Town Hall Grill Blogging : Early Bird Dinner

A bunch of us from ScienceOnline09 met at the Town Hall Grill for the Early Bird Dinner. We had a limited menu, which forced me to branch out and order something other than their wonderful fried oysters, which was a good thing. We all started out with a fantastic salad. It had a light coating of vinaigrette dressing. Some of the other conference attendees didn't think there was enough dressing, but I thought it was just right. The salad had surprisingly good tomatoes for winter, cucumbers, pitted kalamata olives, greens and fresh mozarella. Excellent. In fact, this was my favorite portion of the meal.

Our possible entrees included a NY Strip, a poblano chile, mussels and snapper and roasted chicken. As you can see, I picked the mussels and snapper. I love mussels, so they are hard to pass up, but the snapper was very good. The tomato sauce and vegetables were also good. I intended to take half of this home to eat at work the next day, but I decided to eat all of it instead.

For dessert, we all had the chocolate ganache cake. This thin slice of chocolate decadence really packed a punch, because it was like eating a chocolate truffle. I took about 3/4 of it home and shared it with the Most Faithful Readers.

Mini-Meetup at the Town Hall Grill

Coturnix told me all about how wonderful the Town Hall Grill was at the last Durham Bloggers Meetup, so I suggested that we meet there for dinner. Thursday night, Google Earth Evangelist (GEE), Friend of GEE (FOGEE), and I drove through rush hour in the pouring rain to Southern Village, which none of us had been to before. Fortunately, the Town Hall Grill is located in a really posh building with a parking garage underneath, so we didn't even have to get out in the rain at all. Fellow bloggers dining with us included Coturnix, author of A Blog Around the Clock, Sheril Kirsehnbaum, co-author of The Intersection, and Vanessa Woods, author of the Bonobo Handshake.
Several people ordered the special of the evening, monk fish and crab cakes. The cakes were approximately 3/4 crab and 1/4 monk fish. They had a really nice flavor, too.
GEE had the Arugula Salad, with baby arugula, roasted beets, goat cheese and spiced pecans with a white balsamic vinaigrette. The star of this salad was actually the flavor of the roasted beets, which were sweet and yet earthy.
I had this order of fried oysters for $8.95 and shared a half portion of the garlic fries with FOGEE. We didn't come anywhere close to finishing them. When I was at London Fish and Chips, someone told me that Town Hall Grill's oysters were soaked in buttermilk before frying and were some of the best in the area. I have to agree that they were excellent They were big, juicy and crispy.
For dessert we all shared desserts served on two plates, each with chocolate ganache cake and cheesecake. Since I'm not a big fan of cheesecake, I chose to concentrate heavily on the chocolate. I'd also like to try their bourbon-cherry bread pudding.

Coturnix is well known at the Town Hall Grill and the restaurant hosted the pre-conference dinner for the 2008 Science Blogging Conference, which I did not attend. In hindsight, I certainly should have, just considering the food alone. Chris Burgess, the chef, stopped by to introduce himself to us. Prior to the Town Hall Grill, he was at Panzanella and the Flying Burrito. Recently the restaurant was converted from being essentially a sports bar to one with a decor that more accurately reflects Burgess's talents and his food's sophistication. Overall, it was a very pleasant experience and I hope to venture out there again.

You can see all of Coturnix's great photos from our dining extravaganza.