Blu Blogging : Catfish Dinner

I don't really like catfish. I'm a trout person. That's the very reason I went to the Catfish Dinner at Blu Seafood and Bar last week. I knew that if anyone knew how to cook catfish in such a way that I'd like it, it would be Chef Tim Lyons. Fortunately, I was right. It was tasty and not greasy, which is my normal catfish complaint.

I don't like grits, but if they are cheesy and creamy enough, I think they can be pretty good. These weren't as fantastic as what is served with their shrimp and grits, but that's really tough to beat.

I don't like cheesecake, but the no-bake chocolate bourbon cheesecake was fantastic. It was like eating a large piece of candy. Actually, this was the best part of the meal and I'm hoping it will be on their next dessert menu, so I can have more.

Once again, you can see that I am rarely hampered by prejudice, especially when it comes to food.

Hillsborough Yarn Shop

Some of you may be aware that in the last six months I have, at times, been crocheting quite a bit. Since January, I've made a very long alpaca scarf, three baby hats (one of which only fit a stuffed rabbit) and half of a pretty purple sock that I have since decided should be an iPod holder or something.

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I decided to venture off into the wilds of Cary to Shuttles, Hooks and Needles, which is a yarn store that was highly recommended by my dental hygienist. Unfortunately, it was by no means wheelchair accessible, so we had to abort the mission. I'm still extremely glad she recommended it, because it was the excuse I had for going to Udupi!

I'm also kind of glad that it was inaccessible, because that meant that we headed off to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop sooner rather than later. The Hillsborough Yarn Shop is quite wonderful, indeed.


The owner, Anne, explains to all customers as they come in the door that it operates similarly to a shoe store. There are individual skeins of yarn in the front and you can request that she bring out the number of skeins that you would like (need) from the back. This enables her to offer a huge selection of yarns, all from natural fibers, in a relatively small space. There is one more room, in addition to the one that I've depicted in the photographs above. You can easily spend hours looking at and feeling of all of the gorgeous yarns. I did.

Of course I just looked. I have amazing willpower. I've never seen the green leather ottoman that the yarn is sitting on before in my life. I do have to say that if you fill up a frequent buyer's card on your first visit to a store, it definitely makes you feel welcome.

Hillsborough continues to be the hip-happening place to go to spend an afternoon. You can go to any number of places to eat, go to Matthew's Chocolates for dessert and then shop to your heart's content. Now, more than any other time in the almost 20 years that I've lived here, it's not just a place to stop for just one thing. Downtown Hillsborough, as a whole, is a destination.

Thai Cafe Blogging : Ice Cream!

Thai Cafe has recently added housemade ice cream to their dessert offerings. Before they just had creme brulee and coconut cake, which is an unusually short list. Now they have housemade coffee, red bean, green tea, vanilla and strawberry ice cream. I had the red bean, which my 2nd Most Faithful Reader and I enjoyed. My Most Faithful Reader had the coffee, which was great. I would have ordered it or the green tea, which had both been recommended by our waiter, but I avoid consuming caffeiene in the evening. I rarely ever get dessert at Thai Cafe, because I'm usually too full after my meal to tackle their large serving of creme brulee, but one can always fit in some ice cream!

In contrast, Rockwood Filling Station, right across the street, has quit serving their housemade ice cream, which was very disappointing the last time I went there. They still have root beer floats and milkshakes, though. Dear readers, were you not ordering their ice cream enough for them to keep it around? Shame on you. Actually, Scott Howell has a tradition of taking away my favorite desserts. I'm still dreaming of the fried pies that he used to serve at the Q-Shack. Fortunately, I love the Anchovy pizza at the Filling Station so much that I'll forgive him.

35th Annual DurHamFest

Once again, it's time for DurHamFest, the annual amateur radio swap fest run by the Durham FM Association. This year, it's the 35th annual hamfest, which is pretty amazing.

It's this Saturday, May 23rd, from 8am to 2pm, at the Little River Community Center. It's a great event for ham radio operators to get together and socialize and for everyone to look at or purchase new and used radio and computer equipment. There will be food available, of course, or I wouldn't even think of attending. Well, I might bring my own, I suppose.

