97% of my Friday nights are spent enjoying a fine meal and some fine wine at a local Charlotte restaurant.  It’s the ultimate workweek climax.  After five days spent on the daily grind, five days of hustle and bustle and busting my butt, Friday night is all about slowing things down, taking a load off, and truly savoring life (and its gluttonous gifts).

A couple of weeks back, my friend Vanessa and I met for dinner at Nolen Kitchen.

Neither of us had dined at Nolen before but their unique menu wooed us to their doors just as Vanessa wooed the mysterious parking lot attendant to let us park our cars in a no-parking zone in the horribly small and awkwardly shaped parking lot.  So to recap, there was a whole lot of wooing going on, and we hadn’t even had our first glass of wine yet.