chicken, plus an egg, choice of cheese, and bread, PLUS a self-serve Bloody Mary bar. Homemade, house-made, made-from-scratch–you can use these terms to describe practically everything on the menu, including the breakfast sausage. I snarfed down my whole side of their hashbrowns–they’re the chunky, chopped potato kind (not the shoestring kind, thank god), and they serve ’em up extra crispy.

Did I mention $10 bottomless mimosas? Who wants to meet me for brunch this weekend?

Check out my review of the full Elwood’s menu here.

Restaurants

Tupelo Honey Cafe — Charlotte, NC {restaurant review}

February 25, 2014 2 Comments

I’ve never been to Tupelo Honey Cafe in Asheville. I’ve heard about it, walked by it, and stalked the menu, but I’ve never been in its doors or dined at its tables. People RAVE about the place. It’s where everyone who visits Asheville wants to go. I’ve even heard it said that Tupelo Honey Cafe is Asheville, meaning Appalachian, southern, and a smidge hippy (at least from this Yankee outsider’s perspective).

Tupelo Honey opened back in 2000, and over the past few years they’ve expanded to become a seven-store regional restaurant empire, the newest location of which is in Charlotte. Tupelo’s Charlotte location opened in the space previously occupied by Pewter Rose Bistro, which closed last year. Pewter Rose had great ambiance; it was romantic and cozy with the low-strung lights, origami birds, and hanging plants–it felt like a grownup tree house. Tupelo’s renovations on the space retained much of the building’s character — high ceilings, brick walls, and wood detailing everywhere. They reconfigured the seating layout, allowing for many more tables and a large bar area, but at the sacrifice of Pewter Rose’s romance factor.

Tupelo’s focus on local sourcing was a cornerstone of their success in Asheville. Even with the restaurant’s recent expansion, they’re sourcing goods regionally (via a company that aggregates foods from farms in each restaurant’s region), and using those local products to shed new light on many old-time, comfort classics. There are grits made with goat cheese, ribeye served with bordelaise (a French wine sauce), and crab cakes with lemon cherry pepper aioli. At Tupelo Honey Cafe, every meal starts with a complimentary basket of their famous biscuits, served hot with a side of blueberry preserves and honey (surprisingly, I preferred the honey).

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