If you're a ham, I hope to see you there. If you're not, it's an opportunity to learn a little more about amateur radio and gawk at geekiness. That's another way of saying that I anticipate that fun will be had by all.

Udupi Cafe

I've mentioned before that I thought you had to go to Cary in order to get really good Indian food in this area. Don't get me wrong. In this case, I am not a snob, because I am more than happy to gobble down any Indian food that you put in front of me. I just hoped to be impressed by what I found in "Little India", in Cary. I was. I know you're wondering, but I assure you that I did not get lost while I was in Cary, no thanks to the road that was closed in Google's chosen path. My iPhone's GPS quickly showed me an alternate route.

The food at Udupi Cafe, which had been recommended to me by at least a dozen people, was beyond fantastic. Udupi has southern Indian food and is completely vegetarian. It was almost packed at close to 1pm on a Saturday afternoon. We chose the buffet, but we could have ordered from the menu. Absolutely everything was delicious. I particularly liked a carrot dish, which is the orange substance depicted in the photo above. I, of course, don't like cooked carrots, but my tastes are consistently inconsistent, as my readers are well aware.

From left to right, they had a coconut chutney, lemon pickle and raita. The lemon pickle didn't seem outrageously hot to me, but I think I'm just getting used to these things. Everything was good.

Go there. I don't care if you have an aversion to Cary. You must go. I want to go back as soon as possible.

You can read another review of Udupi Cafe on The Archer Pelican.

Tyler's Taproom Blogging : Now With Cod

Shortly before the Triangle Tweetup last Thursday night, I had a spontaneous dinner at Tyler's Taproom with @boraZ. Eating was rushed, because I was tweeting, talking and we were both looking for other people we knew or who just looked as if they might be going to the Tweetup. Bora ordered the blackened salmon salad.

As you can see, he was very eager to eat it. He finished it too! It must have been good.

I had the fish and chips. They've replaced the catfish with cod, which they announced in a separate page inserted in the menu. They said this was due to popular demand and I'm not terribly fond of catfish, so I naturally think this was a good move. I actually thought their fish and chips was quite good before, in spite of the type of fish, but this was even better. It was nice and crispy and they give you three big pieces accompanied by their garlic fries, which are great. Two of the pieces made a nice lunch on Saturday and no reheating was required.

I also do love drinking at Tyler's. Their lemonade is still fantastic. It's so sour. It's perfect. It's really what keeps me going back again and again. I admit that I am powerless over good lemonade. That's the first step.

Green Leaf

I recently went to Green Leaf, which is on University Drive, between Eastern Lights and AutoZone, and where Taste of India was briefly. I thought it was good and the food was pleasantly spicy, much more so than any of the other Indian restaurants in Durham. As you can see, I started out by feeding my comparatively recent mango lassi addiciton. Green Leaf features southern Indian cooking, but they also have northern Indian food.

They started out by giving us some cauliflower pakoras, which were very good.

We ordered some Punugulu, which are made from rice and lentils, with onions, chillies and ginger. They're kind of like savory hushpuppies with a kick. They came with a coconut sauce, which was quite good.

I wanted to try their dosa, which are characteristic of classic southern Indian cuisine, so we ordered the Vegetable Kal Dosa. The Kal is what the pancakes are cooked on. They were served with a delicious concoction of vegetables and the same coconut sauce as the Punugulu. The owner noticed that I was picking out the mushrooms, because I'm still not fond of most of them and rushed over to offer to make a version without them. I explained that it was ok, because my friend liked them and I think they add a nice flavor. Many years ago, I tried dosa at the Dosa Inn, in Cary, and these were so much better. This dish was really fantastic.

We also shared the Kerala Fish Curry, which had tilapia and coconut curry, with southern Indian spices. It was also very good.

The curry came with a large serving of rice and I thought the few peas on top made it look sort of elegant. After all this and saving some for leftovers, we were too stuffed to try dessert. They have a buffet every night, which features the cuisine of specific regions on different days of the week.

I am really looking forward to going back soon! Be sure to check out Carpe Durham's review of Green Leaf, too.

