wine – Page 2 – Fervent Foodie

End of Vaca

Monday morning we left Charleston and headed to Botany Bay Plantation on Edisto Island. We got a ton of great pics. Here are just a few:

We munched on the remnants of food we brought from home while driving through the plantation. For more information on Edisto Island, check out www.edistobeach.com.

Then we headed back to Charlotte. This time, Priceline got us a room at the Double-Tree in Uptown Charlotte for only $45 a night 😀

We really liked this hotel (especially because you get free chocolate chip cookies when you check in)…

The bed was lot more comfortable than Aloft’s bed, however you really just cannot beat the Aloft location!

Here are some shots of Charlotte:

Monday night we headed to Rockbottom for some cheesy jalapeno dip (hello $5 appetizers!) and drinks:

Then to Aria for dinner.

Aria was a lot fancier/swankier than I expected, but I thought the bartenders were pretty rude :-/

We ordered a Super Tuscan Wine to start:

We’ve never tried this type of wine before and we both really liked it!

We ordered the bruschetta for the appetizer:

This was actually served cold, which I thought was odd. Then we got the vodka penne for dinner and added grilled chicken. The pasta was super tasty, which made up for the appetizer. Didn’t capture a photo unfortunately.

Tuesday morning, we went to the Holiday Inn’s Cafe Siena for our favorite breakfast buffet. Walked around the city, then hit up Fuel on our way back to Ohio.

Jarrod is obsessed with Fuel’s chicken parm calzone. I got an Italian sub which was also quite tasty:

And that brings us back to lovely Ohio. First thing I did was head to Acme and buy an ABUNDANCE of produce. My body is just craving healthy eating after a week-long restaurant binge!

Last night I ate like a queen

For dinner last night, Jarrod and I headed to Coco Osteria. We found this restaurant last time we were in Charlotte and loved it not only for the food but also the location and lovely outside patio right in the heart of uptown Charlotte.

First thing first, we ordered a bottle of wine:

Though we love wine, Jarrod and I are not wine experts. We usually order wine based on which name sounds the most appealing. This wine was fantastic!

We ordered some bruschetta to split:

I think bruschetta is our #1 favorite pick for appetizers. We get it pretty much everywhere we go, and it is ALWAYS amazing. I love balsamic.. and tomatoes… and basil… and bread… 😀

We also had some of the house beans and bread, which was so simple and so tasty:

When we go out to eat, Jarrod and I often split an appetizer and dinner. That way we get to try lots of things without overeating (at least not TOO much). We split the bucatini with grilled chicken for our main entre. This consisted of hollow spaghetti, caramelized onions, smoked pancetta, tomato sauce & shaved pecorino cheese plus the grilled chicken we requested:

A fabulous first night of food on vacation!

Interval Training: Day #1, Week #5

This morning, I woke up around 6:30am to get my run in for the day before the streets of Charlotte got too busy. I am now at 3 intervals of 3 minutes walking and 7 minutes running. I was a little nervous about the jump in running time from 5 minutes to 7, but I think being in a different city really energized me. I had to do most of my running on the sidewalk, which made me worry about my knee. So I tried to “think light” as I was running and put as little impact as possible on my legs.

I really didn’t have a route in mind, I just kind of set out and turned whenever I came across a red light:

There are so many beautiful buildings in Charlotte, and also very many beautiful restaurants I’d like to try 😉