This past weekend I jetsetted down to Charlotte to spend the weekend with my wildly-attractive recently-relocated boyfriend.

The plan was to go straight from the airport to dinner (no need to beat around the bush, right?), so I changed into my dinner clothes before catching my flight and was being SUPER careful to not wrinkle or otherwise launder my shirt before dinner.  I was pretty impressed with myself because my shirt managed to make it through the flight unscathed.  Once I landed, I headed to the bathroom to straighten up and when I lifted my arm to fix my hair I was greeted by a very unpleasant I-just-ran-a-marathon scent wafting up to my nose.  I smelled horrible.  So horrible in fact, that I’d like to apologize to the lovely old man who sat next to me in seat 8B.  That must have been a rough flight for you…

Lucky for me, the BF finds humor in almost all random situations, especially those that involve me fumbling out of my intended picture of perfection.  So, we rerouted to Target where the BF spent a few minutes sniffing out the best lady’s deodorant while I changed into a clean shirt in the bathroom.  Just the thought of him standing in the deodorant aisle comparing Suave Sweet Pea to Secret Va-Va-Vanilla makes me chuckle.  Lovely start to the weekend 🙂

After the stink debauchle we finally headed to dinner, which was courtesy of a Living Social deal I had purchased a couple months back.

I love coupons.

Intermezzo Pizzeria

First off, the atmosphere at Intermezzo was AWESOME.  There wasn’t a ton of seating inside, but that was just fine by us. The whole interior of the building is brick and looks very old and is full of character.  It reminded me of what I picture an old Italian cellar to look like.  I loved the low lighting and of course the staff was very friendly.

Appetizers were half off (SCORE!), so we decided to order up the two that sounded most tasty.  First was the bruschetta with tomatoes, scallions, house made mozzarella on top of house made bread:

Second was the garlic braided twists with garlic, herbs, and artisan olive oil:

Both of the apps were pretty good – but I preferred the garlic twists, even though they were over cooked.  The bruschetta was bland and needed some balsamic glaze drizzled on top.  Though, once I dunked it in the awesome tomato sauce that came with the garlic twists though it was quite tasty.

I ordered up the Intermezzo side salad so that I could squeeze in some veggies between the bread and cheese, but wasn’t a fan of the dressing so not much of it got eaten.  Jarrod didn’t like the dressing either.  That’s four thumbs down.  Darnit…  What a waste of veggies.

I was a little worried going into the dinner ordering because the apps were so-so and salad really was meh.  After we eyeballed the menu one last time, we ended up ordering the Milanese pizza which came with mozzarella and romano cheese, red onions, and sausage (which we swapped in place of the grilled chicken):

The pizza was FABULOUS.  Seriously delicious.  Thank god because the atmosphere at Intermezzo was so awesome I definitely want to go back… though I’ll be skipping over the appetizers.

Harper’s

For lunch the next day, we headed to Pineville to grab some grub Harper’s courtesy of a Groupon purchase:

Walking into Harper’s I really wasn’t expecting anything interesting given that it’s attached to a mall.  Surprisingly, the décor and atmosphere was unexpectedly cool and unique!  I love when that happens!

The bar alone was HUGE and overall it seemed like a fun place to chill.

The BF went with the Chicken Caesar roasted wrap… *cough* BORING *cough*

I, on the other hand, ordered up the pimento mac and cheese:

Holy canoli.  After a couple bites, I added a few dashes of hot sauce and I swear to you it was mac and cheese perfection.

For the main event, I went with the pulled chicken streetside tacos which were served with fresh corn tortillas, avocado salsa, red onions, cheesy goodness, cole slaw mix, chipotle cream sauce, and cilantro.

After one bite, all I could say was WOW.  Actually it was “Woooowwwwwww you have GOTTTTT to try these!!”

Jarrod agreed the tacos were fab.  Two thumbs up Harpers!

Black Finn

MUCH later that night we headed to dinner at Blackfinn.  Our original intentions was to go to Libretto’s for some pasta, but we couldn’t even walk into the place since the Bobcats game had just let out.  So we went with the backup plan of Blackfinn.

I was being a grumpy pants when we first arrived to Blackfinn, so thankfully the BF took charge and ordered us some delicious grub.  Why was I being a grumpy pants?  Good question.  I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.

We started off with some side salads with balsamic vinaigrette — and they were just delicious.  Blackfinn’s salad really made up for the crappy salad I had at Intermezzo, and THANKFULLY started to pull me out of my illusive bad mood.

For the entre, we split the blackened chicken alfredo with fettuccine.  The pasta had a really creamy alfredo sauce and diced tomatoes, red onion, parmesan cheese, and the piece de resistance–GARLIC BREADDDDD.

Note that no pictures were taken of this meal because of the aforementioned grumpfest, though somewhere between the salad and pasta I was back to my normal self.

Sunset Grille

Sunday Sunday Sunday… my last day in Charlotte (for this trip at least), so we headed to Sunset Grille for some Sunday Brunch, courtesy of a Groupon deal.

As soon as we walked in to Sunset Grille I was in love with the place.  I was completely caught off guard by the decor and ambiance (in a very good way).  I think the best way to describe it would be Southern Swank — horse hair covered stools, rugged high top tables with sleek white leather chairs, and white bull skulls on the wall.  All of the staff seemed to have the slow southern draw down pat as well, which I adore about North Carolina.

My newfound love was only strengthened when they brought us a **FREE** welcome basket of fresh doughnut fritters:

Yes, please!

We decided to go with our breakfast standby–something sweet and something savory split in twos between us.  For the savory, we had the three egg omelet with baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and provolone cheese plus we added in some of Neese’s homemade sausage and a side of scattered hashbrowns:

For our sweet dish, we ordered the buttermilk pancakes with chocolate chips

These pancakes were melt in your mouth delicious.  I love this place and can’t wait to go back and try out their lunch and dinner dishes!

All in all a wonderful weekend in Charlotte!  Can’t wait for my next trip 😀