Grand Opening - Eronel Designs

Back in the dark ages, when I was a teenager, I used to make jewelry. In the past few years, I've still made jewelry, but I used to sell it, along with my paintings, at Womancraft, an artists' cooperative in Chapel Hill, and at Horizon Gallery, which used to be in Brightleaf Square, in Durham. Working at Womancraft was great, because every weekend, I got to spend 4 hours meeting new people that came in the store, catching up with the regulars and talking to my fellow artists and artisans. As you can guess, many of our conversations went something like this:

"After I leave here, I'm going to the Persian Carpet."
"Is that a restaurant?"
"No, it's a rug store."

I don't think I need to provide attribution for the individual quotes, unless this is the first post of mine that you've discovered. I'm afraid that I didn't have to make up that example either.

In any case, once I started college, particularly when I was a sophomore, my classes interfered with how I had chosen to spend my spare time for the previous four years. I had to quit. I not only quit working at Womancraft, but I pretty much quit making jewelry and I quit painting. I concentrated even more heavily on my studies and then leapt right into my career, which did not involve my artistic abilities.

Recently, I've started making jewelry again with wild abandon. I still have all of my supplies from the old days, my sterling silver and gold-filled wire, my semiprecious gemstone beads and my tools. Now I have an art studio, so I can spread out all of my work without having to put it all away before preparing for exams or writing a paper.

I decided to set up an Etsy store to sell my work. For those of you who haven't checked out Etsy, it's a way for artists to sell their handmade crafts on-line, within a nice framework. When I was younger, I sold my jewelry and my paintings under "Lenore's Creations", but I decided to be a little backward and my wares are now called "Eronel Designs". Like most things, I have no idea how successful my new business venture will be, but if I come anywhere close to selling as many earrings and necklaces as I did long ago, my fingers will be pretty busy on the weekends.


In reality, I only did this so I would have an excuse to create a third Twitter account, @eroneldesigns, to communicate information about the store and spout random bits of enthusiasm.

Saigon Grill

Last Tuesday, I went to Saigon Grill with several friends and we had a lovely feast. Carpe Durham also just reviewed the restaurant, so I encourage you to read about their experiences. We started with two kinds of spring rolls, one with grilled pork and the other with shrimp and pork, both of which I liked.

They have a nice selection of interesting non-alcoholic drinks, which I find pretty exciting. As of Tuesday, they did not yet have their liquor license, but hopefully they will soon, if they don't already. I tried the Young Coconut Drink and definitely enjoyed it.

The owner waited on us and he recommended that we try the egg rolls, which contained ground pork and shrimp with beanthread noodles. These were delicious. There were four and I photographed the last one while I could.

One of my friends got the eel sauteed with curry and coconut sauce. This was probably my favorite of everything I tried. I'm a big fan of eel, but the entire dish was so interesting and good. This was the first time I'd tried eel with bones in it and it certainly had a different texture from typical sushi barbecued eel. We marveled at some of the unidentified vegetation in the dish.

Another friend had the pork chop and he seemed to really like it.

Two of us ordered the duck soup with egg vermicelli. I thought it was very good and thought that the only thing wrong with it was that eating it was a little awkward. It had huge chunks of duck that were still on the bone, large pieces of bok choy, large pieces of mushroom (one of which I intentionally ate), and a large mass of noodles. I ate half of it for lunch a few days later and thought it was miraculous that I didn't get any on my blouse. If you like duck in all its fatty glory, then you will like this. If you aren't sure, then order something else. It's just ducky.

Overall, I enjoyed it and hope I can con someone into going back with me soon.

ShangHai House

Friday night, I was fortunate to go to a new Chinese restaurant with friends of mine who had lived in China for a year and who could order in Chinese. It was amazing watching them alternate between giddiness and being close to tears at being able to order some of the dishes that were extremely close to what they routinely ate while they were there. The location is where the No. 1Panda House used to be, across Guess Rd. from where the old Willowdale theatre used to be. The sign still remains, so, for now, that's what you'll need to look for. The take-out menu and their website state that the name of the restaurant is actually ShangHai House.

