Raleigh's Bu-ku, J. Betski's, and Birthdays. Oh My!

Mmm K! Let's talk German / Polish and global street food shall we?

Annnnnd we'll start out with my first time visit to J. Betski's. I've heard many things about this place yet had never been. Shocking, but true. As mentioned in previous posts, I'm a sucker for a sausage and pretzel. While J. Betski's didn't have the pretzel they did have spaetzle, which did NOT disappoint.

So artfully plated. Haha! #foodiecomment #germanmacncheese

#germanmacncheese

J. Betski's was good. I'd go back, but only after I've received the weekly paycheck. This place was for me a bit pricy but honestly worth every penny. I stuck with apps and it was the right amount of food for me. Oh, and side note, someone else at dinner that night ordered dessert (no pics to show. Sorry!) ... the Chocolate-Hazelnut Torte with Sea Salt, Caramel and Crispy Bacon and I would've put it down the ol' pants! It was the best thing I've EVER eaten. I was everything I personally would ever want in a desert. Sweet, salty, hazelnut, chocolate and bacon! I mean are they cereal? Seriously people get over there, get a sausage some spaetzle, and for the love of humanity get the torte ... right meow!

Movin' on to Bu-ku ...  the visit was in celebration of a wonderful friends birthday so naturally we turned the night into a girls night in down town raleighwood. Bu-ku was amazing. It's the perfect place for a couple to go on date night, have a few, or a lot, of tapas, good drinks, and I mustn't forget desert. Do you see a theme here? Let's go ...

The menu covered everything from Mexican, sushi, Thai,  Korean, etc. It was glorious! I'm so dramatic!

Menu

Empanadas Picantes

Layered and delicious

Pierogi - beer-braised chicken, almond, butternut squash, muenster, brown butter

 I also had the dark and stormy cocktail with house made ginger beer. It was umm so good! And I can't leave you with out the desert pictures, which i personally didn't order but we all passed around to taste.

Warm Apple Tart almond crust, caramel sauce, cinnamon ice cream

Kahlua and Honey-enhanced Tiramisu  “en vace” with espresso sauce

 The small cup of espresso sauce to the right (above) is intended to be to be poured over the layers when you're ready to dive in. It too was glorious!

And last but by no means least, was the birthday girl's mini cake with salted caramel sauce. It's making my mouth water ...

If you've not already tried these places out, you must! You can thank me later for the suggestion.

xoxo

Richmond's Dixie

... Dixie doughnut that is! Located on Cary St. where most of Richmond's boutique shops can be found, and of course I had to try it out. Dixie is just a few blocks down from the Galaxy Dinner, Can Can Brasserie, and other great shops. We had brunch at the Can Can, more on that further down.

Don't you just love the stamped logo. I'm a stickler for cool packaging and I loved the handmade, stamped paper bags with their logo. It has a retro feel to it, but retro has nothing to do with the cake doughnuts this place is puttin' out!

The place smelled like heaven, like a cake doughnut heaven.

Not that I needed to eat three doughnuts, but I did want to 'sample' a few. So we got tiramisu (my personal favorite flavor), samoa (like girl scout cookie samoa) and peaches and cream (shown in that order below).

Unfortunately, we didn't eat them right away, when they were warm, and probably at their best. Oddly enough, the peaches and cream had the best flavor, the other two were so so (i.e. a bit on the dry side). But all in all they were good cake doughnuts. Certainly not better than my personal Durham, NC favorite, Monuts! More on Monuts Doughnuts to come ...

Sunday after we checked out from the hotel we grabbed brunch at the Can Can Brasserie before leaving town. The reviews online made this place, and their coffee, sound glorious, so we had to try it out.

The coffee was good, but the house made sourdough bread and butter were the best part of this meal, hands down! We both got the house made sausage, potato & cheese omelet. It was good! Hubs and I could've easily split the omelet because it was way more food that I could put down. 

Can Can's Menu

Anyone else ever been to Richmond? What places did you visit and/or would you recommend? I hear the Redskins training stadium is located in (or around) Richmond. Not that I care much about pro-football, but it's nearing fall and football Sunday's have begun!

xoxo

Ps. I did finish that HUGE coffee!

Virgina is for luvas and a suprise birthday boose cruise

For Brandon's birthday this year, he decided he wanted it to be a surprise. He's horrible at making decisions, as am I at times. So, knowing he loves testing out new craft beers, I decided a trip to Richmond Va, to tour local breweries would be perfect - there aren't many there but enough we could squeeze in a weekend. After several weeks of research and biting my lip (I'm horrible at keeping secrets), I made hotel reservations at the downtown Marriott, conveniently connected to the civic center. I will say, the hotel was nice, but parking was headache! Not to mention the cost of parking via the front door service was $20 for the day or you park yourself for $8 on the weekends, and anytime you leave and return would be an additional $8. Sheesh it was a major headache.

