Crabby lunch

Today I checked another dish off my list. I ate at 131 Main in Ballantyne, where the food was great and the waiters were hot! Well, honestly, the waiter thing was kind of interesting. I saw maybe ONE female waiter and all the rest were men. Most of them were relatively tall, well-built men. I found this to be strange. Is this some sort of ploy to play on female lunchers on the weekend to get more tips or just a strange coincidence?


Now, onto the food. I had the deviled eggs as my appetizer. I have always enjoyed eggs but in the past few years, I have realized just how much.  I mean, I REALLY enjoy them, and deviled eggs are my favorite. These were no exception:

Yummy goodness! The only (small) complaint I would have is the cracked pepper on top was a little distracting. I am a pretty big fan of pepper, but even I had to pick a few pieces off (the horror!).


Onto the main course, the reason for my trip, the crab cake salad:

Sorry my pictures are fuzzy. I feel strange eating by myself and taking pictures, so I do it quickly. The salad was a spring mix tossed with a light vinaigrette. Cabbage, corn, cherry tomatoes (which I hastily removed), and DELICIOUS croutons were in the mix. The croutons were a little sweet, crunchy on the outside and soft inside. Ruby Tuesday croutons, eat your heart out. The crab cake was on top of a mustard sauce (yummy!) and was perfect. I consider myself a slight crab cake afficionado because I've had A LOT in my 29 years. The secret to the perfect crab cake is to not have a ton of breading. It's called a CRAB cake, not a cake. The mustard sauce was wonderful and eating bites of the salad along with the crab was perfect. It was a very nice lunch that filled me up but didn't leave me feeling super full (I even had enough room to go to TCBY afterwards, but I always have room for that!).


All in all, a delicious meal. The service was very good, albeit full of testosterone. This is definitely worthy of a top 100 dish rating.

Nolen Kitchen

Last night, I went with Anna and Shelly to Nolen Kitchen to eat spinach pie. Anna had the GENIUS idea of splitting one for the table so we could all taste it AND get our own dishes! Here is a picture of the deliciousness:

We're talking phyllo dough, fresh spinach, leeks, and feta cheese - yummy!!! Now we're open for our dinner choices. Shelly and I went with the fish and chips:

The batter for the fish was great - nice and crunchy but not too overpowering. The fries were perfect - I hate super big fries! These were small but tasty! I was not a huge fan of the slaw underneath since it was warmed by the fish, but overall I couldn't complain.

Anna had the open-faced turkey sandwich, which she loved - she got the clean plate award!

And now, dessert!! Shelly had the chocolate muffin, I had the apple brown betty, and Anna had the butter cake. The chocolate muffin was good, but it is hard to make chocolate cakes moist. This one left a little to be desired. However, it came with a "milkshake" - which Shelly said was like heavy cream - I think that made it better. The butter cake was gooey and delicious and came with pumpkin ice cream. My dessert was warm and crispy with ice cream as well. We loved our desserts but we were soooooo full!

Anna's butter cake and Shelly's chocolate muffin

My apple brown betty

All in all, great dinner - definitely recommended. Onto the next!

I cheat on TCBY

Today was the first REAL day of my 100 dishes challenge. I went to Tasty-Yo in what I consider to be the yuppy part of Charlotte. Now, I don't know all the areas of Charlotte, but this is pretty yuppy, correct?

Ahhh well, at least we're protecting the environment. My mission was simple - eat a cup of the Blueberry Acai Yogurt. Unfortunately, this flavor will be served on only Saturday and Sunday of this week! Instead I ate peach mango and it was delicious!!

I got it with granola as my topping. It was so creamy and sweet but also tangy - wonderful! I felt a pang of guilt as I enjoyed a yogurt that was NOT from TCBY, the company that gave me my first real job, but I'm sure they'd understand I'm trying to reach some goals here!

As I left Tasty-Yo and traveled to my appointment today, I stopped in at a pet supply store and met this charming fellow:

His name is Bo and he works (or sleeps - he didn't really assist me at any point) at Pawtique. He was up for a picture, so I leapt at the opportunity.
















My last stop of the day was Jim N Nick's BBQ near my old stomping grounds, Rivergate. My dish choice was the Pulled Pork BBQ Taco.

I got it with the chips and queso, as you see here. The taco itself is ingenious. BBQ, good; Slaw, good; Cilantro, good (no tasting like feet = good, for you Friends fans out there). I did NOT, however, put BBQ sauce on it like I was supposed to. I was engrossed in the book I'm reading on my Kindle and the taco was tasty enough without it.  Here is a picture of the taco solo:

Yummy, right?  All in all, I think day 1 was successful!

Lena and Company's Weekend of Fun!

SOOOOO, my friend from vet school is getting married in June and we went to Atlanta for the weekend. Despite the HORRORS of shopping (sorry girls, I am not a clothes shopper!), I had a wonderful time with them and we got to eat some GOOD food. Our first restaurant was Desta, and Ethiopian restaurant. My meal was Fish Doulet

It was Tilapia and chickpeas and some other stuff I'm sure. Unfortunately, most of what I tasted was SPICY! I love spicy food but this was incredibly spicy! I did try Nicole's dish (she ate beef while the other mean people ate little lambies) and that was very good. Note to self, try THAT dish next time.



Looks yummy right? The bread was really good - very spongy and handy to "sop up" the food. We did have a fabulous dessert, even more fabulous because it was free!!

If I could eat this every day, I would. It was this almost crackery thing on the bottom that was soft and sweet and then the banana on top - I love me some fresh bananas and these were fantastic!  All in all, a nice dinner.

We ate at Maggiano's the next night. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of my meal even though it was fabulous. I'm hoping to start my tour of the 100 dishes in Charlotte tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Friends episode!

So today I felt like I was in that Friends episode where either Ross or Chandler joins a gym and then needs help from the other one to quit and they both get sucked in again and again. I joined a gym the other day and I'm totally happy about it, but now I got sucked into getting a trainer! I think it will be good for me to have structure and goals and to have some accountability during this process, but I hope they don't try to sell me anything else b/c I'll probably buy it!  I'm wondering about telling my trainer that I plan on eating the top 100 dishes in Charlotte this year. What might they think of that??