Ultimate Ice Cream Company, Asheville NC

As we wrapped up downtown during our trip to Asheville and the Bele Chere festival, the last little bit of shopping that Marie and I did was walking around the food trucks parked along Pack Square for the Taste of Asheville “food court.” There’s a more traditional, carny-style food court right in the middle of things, around that little park on Patton across from Tupelo Honey Cafe, which reminds me that Marie did stop into that beloved little restaurant to buy herself one of those wonderful rosemary lemonades that they serve there. So anyway, you’ve got all the funnel cakes and the Dippin’ Dots at that one food court, and then a few blocks away at Pack Square, you’ve got nearly a dozen Asheville restaurants serving some of their menu from trucks. You’ve also got the incredibly funny sight of desperate, overheated teens crouched underneath one of the unusual, circular sculptures in the center of the park, hiding in the shadows with bottles of water. Continue reading “Ultimate Ice Cream Company, Asheville NC” →

Papa’s & Beer, Asheville NC

Not every restaurant in Asheville is a farm-to-table, low-footprint indie, although quite a few of the places in the city’s wonderful downtown are. As you get away from the downtown area and into the sprawl, you’ll find the fern bars and the chains, although there are actually a couple of decent places to eat alongside the Olive Gardens and Red Lobsters on Tunnel Road. One of these had been Fiddlin Pig Bluegrass and Blues, which had shared a parking lot with an Outback Steakhouse or something. Marie and I had eaten here on our honeymoon and we were looking forward to a return visit, but were disappointed to find that the business had closed quite some time earlier and nobody had yet updated Urbanspoon with the news. Then again, it was on Tunnel Road, and most restaurant hobbyists are not interested in what happens on Tunnel Road. Continue reading “Papa’s & Beer, Asheville NC” →

Chai Pani, Asheville NC

I’ve only had a single meal here, and it was something that I’ve never tried before, but I have finally found an Indian restaurant to replace the dearly missed Moksha in my affections. Shame the darn place is all the way up in Asheville. It’s called Chai Pani and it is thunderously unlike any of the legion of boring, rule-following, horribly-serviced, tableclothed Indian restaurants that drive me nuts here in Atlanta. This place is completely wonderful, and I really am looking forward to digging into their menu and trying a few more dishes! Continue reading “Chai Pani, Asheville NC” →

The Green Sage, Asheville NC

I’m not going to better one of my peers in his description of downtown Asheville’s Green Sage. Asheville Foodie calls this place “part restaurant and part ecological statement”. That’s definitely the case, and I think a guest’s experience here will mirror precisely how they feel about that statement. I think that’s an incredibly neat concept, and the more that I have read about the restaurant’s goal of minimizing their environmental footprint, through solar-powered heating of the water, through waterless urinals and through composting, the more impressed I am. We actually enjoyed very little food here, however, and I look forward to returning and trying some of the interesting things on the menu. I understand that the black bean burger is really something else. Continue reading “The Green Sage, Asheville NC” →

Creperie Bouchon, Asheville NC

This is Marie, providing an overview of a cute little place called Creperie Bouchon in Asheville. It’s one of the places we stopped for our recent trip to Bele Chere. Bele Chere is a great festival for eating in Asheville, as there are more good restaurants in town than you can shake the proverbial stick at. Continue reading “Creperie Bouchon, Asheville NC” →

Havana Comida Latina, Asheville NC (CLOSED)

At the end of July, Marie and I made our first overnight trip without the baby. We made our annual trek to Asheville for Bele Chere, a festival of music, artwork, street performers and overindulgence. This was our third trip and we’re already looking forward to next year’s Bele Chere, in part because our visit didn’t allow us time to see the acts that we most would have enjoyed this time around. Last year, the act that I most wanted to see – Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – was scheduled for Saturday night and we only booked a room for Friday. This year, it was the other way around and we missed The Whigs on Friday night, darn it. Continue reading “Havana Comida Latina, Asheville NC (CLOSED)” →

Pappy Red’s BBQ, Atlanta GA

Once upon a time, I wrote a letter to Pappy Red, though I am pretty sure he never saw it. No, I just left an open letter on a blog I once wrote, thanking him for the many good meals that I had enjoyed at the since-closed location up in Cumming, but sadly informing him that while I enjoyed the barbecue a good deal, my pipes were no longer processing it right. Something about it was giving me quite unbelievable heartburn. Oh, it was rough. Well, I’m in a little bit better shape than I was nine years ago. I eat better, drink less and walk more. Plus, I keep a small supply of antacids in the console of my car. Maybe I could try this barbecue again?

Of course, Pappy Red’s isn’t quite what it once was. A decade back, there were a few more locations, including the one in Cumming, one in Roswell, and one on Georgia-140 between Crabapple and Canton, each with the distinctive, lovely and ridiculous affectation of a “crashed” airplane protruding from the building’s roof. Those are all gone now, but last year, they opened their first location inside the perimeter, just north of Howell Mill Road on the ugly, industrial corridor of Chattahoochee Avenue. I double-checked my antacid supply and headed that way.

Incidentally, there is a little confusion about this restaurant’s name. Both the main sign and one of the two neon ones in the window call it “P.Red’s,” but the fellow with the sandwich board up at Howell Mill and the other neon sign read “Pappy Red’s.” I double-checked with the owner, whose grandfather was the “pappy” in question, and he confirms that the signs are only spelled that way to save space. It is still “Pappy Red’s.” Desperately glad we got that critical point cleared up, aren’t you?

While the stretch of Howell Mill just below it has a reputation for being one of Atlanta’s most celebrated food corridors, the roads that connect it with with Marietta Street are some ways off from being brought back up to code, as it were. Both Chattahoochee, and Huff, about a mile south, are old and ugly eyesores, full of direct-to-the-public warehouse distributors and moderately interesting old bridges above railroad tracks. The asphalt is worn down by heavy industrial traffic. Pappy Red’s moved into some old, long-unused restaurant space with bars on the windows and a celled box around the air conditioning unit.

The counter service here is sharp and friendly. I ordered the pulled pork sandwich on jalapeno bread, making sure to ask for it dry. They don’t cook in the sauce here, but they will drown your meat unless you specify otherwise. The pork is pretty good, and, arriving a few minutes before they opened and sitting outside with the windows down, I drank in the wonderful smoke from out back, proving a tasty appetizer.

The jalapeno bread was almost as much a treat as the pulled pork. Ordering barbecue on this bread is a must; it is chewy, spicy and delicious. While the pork is still a little greasier than I would prefer, the lower slice of bread seemed to soak up a little bit of it and made my meal taste that much better. There are two table sauces, mild and hot varieties of a brown ketchup-vinegar mix, and both are very good.

I had some Brunswick stew and was really pleased with it. It’s heavy with onions and pepper and comes out extremely hot, so guests may wish to dip saltines in it as it cools. It reminded me of the peppery concoction that I enjoyed at Lively’s Owens BBQ in Cedartown a couple of months earlier.

It is a shame that Pappy Red’s couldn’t find a space on Howell Mill itself, where it would be more likely to get more attention and notice, but honestly, whether you’re either working in the area or wanting to sample inside-the-perimeter Atlanta barbecue joints, it is definitely worth a visit. And wouldn’t you know, I didn’t have a drop of the old heartburn and didn’t need an antacid after all? Either they’re doing something better than they once did, or it’s a testament to better living and healthier eating that a meal here didn’t leave me gasping. Either way, I was very pleased.