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)”
Tag: asheville
Cook Out, Asheville NC
We’ve mentioned in the previous chapters that Marie very graciously selected the restaurants that we visited on our most recent trip to Asheville, and, even more graciously, paid for them. However, I wasn’t entirely ready to leave town without one last stop. About two hours after lunch, time spent shopping, letting my daughter have the run of things, and the uncompromisable trip to The Chocolate Fetish on Haywood for Marie to load up on dark chocolate sea salt caramels, we drove to the east side of town to show my daughter Tunnel Road, one of Asheville’s more commercial strips, full of chain restaurants and hotels. Well, there’s more than that. There is a very, very good comic shop out here called Comic Envy, a reasonably good barbecue place called Fiddlin’ Pig that I’m sure we’ll revisit, an independently-owned toy store, and a Mexican restaurant called Papas & Beer that has a heck of a lot of fans, but mostly Tunnel Road is clogged with chains. Continue reading “Cook Out, Asheville NC”
City Bakery Cafe, Asheville NC
This is Marie, contributing the latest episode which tangentially involves desserts. This visit was to City Bakery Cafe in Asheville. It was my turn to choose the restaurants to visit on this trip. I let Grant suggest one of the places he has on his list, picked a place we’d been to before, and the third was the City Bakery Cafe. Actually, what attracted me in the first place was the bakery portion of the name. I am extremely fond of cookies, pastries, and fresh crusty bread. Continue reading “City Bakery Cafe, Asheville NC”
Double D’s Coffee and Desserts, Asheville NC
This latest trip to Asheville saw us really getting some exercise. After we enjoyed a terrific lunch at Luella’s, we drove through the city and then west a few miles on I-40 and US 23, and then south down NC-151 to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a couple of hours stretching our legs at Graveyard Fields. In the late afternoon, we made it to our hotel, checked in and relaxed for a while before going downtown for supper. We ate at Early Girl Eatery, about which I wrote back in June, and had a very good meal, although perhaps not a match for the truly great breakfast that we’d earlier enjoyed. We passed on dessert, as we had other plans. Continue reading “Double D’s Coffee and Desserts, Asheville NC”
Luella’s Bar-B-Que, Asheville NC
We made our third 2010 trip to Asheville this past weekend, this time in part to show off the city to my daughter in the hope that she would love it like we do – mission accomplished, by the way – and in part to just soak up the mountain air, the wonderful people and the excellent food. I sort of cheated on the meal selections, however. I first suggested that Marie pick where we would eat, hoping that we’d try some new things and maybe revisit one of the places that we enjoyed on earlier visits, and then immediately started looking around myself, greedily and hungrily. Continue reading “Luella’s Bar-B-Que, Asheville NC”
Jack of the Wood, Asheville NC
The best meal and the best experience that we had on our most recent trip to Asheville came at a themed pub which has not earned a reputation for great food. That’s not to say we’ve heard anything bad about it, just that it doesn’t come up in conversation as one of the city’s great places. I’d like, briefly, to address that, because Jack of the Wood surprised us by being an extremely good and inviting little place with simply wonderful pub food. Continue reading “Jack of the Wood, Asheville NC”
The Noodle Shop, Asheville NC
One of my worst traits is my stubbornness. I’m working on it, but basically, when I get a mind to do something, it takes an act of Congress to get me to reconsider. I don’t even consider reconsidering until it’s too late. I think this really worked against me on this trip to Asheville, and we had lunch on Saturday at a very good place that we would certainly have enjoyed more some other time. Continue reading “The Noodle Shop, Asheville NC”
Marie, Let's Eat! 