Spectator Zombie Lurching

Taverna Nikos was highly decorated tonight, on Halloween eve. I had great crab cakes and my favorite bougotsa dessert, puffed pastry filled with banana, caramel and cheese, was awesome.

Just as we were finishing dessert, the zombies started lurching by!

This was the view from the top of the ramp outside Nikos. The zombies started at Piedmont earlier in the evening and staggered all the way to the Federal. It was quite a crowd and they didn't seem to mind standing in the middle of the street once they got there, since they were already dead. It was around this time that I heard one man say to his family as they were walking by, "I don't know what this is...but get a picture!"

This zombie spotted me and headed toward me saying, "Brains....BRAAAIINZZ!" What was my reaction? "Hold still, so this will be in focus." Then, in a brief moment of lucidity, the zombie thanked me for helping out with a conference a few weeks ago.

We went back into Nikos to pay our bill, but more zombies followed.

This upstanding young gentleman looked well prepared for anything.

I had dinner with this woman on Tuesday night, but she seemed to have...changed.

I wasn't up for lurching the distance, so it was great to be able to see so many zombies up close and personal.


Taverna Nikos has free drink specials! Of course, you might not want to actually drink them.

Dos Perros

I've been very eager to try out Dos Perros, in downtown Durham. Dos Perros is owned by Charlie Deal, who also owns Jujube, in Chapel Hill. While I've only been to Jujube once, it was certainly a memorable meal and I wasn't even using a decent camera yet.

Wednesday night, I tried out Dos Perros with a bunch of friends. I started out by getting Platanos Rellenos as an appetizer. While I had some help with these, I was already planning on taking part of my entree home, in order to try more dishes. The plantain fritters were, by far, my favorite of everything I tried. They were stuffed with cheese and jalapenos and served with excellent salsas and cream. The subtle sweetness of the plantains was perfect with the jalapenos, but they still weren't very hot, by my standards. I have a much higher tolerance for Asian spiciness than Mexican, too.

One of my friends tried the spinach salad, which was quite good. The dressing was good without being overpowering. They also have a salad with cactus paddles, which I want to try sometime.

She also had this beautiful tomato, kale and meatball soup, a.k.a. Sopa de Albondigas.

For my entree, I had the Mole Poblano, which was effectively a chicken stew with chiles and Mexican chocolate. I liked it, but the flavor wasn't as an unusual as I had expected. Yes, I am definitely drawn to weird food or unusual combinations, but obviously this is not weird to the Mexican or South American palate. This was no bacon ice cream, but it was good. In fact, I probably even enjoyed it more as leftovers. The beans were extraordinarily good and there were probably a higher proportion left after my first attempt.

For dessert we concluded the meal with a couple of orders of churros, which I thought were very good. They were less spongy than ones I had recently eaten at Mez and that's probably a good thing, although I enjoyed both.

Overall I enjoyed the experience. The restaurant is beautiful and the food was definitely good. The general complaint that I heard from my friends dining with me was that nothing was spicy at all, but for me spiciness is not a requirement. If you need to feel feverish during your meal, you may want to consider putting on a bulky wool sweater on your way in.

Be sure to check out reviews of Dos Perros at Carpe Durham as well as Leandra's brief review.