Raleigh: Village Grill

One of our favorite sports bars is the Village Grill in Lafayette Village. It is located in North Raleigh off of Falls of Neuse. Lafayette Village is a shopping plaza that is made to look like a village from Europe. They have a plethora of fantastic spots to eat and drink at. 

They also host events all throughout the year. Just this past weekend they hosted a BBQ festival and had beer from the beer shop. 

But back to the topic at hand, Village Grill. I suppose it qualifies as a sports bar just by the sheer number of tvs. The food, however, is anything but your typical bar food. It is delicious. They use lots of local products.  And the set up is very spacious and comfy. They also have a really nice patio to dine on while watching the game. 

If you are looking for a full night in Raleigh, head on over to Lafayette Village, have dinner here and then head to either Vinos Finos or Beer World for drinks afterwards.

Pulled Pork Nachos

Short rib burger with fried egg and blue cheese

Pretzel Crusted Chicken Cordon Blue Sandwich

French Twist Martini

State Farmers Market

After our morning at the antique car show, we made our way over to the State Farmers Market. If you ever find yourself in the Raleigh area, this is a must! It is one of the best I have ever been to. You can walk around for hours and still not see everything. 

I love discovering veggies that I had never heard of before. Trying to create new recipes with them. The baked goodies you can enjoy as you walk around taking every thing in. 

The flowers are beautiful and we love picking new ones out and planting them in our "patch" of a garden. 

There are so many jams and jellies. An abundance of ciders and so many local sauces. I am such a fan of buying local and it is even better when their prices are the best around!

There are also a few restaurants on the premises. A seafood stop in that your nose discovers ling before your eyes locate it. The plates of fried clams and flounder are mouth watering. 

But this morning we actually ate at the restaurant. And I would go on about it...but I will just let this picture do the talking. 

If you are a fan of local Southern food, at incredible prices, then this is the place for you!

G2 Gastro Pub: Durham

We had tried to eat here once before and they were on a wait and we had plans that left us unable to bide our time. Last week when we stayed in Durham to see Aziz, we had a little bit of time to spare and we headed straight back here. 

And it was an extremely wise descison. When we got there, they were only slightly busy and we found our waiter to be very knowlegable about everything on the menu and everyone to be extremely attentive. Any moment that our server was tending to another table, other service members were right there to make sure we didn't need anything. Luckily for us we were there on a Tuesday night and they had quite a few drink specials, I chose to take advantage of the $7 martinis and went with the french. Good choice. 

The atmospehre is very modern and funky, yet it still somehow comes off as inciting. They use tablets as your drink menu and the lights behind the bar are constantly changing, but not in an obnoxious way. The menu over the open style kitchen is akin to a movie theater style and lists all the options on a rotating basis. 

For a starter, my husband went with the scotch egg. Their version involves a soft boiled egg, house made garlic and sage sausage made with red pepper and onion, rolled in panko crumbs and deep fried. He had high praise for it and I skipped that and went with their apple and celery root soup, topped with crunchy pancetta. I wanted to love it, and while I liked it a lot, I found it a little too sweet. It was very fall like and I appreciate that, just could have used a little more pepper for my taste. 

For our entrees, we both ordered the G2B burger.  He went with all the works and I kept mine simple with just bacon and cheese. I normally prefer a sauce for my burger, but didn't want to ask for one and the burger was perfectly cooked and juicy enough that I didn't even notice the lack of an added flavor of sauce. It normally comes with an aoli but I am never a fan of those. The real winner of my whole meal was the sweet potato wedges. No questions asked. These are hands down the best version of any sweet potato I have ever thought about having. They were perfectly crunchy on the outside and an almost creamy texture upon your first bite. Plus, they were salted rather than being served with cinnamon. I enjoyed everything I ate, but I would return here for those alone. 

We were too full to even contemplate dessert (this is the problem when you have bread and soup, I never seem to learn this lesson) but the couple next to us ordered a few that looked absolutely decadent and I would love to try them on our next visit. Mainly their sticky toffee pudding. Drooling just picturing it.

If you are in Durham and want to head away from downtown, head here. Some items are a little pricey, but the quality of food and competence of the wait staff more than makes up for it.

Weathervane @ A Southern Season

Earlier this week on my other blog, I mentioned that we had stopped by a Southern Season in Chapel Hill this weekend. While there, we grabbed a quick afternoon bite at their restaurant, Weathervane. Having had terrible weather here lately, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day we were graced with and eat on their patio. 

As many times that we have been to a SS, we had never eaten at the restaurant before. I like the set up of their patio. It is huge! I am pretty sure they must host events there as the back had an open setting and a bar area. The patio was split into tables under a pergola on one side and the other side was "cubbies" built into the wall with benches under an umbrella. We chose to sit in one of these and soak up the sunshine. 

The menu looked great and we started off our meal with beverages and I went with sparkling wine and he grabbed a beer. They have lots of local beers on tap! Our first menu item we tried was the deviled eggs. You should know they topped the eggs with bacon. Also known as my lifeline. 

Then we ordered and I got the soup and he grabbed a salad. His salad was huge and so colorful. I don't even eat salad and it made me hungry! My soup was really good. The only gripe I had was that the soup of the day was coined "creamy tomato" and when I got it, the server who put it in front of me called it "tomato basil" soup and if you know me...you know my feelings towards basil. and the fact that I actually finished this soup and enjoyed it (in spite of that pesky herb) tells you how good it was. It was packed full of flavor. 

Then for dessert we went with the butterscotch pot de creme. Oh my word, people. So amazing! And at first glance, we thought it was topped with homemade ice cream. But no, it was actually homemade whip cream complete with vanilla bean! Yum. Pretty much perfect, the only thing that I could possibly say is that certain bites tasted a tiny bit salty. Which I know salt is often used to cut the sweetness, but a few bites were off. However, I would get this dessert again, no questions asked! 

Afterwards we headed into the store to check out what new items they may have on hand. I could spend hours upon hours in this place. There is something for everyone. Coffee, wine, chocolate, cook books, a plethora of cooking supplies and bar items and they now have an ice cream parlor. As if I needed another reason to visit! 

We frequently buy from their catalog. Whether it be Christmas presents, graduation gifts or baskets for new parents, you can find it at Southern Season! Here is the link to their online store and if you are in the triangle, head over to Chapel Hill and check them out. They have also recently opened a Charleston location and are soon coming to one of my other favorite cities, Richmond!