Opa or oops?

Shelly, Anna, and I traveled to the Greek Isles restaurant for dinner and baklava, a Top 100 dish. The thing I like most about Greek Isles? They have a parking lot! This seems like such a small detail, but it is very important when traveling into Charlotte, the land of paid parking garages.

We made reservations at the restaurant, but I don't think it's too hard to get in. They have a huge dining room, and we actually changed our reservation to an earlier time at the last minute. We did eat a little early but I've never seen a line there. For appetizers, we had the flaming cheese and a greek salad to split. The flaming cheese was wonderful and honestly the best dish all night.

For dinner, I had the Aegean Chicken, which is breaded chicken stuffed with artichoke hearts, feta, mushrooms, spinach, ouzo cream, rice, and asparagus. Here's the the kind of sad thing about Greek Isles. I've eaten there a few times and, every time I do, I get super excited about the food and feel a bit let down. I mean, it's good, but it's never as good as what I think it will be. Maybe it's my ordering, maybe it's my expectations, but that's what it is. This dish was good - honestly even better the next day - but the chicken was really thin and the dish was mostly about the stuffing. I was thinking it would be a big breast of chicken stuffed with some of the things mentioned. I mean, it WAS tasty, but just not what I expected.

For dessert I, of course, had the baklava.

Opa!

Here's what I have sadly discovered over time - I'm honestly not a fan of baklava! I know it's close to heresy but I've had so many and not really LOVED any of them so this has become my conclusion. I really do love the baklava sundae at the Greek Fest, but is this because it's mainly ice cream with baklava sprinkles?? Now, I'm not a fan of honey so that may be part of it. This baklava is soooo tall and was a little difficult to eat - VERY sweet. If you like baklava, you will love it and it is definitely worth it. If you're kind of on the no side like me....it's a bit much.

Honestly, this is a good restaurant and I will probably go again. The atmosphere is great, the service was fantastic, and the food was pretty good. I would like to find something there that I LOVE and it would complete the trifecta.

Give me Liberty or give me death!

My dining friends Ali and Andi went with me to The Liberty on South Blvd. for dinner one night. The Top 100 Dish is the Devils on Horseback - sounds interesting, yes? The restaurant is in a pretty cool little area, although parking was a bit rough. I might even suggest taking the little monorail to get there as it goes right by. After finding a space and getting in, we were all taken away by the ambience. This a pretty snazzy looking little restaurant, with dimmed lights and kegs used as fixtures. Unfortunately, we had to wait so long for a waitress that I had to re-visit the hostess stand to get one, so the service wasn't great that night. The food, however, was.

Devils on Horseback are grilled dates stuffed with bleu cheese and almonds wrapped in smoky bacon.



You really WANT me to be good



Sadly, I have to say that it wasn't my favorite part of the meal. I think the dates were the part that really threw it off. I love mixing savory and sweet (reference bacon-wrapped tater tots at Fran's) but somehow this just didn't quite cut it. However, the rest of the menu looked really good.

We all chose the Chicken and Dumplings (come on, it looked great!) and we were pleasantly surprised. This is not chicken and dumplings like you're thinking.

Not your mama's chicken and dumplings

Obviously, as you can see from the picture, it was like a huge chicken laying on a bed of veggies and gnocchi as dumplings. The dish was total comfort food, just like the original chicken and dumplings, and I couldn't really say anything bad about it. Alas, it paled in comparison to the dessert - Salted Caramel Budino.

You think Italian men look good? Take a look at me!

Budino is a type of Italian "pudding". This puppy has chocolate, salted caramel, butterscotch, and fresh cream. It is sooooooo sweet, but soooooo good. The only thing that would have made it better was a cup of coffee....why didn't I think of that???

All in all, this meal was wonderful - good friends, delicious food made up for not so great service....definitely trying this place again.

What the crepe?

All right, I know you've been wondering where I have been. It's been a long time since my last post. I have to say that I have been enjoying the food and not super looking forward to writing about it, but this is what I set out to do and I will continue it!

One day, I had the fortune of working in Cotswold, a prime location for some Top 100 dishes. I chose Cafe Monte for my lunch. Unfortunately, I received a call from my bosses right as I was seated, so I ended up talking to them and not ordering for awhile. By the time my Smoked Ham and Cheese Crepe came out, I had to shovel it in and put half in a to-go box!

The cafe is really cute - it gives an air of being outside while dining inside. There was some construction around it for a Whole Foods (yippee!) so it also took out some of my lunch hour trying to find out how to actually get to the restaurant. I had a cup of French Onion Soup to start:


Perfect for a cold day

The soup was definitely good, but I think I realized I'm more of a fan of the cheese than any actual french onion soup....



The crepe came out some time later and was definitely delicious, although eating anything very quickly can take away from the experience.



Breakfasty goodness

My first thoughts were of breakfast. The crepe had egg in it, which I wasn't expecting, and the bechamel sauce tasted a bit like gravy. I was a little thrown by what really tasted like a breakfast dish at lunch but, all in all, it was quite good. I would definitely like to re-visit Cafe Monte and sample some of the other menu items when I'm not in such a rush!

Now, onto the next:
I'm adding this little nugget in here because it wasn't technically a Top 100 dish, but it was mentioned in a little section in the article - eating illegal bread at Mez. I went to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn with Anna at the Epicentre. I was super excited because I could eat DINNER while watching a MOVIE in a theatre! Who came up with that? He/she is a genius. When I read the article, I thought they were talking about real "illegal" bread, like you're not supposed to take food in to a movie, but Mez has a dish called illegal bread and it's one of the dishes you can eat while enjoying a film. I ate WAY too much that night - I had been so excited that I hadn't really eaten a lot that day. The movie seats are comfy but the "table" that they give you to eat on and is not that big....at least not big enough for me. I had the illegal bread, a chicken salad, and then tiramisu for dessert. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the tiramisu, but here's a pic of the bread:

OMG, it's so good. The description from the menu is "ricotta, feta, cream cheese in a phyllo pastry, tomato chow chow" and it is delicious. I should have just had the bread and tiramisu but my eyes were bigger than my stomach. This bread is soooo creamy and cheesy, it really should be illegal. The tomato chow chow was a bit confusing because I thought it was like a weak marinara...but still good.

The tiramisu was in a glass so it was more vertical than anything I've had so far. It had a pretty thick layer of cocoa on the top, which turned me off a bit, but the layers were good - still not as good as Mike's (sadly).

All in all, the movie was great, the food was delicious - I will definitely revisit this spot!