The sweet corn and minced chicken soup was the least exciting offering that I sampled. It was good and it would be nice on a cold winter day, though.

These green beans were the Pleasant Steamed Bean - Jam Bun Silk. The beans were excellent. They had a thin sauce that reminded me of fermented beans, but I wasn't exactly sure what it was and I was too busy chewing to ask.

This was Fried Tofu, Home Style and was my favorite of everything we tried. The tofu was crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside, with a delectable brown, ever so slightly sweet, sauce.

The Yu-Shiang Shredded pork was also wonderful and was served with a much sweeter sauce.

We each received a compimentary orange at the end, which was delicious.

The service was very friendly, but the restaurant, which was almost empty when we arrived at 6pm, was almost full when we left and it was challenging getting a bill, to say the least. We ended up having to just go up to the cash register with our money in hand.

I carefully photographed their entire menu and was thrilled with the results, but it turns out that their entire menu is online. Be sure to check it out, because it's at the least entertaining and at best exciting for the adventurous. They appear to serve dim sum all the time, so I'm craving pork buns and scallion pancakes, which I haven't had in years. They also have dishes listed like "Sizzling Cowboy Bone" and "Spoiled Chaotic Pork." There are just so many dishes I would like to try, but I'm not quite sure braised pigs' knuckles are on that list yet.

Definitely check this place out at your earliest convenience.

Help Find GEE's Bike!

Google Earth Evangelist's bicycle was recently stolen. Please help her find it! Check out http://findmybicycle.blogspot.com for more information. Thanks!

Dear Secret Admirers from the West Coast

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was quite a nice and sweet surprise today!

Experimental Cooking : Breadless French Toast

Bread is something I almost never have around. It goes bad too quickly and I grow enough mold around here as it is. It's really nice to have on the weekends, though, because it's such a fundamental part of a leisurely breakfast: eggs with toast or French toast. While thinking how bored I was with the various edible options available to me this morning, I decided to see if it might be possible to make French toast with crackers instead. It is! Kind of.

I did some googling and determined that if this had been tried before, it at least wasn't described in the way in which I was searching for it.

I got out my trusty Modified 1964 Joy of Cooking French Toast Recipe and got to work. I pretty much cut it in half:

• 2 eggs (I didn't cut these in half, because I figured I need more to hold it together)
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 a cup of milk
• 1/4 teaspoon poorly poured vanilla (no more than a tablespoon, I'm sure)
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar (I put in an extra tsp by accident and just now noticed.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons canola oil
• 8 Jacob's Cream Crackers (the ones that Wallace and Gromit eat)

I mixed it up and put some whole crackers in the liquid. I decided that it wasn't going to work without breaking them up into little pieces, as if you were going to add them to soup. Perhaps if the cracker exteriors were sanded somehow, but that's not exactly practical. I let the cracker batter mixture soak for a few minutes while I made coffee.

I used a 1/3 cup scoop and the first couple seemed closer to a scramble than something I could flip, but I'm not terribly good at frying things. I think there was too much liquid, so it either needs more crackers or perhaps only one egg. Different crackers might be good, too. I have a feeling this might be good using Triscuits.

It kind of turned out ok. It tasted pretty good and you get random bits of crunchiness here at there. I applied plenty of maple syrup and cinnamon, so the effect was close to the same experience, with less sponginess.

I ended up burning the last one, but the contents of the plate above were just the right serving size for me.

It's Spring!

It was gloomy and soggy today, but it looks as if it will be nice here again, starting tomorrow.

For the next few hours, you'll just have to enjoy these.

I'm looking forward to seeing what will be blooming in the weeks ahead.

More spring pics.

Blu Blogging : Trout Sampler

The last time I was at Blu Seafood and Bar, they had an NC Sunburst Farms Trout Sampler appetizer, which I had as my meal. It doesn't look like a lot of food for a whole meal, but pretty much everything was meant to be eaten with their delicious bread. I let my MFRs have a little of it, but most of the loaves were mine, all mine. From left to right, there was cold-smoked trout, hot-smoked trout and cured trout with avocado. In the back row there was trout dip and trout roe on creme fraiche, wth egg and onions. I'm very fond of trout, so this was all quite a treat.