Sooo, the one thing any local Richmonite will tell ya, for good beer, and good food, you have to go to Mekong Restaurant. As the website, and everything inside the restaurant for that matter, aptly puts it, it "is for beer lovers."And I mean, honestly, they've received a hellova lot of awards. Say that ten times, fast, after drinking ten beers. I digress.

Mekong was located in the MOST random strip mall / Latino grocery store / where the hell are we ... for sure Google maps wasn't playing a dirty little trick on me? Even worst, could there be some form of cat in my pho? There I go digressing again!  

 

Inside Mekong - the bar was packed, and included small children with headphones.

The Mekong Menu

I know I've not really sold the joint to ya, but really the food was amaze-balls! I love Thai food, especially Pho ... so that's exactly what I got - Pho Dac Biet. The odd looking meat on top reminded me of spam (hey there's the cat) so I just couldn't do it, but everything else in this bowl of wonderfulness was de-friggin'-licious! 

Pho Dac Biet

 The beer selection was wonderful of course, and that's really all the hubs cared about ... I particularity loved the glasses. The Hardywood Burbon GBS was equally amazing and amazing and well, amazing! You have to try it on draft if you ever have the chance. Yum!

Of course no Asian restaurant is complete without the ol' fortune cookie. Add "in bed" to the end of this fortune and you've got a good time ...

"Don't panic! Every artist was first an amateur ... in bed."

After dinner we (actually the hubs) scoured the map for a local bottle shop ... Once Upon a Vine. This place was located in Stratford Hills, the quaintest of neighborhoods. I mean, I would move to Richmond, Va. if this entire town looked like this little area. Reality is, downtown Richmond, in some parts, was sketch McGee!

Even better, when we pulled up to the shop, they were projecting The Goonies movie in the parking lot.


I found a dear friend a well named bottle of cham-pag-nay. All in all this bottle shop had a wonderful selection and the nicest staff. We went back three times over the course of the weekend. Obviously the hubs loved the joint.

Saturday, after breakfast at the Galaxy Dinner, the hubs wanted to do the brewery tours, as many as we had time for in the day.
 

Peanut butter Banana French Toast

After breakfast, via the best taxi driver I've EVER had, we headed over to Legend brewery for the brew tour, beer and lunch. The beers were so so, the food was awesome, and the harry man who lead the tour was funny as hell.

I'm not kidding, the wiener, cheese and pretzel were on point!

After Legend Brewery, we called up our taxi driver and headed on ova to Hardywood Brewery. I'm in love with their logo! An added plus, these beers were pretty darn good! We grabbed a spot on the front patio, drank some beers and chatted with random strangers cause that's how we roll!

The Hub's Saturday night birthday dinner was uber fancy! Reservations were made for Bistro Bobette. This was my kind of place. White linen table cloths, long stemmed wine glasses, yada yada made for one pristine table setting ... that the hubs couldn't care less about. If you're ever in the area, please go eat here, get the truffle mac and cheese and fall in love! I can't say enough good things about how wonderful the food was. What made the night even more interesting, we'd drank all day, hence the reason for the crappy, yet limited photos ...  

I ordered the brick chicken with truffle mac and cheese was by far the best. Brandon didn't much care for his steak and pomme frites. All and all I thought it was very good. I would go back. 

For a little humor, I'm pretty sure this is a clear indication that should've been cut off ...

All and all it was a pretty successful birthday weekend surprise. The hubs and I had a good time ...

Next up I'll share our Richmond Va. doughnut experience.

xoxo

Welcome to Atlanta where the playas play

Umm k, let's start off with a nice tall glass of beer duh! Cause that's what ya do when you're waiting for you flight to leave at 10:30am ... I mean hey Jack, it's 5:00 somewhere.

So we were headed to Atlanta the other weekend to visit some frands. Yes we do have those. Direct flight via Airtran, one carry on each, and a quick trip on MARTA. I'm a professional at navigating that train.

While we were there we headed out to lunch (on a Friday) at the food truck park. Yes, you read that right, PARK. I died!  Apparently, ATL's way cooler than Raleighwood and their allowance of food trucks to roam about as they please.

Wonder if this guy knows I'm taking a photo of his fancy neon green shirt? 

 So yeah, there's all types of food represented out here from Mexican to BBQ, to taco's. I'm on a taco kick these days. I could eat them all day every day. So naturally that's what I got, from Yumbii.They've won quite a few awards.