For dessert, Chef Tim Lyons experimented with this maple creme brulee, which was excellent. I hope he makes it on a regular basis.

This Wednesday night, they are having a Veracruz wine dinner, featuring four courses of Mexican food prepared by Tim and his cooking staff, from the Yucatan. Dinner starts at 7pm and reservations are required.

ACME Blogging : $12.95 Tuesdays

Every Tuesday of every week, ACME Food & Beverage Co. has been offering all their entrees for $12.95, which is quite a savings. It's a long drive after work, so I normally prefer to go on the weekends, but if you live in Chapel Hill or Carrboro, you're crazy to miss it. Be sure to make reservations, because it's been packed.

I decided to have the special fried shad roe appetizer, which was already $12.95 but both MFRs took advantage of the special. I'd never had shad roe before, so I was eager to try it, despite being tempted by the tilefish on the menu. Our waiter, Justin, described the texture as similar to hamburger, which was an apt comparison. It was served with cheese grits, bacon, butter, shallots and a little lemon juice. It was extremely good.

Chef and owner Kevin Callaghan was sporting a sombrero all evening, because he didn't have a ball-cap handy.

We tried one of Kevin's new creations in progress, three delicious donuts covered with warm chocolate sauce, served with Captain Crunch ice cream. The donuts were absolutely wonderful. The ice cream was very colorful and the house made ice cream itself was very good. I would have probably appreciated the combination more if I'd grown up on kids cereal. In fact, this was the first time I'd ever eaten Captain Crunch. Chocolate hazelnut ice cream, which was on the dessert menu that night, would be fantastic with the donuts and I'd love to try them together.

Taverna Nikos Blogging : New Website

Taverna Nikos finally has a new website, so if you haven't been there yet, you can take a look at their menu. It's always a relief to me when menus are available on-line, in case I've forgotten some of the details about what I've eaten. Of course, those pesky specials keep those of us with early symptoms of senility on our toes.

Anotherthyme Blogging : MSB Special

I went to Anotherthyme recently and my 2nd Most Faithful Reader had very elegant gumbo that he said was very good. I love the pepper placement.

I had the MSB special, which is an old favorite, heralding back from the days of Somethyme and Pyewacket. Of course, when Somethyme was open, I believe I was too young to appreciate such things. I didn't eat a lot back then. In fact, I didn't really start eating food until I was about 14. I suppose I've made up for it.

The MSB special is an openface sandwich with fried egg, avocado, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts and cheese. I believe it had mustard, too, but I'm not exactly sure. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Based on Anotherthyme's specials menu on the website, I don't think it's currently one of their specials, but I'm sure it will be back. Once it is, rush over there and get one.

Valentine Chocolate

Now that we've all had a chance to heal after Valentine's Day, I think it's time to reflect back on what was good about that week. Ok, ok, I realize that not all of you despise the holiday. Actually, my February 14th wasn't so bad either, because I chose that day to go pick out my new iPhone. My V-Day, was, in fact, awesome.

In any case, earlier that week I got a box of chocolates from Google Earth Evangelist's sister, SOGEE (Thank you!). It wasn't actually a Valentine gift, but it was definitely a nice gift. I've written about B.T. McElrath chocolates before and they are still truly wonderful.

This dark chocolate lemon cream was no exception. The passionfruit ones are still my favorite, though, and I intend to order several boxes of them someday.

I did get a Valentine gift from my Most Faithful Reader. Dark chocolate covered orange peel, particularly Leonidas, is my favorite candy and if I'm not careful, I can get carried away with eating it.

This may not seem shocking to many readers, but I'm the sort of person who can eat just one small piece of candy a day even if I'm sitting next to a entire bucket of it, as is the case at work. I don't generally eat snacks. I just don't even think of it. This may be related to its rarely occuring to me to take an analgesic when I have a headache. I'm hungry. You mean I can do something about that?

Dark chocolate covered orange peel, however, isn't too strong, too sweet or too rich. It's just right.