 

Apologies for the crappy iPhone photos.

Honestly though, the tacos were a bunch of messy goodness. The fries were fanom, and the kimchi catchup was equally as good. The fries had a sweet crispy spiciness to them that i want right meow.

One Fish and one Pulled Pork taco with the fixings

 

Oh good gracious those fries were smack yo mama good. I'm over selling it you say? I'm cereal, I would drive back now just to get these fries and come home.

 

I took this snazzy photo on the trusty ol' iPhone as well. We visited a local bottle shop to satisfy Brandon's craft beer fix. It was a dud. Although they did have a back room 'bar' where you could refill growlers. That was pretty cool. We also went to the Sweetwater Brewery.

This place was super awesome. For $10 a person you get 6 tickets and they pour you essentially a full pint of the beer. Atlanta has weird alcohol laws that don't allow brewers to sale bottled beer at the brewery. They can however, sell the tasty beverages to drink there johnny on the spot. We did just that, and had tickets left over that we gave to people who had cool shoes on. No really! That's how we choose the lucky winners.

If you ever have the chance to go to Atlanta make sure you allow some time to visit the brewery. Sweetwater Georga Brown was my fave ... Save Paula Dean's career foodies unite!

Recent Durham Eats

Having recently decided to try out some new eateries around town, specifically in Durham. A few coworkers and I have been taking turns every two weeks choosing our next eatery. For last weeks destination  we chose Parker and Otis. It's located in an old warehouse-esk building off of the Durham freeway - in the Brightleaf Square area. The lunch spot boasts way more than just a quick bite to eat. There's specialty shopping for gifts, craft beers, artisan chocolates and truffles, coffee, and pastries. There are wide planked old wooden floors and exposed beams that give Parker and Otis such a unique feel.

Because we'd never been here before I wasn't quite sure where to order. We parked in the back of the Brightleaf Square and walked into where the coffee and chocolate counter's are located. They have daily specials and a vast mix sandwiches with local ingredients.

I went with the turkey, apple, cheddar, and bacon, grilled to perfection. For a side I got the pesto pasta with spinach, which was the bomb dot com, fo realz.

 It was amaze ballz, in the true words of Mrs. Rachael Zoe. She herself should eat this. That girl needs some meat on her bones.

 
Coworker numero dos got the pimina cheese, was pretty good too - very rich though. This particular individual however, got a pimina cheese sandwich and a cup of pimina cheese as a side. He won't be able to poop for months! (that was the going joke anyway).

Before we left I had to get my favorite chocolate ... because duh, I don't pass a chocolate counter and not get something! I got two chocolate bars. One was a milk chocolate bar with sea salt toffee. It was damn delicious. The other one was also a sea salt bar (see a theme here?) made by Escazu chocolate company, located right here in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's 65% cocoa, and the bottom of the bar is sprinkled with large bits of sea salt. It is divine!

http://www.escazuchocolates.com/

If you have some time during your next lunch break, pay Parker and Otis a visit. Anyone else been there and had a similar experience? There's other lunch spots in the area, any suggestions for our next lunch outing? I'm currently obsessed with food trucks, that may just be our next lunch. Check back to find out ... I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat waiting.

Till next time ... Save Paula Dean's career foodies unite! 

It's been awhile ..

Yes, yes, it's been quite a while since I've updated you all, but I've been busy around the house and unfortunately it didn't involve the kitchen. As most of you know I bought a house back in January of last year and purposely didn't do any major renovations until I was ready. I wanted to make sure I'd previewed every design blog out there to get the absolute best ideas. Juuust kidding. I did however, want to make sure I was comfortable with the flow of the house, how I used it, and the best placement for furniture. I also wanted to gather my design ideas, color scheme, and overall look I was going for - because that's just how I operate. I mean you have to have a game plan before you can attack.

First things first, I have a dog that shed's like a maniac so the carpet in the living room HAD to go. After several trips to Lowes Home Improvement and Lumber Liquidators I'd finally narrowed down my flooring options. All of which were mid-range ($$) laminate options. This option seemed to be the best pet friendly solution.

I ended up going with the Swiftlock Auburn Oak from Lowes. It wasn't the cheapest and surely wasn't the most expensive, but for 420 sq ft., which included the living room and dinning rooms for a mear $900 ... I didn't think that was unreasonable for the materials. I had a friend do the install, Knowles Cabinets. He really did a fabulous job. So here's the before and after ...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

OH ... I've also been busy buying that lovely furniture you see there from ZGallerie and Painting those HUGE walls. Thanks to my parents for their assistance.


So, back to baking ... I swear, but until then this sneak peak should hold you over.


~ Sweet dreams loves!